Pro 6.0 Beta 1 - Parameters suggestions / request

Beta
#1

The Components and Parameters part of this update are huge, and I’m extremely excited to put them into use in production sites soon.

Before this change was teased back in the 5.2 beta, I was making heavy use of Custom Elements and the Custom Element API, and there are many things from that that I would love to see brought over to Parameters to allow for some of the same extremely powerful customisation.

  1. A “unit” parameter type
    I managed to find that there is a “margin” type, which allows for selection of units, and also customisation of the units visible, so perhaps it’s just a replica of that but with a different type name for ease of use?
  2. Select from buttons instead of list
    Although the list type is very useful in many instances, it would be amazing to make use of the “choose-multi” and “choose-single” type parameters that were available in the Custom Elements API. Being able to have two buttons to quickly choose between, or even select multiple options from what is available, will enable some really nice designs of component parameters. In addition here, having the buttons be configurable to show as fa-icons would be ace!
  3. Full documentation of what is actually already implemented
    This one is probably already on your todo list, but just by some trial and error I was able to find some really nice options, like the “margin” or “padding” type, which aren’t in the documentation. I saw a post from another user suggesting a sort of “power user manual” that could be used more as a reference book for all the bells and whistles that exist under the hood, but go deeper than the average docs page / tutorial
  4. Pulling out controls from the elements or child elements themselves
    This one may not be possible, but my thinking is that some controls on the element themselves are either very hard or impossible to control via dynamic content (things like whether a link should have the target="_blank" attr, or boolean controls like Flexbox Wrap) where having an API to pull out control groups from within the elements would be incredibly powerful. Ideally this would also pull through the layout of the controls, e.g. the powerful Margin control set which has options for link sides, auto left and right, and automatically condenses down to a simple 1em 2em 1em 2em style declaration

My investigations and testings continue!

1 Like
#2

I have just come across a more up to date Docs page for parameters in another thread which seems to show all these things have been implemented and documented except for number 4, which is awesome!

Reading through that doc now


For anyone else’s reference
#3

@arthurodb, I just replied to your other thread…I’m sorry for the confusion that old article caused. It has been removed and the one you referenced is much more exhaustive about what is available when using Parameters. Glad you’re finding it useful!

As for pulling out controls from other Elements, we do not have anything setup for that at the moment. Parameters was built primarily as a way of introducing dynamic content into instances of an Element (e.g. you design a Button, but wire up a way to change the label and href on each instance easily), but we felt it would be nice to include some ways to introduce styling changes, too. As such, there isn’t a 1:1 when it comes to mapping a control to a control, and some things aren’t available such as the Margin control at the moment.

I have noted your thoughts here and we’d like to see what’s possible moving forward, but that is a reality of where Parameters currently sit.

Hopefully that helps!