It seems to me that you can save an element as a template via ‘manage’ & save template (snapshot)
but how can you apply that ‘preset’/template to an existing element??
it appears this functionality has disappeared, which would be a huge loss
@kory
Just checking you have seen this, as I think it is quite important to how most people currently use templates
@scotbaston, my apologies, I had this one open but forgot to reply to it the other day.
At this time, as part of the effort to streamline how “Templates” are used in the the tool, applying what was formerly known as an Element Preset (now an Element Template) is not applicable for a few different reasons.
- The concept of “applying” an Element Preset has always an outlier in terms of how Templates worked in the Builders. For other Template types, whether it be a whole Document (Page, Header, Archive, et cetera) or a “Section” Template, these were both simply appended to documents, but there was no option to “replace a Section” or anything like that. This mixture of mechanics was always somewhat of a confusion point for some users in the past.
- Under the new system, Templates can be saved at any point and applied by either dragging in or adding an instance of an Element Template (or Component) from the Element Library, or adding whole “Sections” and Documents from the Templates tab. The primary difference there is that the Templates tab essentially adds “top-level” content to your page with one click of the asset in the new interface, while any instance of an Element Template or Component is simply dragged in or added from the Element Library to go anywhere it needs to go. Let’s say you had a Button Element with a few presets saved, the old way of getting this in would be to add the Button Element, then go click on the preset menu, then go searching for the preset you needed, identify it, apply it, and then you can begin editing. Under this new paradigm, your Element Templates are always present in your Element Library to drag in or add in one click, saving a lot of the interstitial steps along the way. The end result is the same (starting off with a “snapshot” of an Element), but you’re eliminating a tedious process in the middle each time.
- With the new Components system, moving forward this is how we would recommend everybody leverage “presets” of Elements. Element Templates are only a snapshot of a moment in time, so if you have 100 buttons across your site that you’ve built out, but at a later date you decide you want to go back and make every button rounded instead of square, you will have to go back to each instance and update this property one by one, potentially missing instances across the way, leading to an inconsistent user experience. With Components, you simply pop into your Component Set where your buttons are stored, update the border radius, and it propagates everywhere instantly. This is a massive usability improvement, and while we know that understanding the Component workflow will take a little bit to learn and maybe isn’t as immediate as Element Templates, it’s much more scalable in the long-run.
For all of these reasons, at this time we are still keeping the saving of Element Templates if people need to make quick snapshots or move something around, but we recommend moving the building of assets to the Component Builder as much as possible. Also, “applying” an Element Template is still possible as mentioned above, just done in a different way since these now live in your Element Library at all times.
Hopefully this helps to provide some perspective on things. Thanks!