Partials - Reusable Brics grouping

Wish List
1

Hello,

in Rapidweaver with Stacks its possible to create “Partials”. Partials are one or multiple elements which can be grouped and used on other pages. I’ts a little bit like BlocksApps Global Header and Footer, but more flexible. You can chose yourself on which pages you put which partial. For example this makes sense if I create a side navigation or a multi-language website. The Navigation on a multilanguage website is for 2 languages on 50% of the sites the same and on the other 50% for the other language the same. There are a lot more cases where this really helps building websites faster. Perhaps an idea for BlocsApp 3 or 4 :wink:

2

I don’t know why no one commented on this 2018 post. This is absolutely essential and still hasn’t been implemented in Blocs. We need a Blocs-style Partial tool. Like now! It should be easy. The footer and menu work exactly like that, so why isn’t that feature available?

1 Like
3

Desirable maybe.. It was always a bit cludgy in RW. I also remember it could cause the file size to increase and unused partials would get uploaded and then become ‘persistent’ when you didn’t want them within a project you had copied.

4

Similar feature requests have been made for several years in many threads. It just hasn’t made it to the priority list to implement I guess, for what ever reason. :man_shrugging:

1 Like
5

This same feature desire was also mentioned in 2016 on the old original blocs forum.

I’ve just started using blocs and would find it useful if you could create global blocks on the centre area of a page, so if you made a change to the bloc on one page it would also update the same block on another page. Is this possible?

But it was not commented on there either by the app developer.

However interestingly, 2016 was the same year Web Components arrived in Chrome.

Web Components, the initial concept began in 2011, v0 spec was 2013, 2016 was the v1 modern standard and by 2018 most all browsers supported ‘autonomous custom elements’, Edge instantly caught up when it switched to Chromium in 2020. Typical of Safari being the bottom dweller of browsers and pain point for developers, Safari still does not support “customized built-in elements” but at least it does autonomous.

Web Components - Web APIs | MDN

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_components

Web Components could be considered for a built in feature within blocs for global, partial, linked, shared (whatever a person wishes to call them) elements, to finally arrive.

With this, reusable elements can be created, but also unique iterations of the duplicates are even possible. Basically fulfilling the concept of partials, globals, shared, linked, etc., elements. Which people have been asking about for a decade. This could be the underlying modern way for blocs app to wrap its visual build approach around such a feature for users, if implemented correctly its also SEO friendly.

Pinegrow does all this visually in app with Web Components, so it’s demonstrated there if a person questions it.

But it seems like workarounds remain the name of the game for blocs. For example …

https://forum.blocsapp.com/t/can-you-create-a-linked-section-on-multiple-pages/28137

With the Fetch API approach shown above from the other thread, a person could prevent Flash of Unstyled Content (FOUC) by adding two css styles one for hiding the element initially and the other to fade in when the Fetch is loaded. The script could also benefit from some further fail safe checks. But SEO can be sketchy depending on content type and bot type.

With the PHP Approach shown above from the other thread, although it works at its basic sense it could be written more robust, guessing about 130 to 150 lines of PHP to do it optimally. SEO is good because it writes from the server, bots see everything first pass.

PHP would be a great choice, but …

It would be nice if users could see the instances in the app across pages/site with whatever approach since blocs is a visual builder, generic place holders for such elements would be confusing and rather weird within the visual nature of the app. But it seems people are used to such generic non rendering holders within blocs for various other things so maybe not an issue.

So again, Web Components could be considered for a built in feature within blocs for global, partial, linked, shared (whatever a person wishes to call them) elements, to finally arrive. Or I guess someone can add another long desired feature as a paid additional cost 3rd party bric again as an alternative.

2 Likes
6

Well, I’m not sure why either. Who wouldn’t want to be able to update the same section—like Legal services, medical services, or dealerships, across 34 pages with just one fix? It’s surprising that in 2026, with an advanced web builder like Blocs, we don’t have a feature like this. I wonder if @Norm expects users to edit the section manually on each page, or if using the code widget with a third‑party editor and treating Blocs as a shell is the intended approach? I’m still trying to understand the reasoning behind this. Like any promising, well‑crafted tool, Blocs isn’t perfect, and we may need to explore alternative solutions. If anyone knows of a tool that could help meet this need, please let me know.

