Is anyone missing the small undocked Skeleton mode?

Beta
#1

Hi!

I got used to the commotion of having the small Skeleton mode somewhere on the screen where I can quickly select elements. Especially when they are not rendered in the builder, for any of the reasons.

Right now, getting to the Skeleton mode (New Layout pane), removes the Inspector from the view, so we have to do additional clicks to navigate around.

If that is not a technical/performance issue, I think that there could be an option in the X/Pro settings to turn the small Skeleton mode availability on/off. So we can choose if we want it or not.

#2

yup, I miss it too

not sure if it is something I will get used to, but definitely found it handy… also the Skeleton mode was quite handy if you were forced to edit a pro page on a tablet

#3

Good point, the main thing we lost here was the ability to have a structure present while using the Inspector.

When we designed the previous iteration of skeleton mode (floating panel) for nested content we went back and forth on whether or not it should just be made into a replacement for Layout. We decided to wait one cycle, and in the meantime just include it as the floating panel.

We do however have plans to bring this ability back, just via different means. The next cycle we’re going to allow you to tear away the Layout, Elements, Inspector tabs which turns them into floating panels. You’ll be able to dock them to different sides of the screen as well and create your own combinations. For example, you might have Inspector always docked on an edge of the screen, and have Layout/Elements as a pair of tabs that float around. Layout would always be visible, and you could jump over to Elements momentarily to create something.

2 Likes
#4

@alexander that will be fantastic! :thumbsup:

Do you guys have any plans to allow dragging tabs out of the Browser viewport? This would allow them to reside on an external monitor, which would be very powerful. Especially now that Asus is making a small revolution with the Zenbook Pro Duo line. I believe multiple screens on Laptops will become more common thing.

1 Like
#5

We’ve discussed it and we are leaning towards omitting it from the initial update that allows the unsnapping. It opens several more technical challenges like sharing data between multiple potential contexts. We do have some of that communication solved already since we’re sharing between a preview frame and the main application, but this is only for element data and doesn’t deeply integrate with UI state. I think it’d be an awesome feature, but we’d be putting a disproportionate amount of development time into more of a niche feature. If it becomes a popular feature request we might be able to justify it.