Template Like Feature

[tomr96]

Hi there,

Just a quick question, I have been designing a larger site with Pro over the last few months and have come across something useful which I feel is likely a feature in Pro, but I just don’t know about it.

My example:

• I am creating a blog and this is going to have 100 pages let’s say
• At the top of the blog is a Pink Cell that has 1em padding
• After 6 months I decide to change the cell’s colour to be Blue
• My current process involves going through all the pages and changing the colour… This is very time consuming and not really doable.

When using Dreamweaver back in the day I used to be able to have a template and edit the contents of the page etc and have the colours change across all pages linked back to the template page.

Is this a feature of Pro that I am missing and not using correctly?

I have used Global Blocks, but the issue here is I cannot set the Cell to be Blue and then add different text inside said Cell on each page, I have to have the global block with the text inside… And so therefore the text is the same on every page I use the global block on.

Whereas I want the text inside said Cell to be different on every page, whatever I type in - but at the same time be able to change the colour across my whole site…

I’ve got myself in a right confusing state here and I’m so so sure this feature is there and I’m just missing it .

I’m hoping you can help me haha.

Thank you.

[ruenel]

Hello Tom,

Thanks for writing in! Actually, you can utilize the new feature Layout builder. You can create a custom layout for your blog posts where it can contain a cell and display background color. If you want to change the background color into something else, all you have to do is just simply edit the layout in the layout builder and it will be applied to all your blog posts across the site. regarding for the different texts to display in each of the blog posts, you can also utilize the custom fields or use ACF Pro plugin.

To learn more about the layout builder, please check this out:

Or the documentation here:

• https://theme.co/docs/layout-builder-overview

Hope this helps.

[tomr96]

Thanks @ruenel.

I have watched and read all of that and whilst I see the benefit of this - I can’t see how I can add information and build each of my blog posts independently, whilst keeping the layout the same.

Whenever I try to change the page I have assigned a layout to it just says:

If this is my layout called Layout1:

And I want to change the Powerful Shortcuts text on a blog post to say Blog Post One… I can’t do that… So all Layouts does it just duplicate the same page over and over again across my site with the same content?

If I want to have the first box saying Blog Post One and the second Blog Post Two… then this doesn’t seem to work with the Layouts - as if a layout is applied to the page I can’t edit the page and add my text to said page and change items within it.

I’ve tried using “The Content” Element, however this seems to just pull in basic text from the WordPress input box and not multiple lots of then - for example one bit of content to the first box and some other bit to the second box.

It seems super basic feature of managing a site here and I’m still convinced this is a feature… I just can’t see it, or not using it correctly.

All I want to do is have a set layout I can change quickly across my site… whilst being able to add content to each page independently? Dreamweaver 2008 could do it, so I assume Pro 4.0.10 can do it?

@Misho - do you know if this is something that can be done?

Thanks.

[ruenel]

Hello Tom,

Can you please send us a mock layout of what you have in mind? We might not be on the same page here. All I understood is this:

* I am creating a blog and this is going to have 100 pages let’s say
* At the top of the blog is a Pink Cell that has 1em padding
* After 6 months I decide to change the cell’s colour to be Blue
* My current process involves going through all the pages and changing the colour… This is very time consuming and not really doable.

You have a blog layout that displays roughly 100 posts. At the top of each post, there is a pick cell with some padding. After a few months, you want to be able to change the pink cell into a blue cell with one simple edit without going through each of all 100 posts. And this is quite possible by using the layout builder.

Based on your screenshots, it seems that you are working on a blog index. Can you please give further clarifications?

Thank you.

[tomr96]

Thanks @ruenel. You understand correctly and of course, normally CSS would be the go to… But for the purpose of me getting my head around Pro Layouts/Templates/Global Blocks/Presets.

I will have a further review of the ACF, but still feel like I’m missing something from Layout Builder, like I’m using it wrong or something.

Thanks, Tom.

[Misho]

Hi @tomr96, I am not part of the Support, I’m just a user.

Ruenel’s replies are spot on, as expected.

A Layout determines the blog article’s design, which is exactly what you need. The Content is determining the area where you would write your content. You’d also want to use a Headline element that would call the title dynamically, The Featured image element, etc. You also need to assign that layout to posts, so you can see it once you start creating posts.

The part where you are having each blog post different happens when you create a new blog post. It will then work just like any other post, only it will have your custom design. You can write posts in Gutenberg (recommended), or using Classic Editor by installing the Classic Editor plugin, OR you can enable Pro’s Content Editor for blog posts, and use that, to match the similar experience like when building pages. Everything you write, happens inside of The Content element.

You can have countless posts written, and if you ever change the Layout assigned to blog posts, it will change the design for all posts at once.

Hope this helps.

[tomr96]

Thanks @Misho, much appreciated.

I’m just getting myself in a mess I think haha.

I’ve setup everything as you say and when using The Content in main Pro Editor all it does it look back at what is in the text section in the WordPress editor (classic).

Therefore all I seem to get is one editable patch per page… Rather than if I wanted to input a paragraph to one cell, and another paragraph in another cell on the same post. So not having one big block of text, but a nice layout with editable items, but using the layout as the reference for said layout.

When assigning a layout in Pro and going to edit said post it will just say no editable area, so I can’t seem to just add the content into the layout I want.

I’m either really confused, or just this feature isn’t available.

Thanks again @Misho, I know you’re just a user… But the best user .

Passing back to @ruenel

Thanks all

[ruenel]

Hello Tom,

Take this single blog post layout as an example. It is composed of the basic dynamic post elements that you need to display a blog post such as the title, post content, and the featured image. For the cell with a blue background, you can make use of a custom field or by using the ACF Pro plugin where you can have a custom post meta that you can also edit in the respective post individually and at the same time add it to the custom single blog post layout.

Hope this makes sense.

[tomr96]

Thanks @ruenel.

Since doing the 4.0.11 update I can now edit the page content using Pro when having The Content element in use inside a Cell/Row etc.

Thanks for your help.

Thanks, Tom.

[prakash_s]

Hello Tom,

Glad that we were able to help you. Please feel free to reach us if you have any concern.

Have a great day!
Thanks