SOLVED Gantry 5 Development and End User Problems and Questions
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- Eden
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- Web & Graphic Designer Programmer Search Engine Optimization Specialist Business Owner Operator
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As a developoer and user of gantry 4 since its inception and now trying to use Gantry 5 ive come across several issues which may mean I may need to change framework for good. In my small expereince developing using gantry 5 now, it seems that all the time has been spent making sure it works for wordpress, and now joomla has been left behind making the framework now wordpress friendly, and totally illogical on the joomla platform.
Questions:
1) Moving away from modules towards particles: We develop so that our users can use the login feature on the front end and press EDIT on any content module to edit its content (usually we set it to open in the admin area, but it saves users having to have knowledge of the CMS and where to find things). It seems like particles dont allow this at all in Joomla anymore, almost completely removing the front end editing of a sites content? Is this right? This seems totally counter intuitive?
2) A link to editing certain particles: Again, we craete custom logins in the back end of a site, so a user can one click an icon to be taken to edit certain modules, content etc (links to article manager, links to banners, links to important content modules, scrollers etc). It seems that particles are unable to do this, again, meaning that clients/end-users have to manually find the content and know how gantry works to use it? Do i really now have to train all my users in the gantry interface and often code (may particles seem to use code snippets etc) in order to edit their sites?
3) Developing site refreshes: I have found that when developing on a site, no matter what 'mode' i put gantry 5 into, that i have to clear cache, clear css cache and every other cache i can find in order to get the site to refresh with new stylings. This is a huge time waster for me, and makes development completely improbable.
I wanted to state, I have been a paying customer of RT for as long as I can remember, I loved G4 and the more I use G5 i see things I like (like its speed as opposed to the cumbersome G4). But it simply feels that in creating something to work multi platform you have completely ruined its logical usability on Joomla. Please advise if im perhaps wrong in my assumptions/findings above. As each of them are deal breakers for my company and my clients, I may have to leave RT after many years of customer loyalty. - --
Eden Brownlee
Accentuate IT
Creative Web and IT Solutions
Web: http://www.accentuateit.com.au
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- Matt
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1) Joomla Front End editing only works with Joomla components... it does not work with Particles. Particles are super handy for building things directly in your Layout Manager and they give you way more flexibility than Modules but you don't have to use them. You may find your clients perfer the Joomla Module Manager in which case I'd recommend using Module Position Particles to create unique positions that you can simply assign modules to in the Joomla Module Manager... any Module should work fine with Front End editing, as normal. We've even built Layout Presets to pre-load a bunch of Module Position Particles for you... there should be one named Gantry 4 Layout for example
2) Same as #1 -- You can provide your clients a direct link to a specific Outline with the Layout Manager tab as the active tab... admin links are all unique within G5
3) You have a 'Save and Recompile SCSS' option from your Styles Tab. You can clear the cache from the Extras Menu in the upper right.
G5 has a learning curve, that much is true. The more I use it the more I really really like it. It's also lighter and faster than G4. Once Outline Inheritance rolls out ( github.com/gantry/gantry5/wiki/Gantry-5-...tion-and-Time-Travel ) I think you'll REALLY like it
I could go through the list of features that I personally like in G5 that simply weren't available in G4 but I think that list is different for everyone.
- Last Edit: 9 years 2 weeks ago by Matt.
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- MrT
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Thanks for your comments.
Gantry 5 was first developed for the Joomla platform, that's always where we start on developments but Gantry 5 now works on both Joomla and Wordpress (and shortly GRAV too) so we do like to keep functionality platform agnostic if we can.
1. Particles can currently not be edited via the frontend that is true but we do intend to add this functionality when we can - it is on our development list.
2. There is nothing to stop you using Joomla modules as you always have, you don't have to use particles at all really. All you need to do is to ensure that the layout predominantly contains just "module position" particles on the layout. Then you can assign any modules that you wish into those positions just like you always did in Gantry 4. In fact, there are actually layout presets that you can load on the layout that mimic common Gantry 4 configurations. It would be a shame though if you missed out on using particles as they are easy to develop yourself and very powerful. With Gantry 5.2.15 we also introduced the "Joomla articles" particle too - that is particle that can pull content from joomla (so you no longer have to type content into particles) - we will be adding more particles in the future too that take advantage of this. So, in other words, once you as the developer have configured particles there is less reason for your client to have to alter the particle itself, they would just edit Joomla articles and Joomla modules.
3. I don't know all the caches that you are using but you should be in "development" mode when developing a site and you should have Joomla global config cache turned off and also "system - page cache" plugin disabled and any CDN should also be turned off. This would then leave your browser cache... again you can change setting in that to not cache the site content or you can add htaccess rules to prevent caching. Basically what caching does is speed things up (by saving on requests) which is normally what you would want to happen. I also use a plugin in firefox that gives me a "clear cache" button so I can easily clear browser cache.
I hope that helps.
Regards, Mark. - Please search forums before posting. Please make sure your post includes the version of the CMS you are using and a link to the problem. Annotations on screenshots can also be helpful to explain problems/goals. Please use the "secure" tab for confidential information.
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- Eden
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- Web & Graphic Designer Programmer Search Engine Optimization Specialist Business Owner Operator
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Thanks guys for your answer.
I plan to give it a shot again on a current larger client project. I feel with your answers I can hopefully overcome the issues I was concerned about.
I am definitely aware of the learning curve, and am getting there, I am sure just as with G4 after a few sites our team will be back to speedy development, and each site always brings new learning. - --
Eden Brownlee
Accentuate IT
Creative Web and IT Solutions
Web: http://www.accentuateit.com.au
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- MrT
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- Web Designer/Developer
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You're very welcome. If you have any further question please raise a new topic and we'll be glad to assist you.
Regards, Mark. - Please search forums before posting. Please make sure your post includes the version of the CMS you are using and a link to the problem. Annotations on screenshots can also be helpful to explain problems/goals. Please use the "secure" tab for confidential information.
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