7

Volts is cool, but I can’t ignore the fact that is exactly the same Rapidweaver Stack from 1LD called ‘Quick Editor’ that I’ve used for years until Realmac decided to messed everything up and push the Elements idea to everyone. I believe Volts $99 price tag is offering more than QuickEditor that costs $40, but in essence they are quite similar. Although I don’t think they are the tool we require, I want to edit one block and fix all of them. I didn’t read that on Volts page anywhere. Does it do it?

Sample
Sample1131×806 96.6 KB

8

Today, plugins can handle basic edits for editor access on a small corporate website with at most a blog or news section—that works as a solution. However, for a complex website for a city, such as https://znojemskabeseda.com/, I can’t really imagine it, where it doesn’t end with publishing a paragraph of text, but involves creating new subpages, etc. It’s a matter of time, but it’s still far from the full capabilities of a content management system. For now (unfortunately).

9

It isn’t the same.

Definitely, e.g. the blogging feature.

Yes, you can use the same content area ID, which defines which content is loaded, on different pages multiple times.

1 Like
10

And as soon as someone hits the publish button in Blocs, these changes are lost. A true CMS like Volt CMS, however, keeps your work safe by separating design and content.

3 Likes
11

I think that’s a bit niche having 32 pages with multiple sets of content that needs updating. Sometimes you have to work with tool you have, even if you have to change the way you work.

1 Like
12

Let’s recap intent and get the thread back onto the core topic.

So far, it appears there remains no response from the blocs app developer across historical threads concerning fulfilling the feature concept of “partials, globals, shared, linked, etc., elements within a page and across a site” which people have been asking about and requesting for a decade (which is not relative or the same as the existing top/bottom global areas).

That remains the basic inquiry across a decade of threads. Merely a built in feature like other apps offer, without needing additional paid bric purchases or various other workarounds. Simply providing this standard common feature built directly within blocs app itself is what has been desired for 10 years.

Surely, after a decade it could easily be explained as one of the following:

  • It’s not nor hasn’t been in the developers feature vision for the app.
  • It’s actively being worked on as a feature for an upcoming app update / upgrade.
1 Like
13

Use the apps that have that built in feature if it’s a deal breaker rather than gunning for Blocs developer.

4 Likes
14

Some posts look like they are infected with AI slop?

15

Thats utterly fascinating that my personal writing style is being deemed AI.

So out of curiosity ran both of my posts in this thread through various AI detection tools to ensure accuracy and each verified as 0% AI generated. It’s amusing how this “AI Slop” phase is being slung around at virtually everything across the internet now. Interestingly, I’ve not seen you make this same claim in the various vibe coded bric threads, some of those texts return as 75+% AI generated, thats a bit more than my 0%.

To be clear I’m not after Norm, just found the surroundings of the thread interesting and decided to participate. Actually mentioned a viable solution for him concerning the feature and simply wrapped the conversation holistically as it has appeared historically concerning the app.

So should I be worried that Dario and Sam will hook to my brain via a NeuraLink to help train their AI models? Given they are severely running out of training data, hopefully humans wont soon suffer the same fate as antique books to train the precious AI models. :—)

16

Interesting you thought it was your posts.

2 Likes
17

In all respect, even If this can be solved with Web Components (not in my opinion), this does not solve how the content is stored in Blocs, changed on different places, etc. You don’t use web components (by introducing custom HTML tags) just for the same (textual) content.

Also “the other app” has several issues with this functionality, so it might not as easy as it looks like from outside.

19

Well Broccali, please clarify which posts are AI slop since you made the claim. Otherwise it’s the same as the millions of posts everywhere now making this low level non-substantiated claim, are you a bot and behind all of them. :—)

Jannis funny deleted agreement post, but much like here if people want to use volt there is nothing wrong with it as an alternative for $100 to fulfill these desires also.

20

That is the most rude comment I have ever read online, and I’m coming from Reddit and Digg days.

21

@Jannis is not one app only. There are many apps with that feature and in my experience, work very well. Why we don’t jump to those apps? That’s an easy answer: We don’t want to subscribe for a feature.