#stacks4stacks

Hi Stacks4Stacks fans! Just a quick word to say that some important updates are being made to the Stacks4Stacks website this week, and you may encounter a few problems with some links - especially in some of the demo's and the download links.

Ahead of Dropbox terminating support for Public folders on 15th March, we've been forced to end our hosting contract with Dropbox and instead move everything over to Amazon servers. Long term, you should find demo's and downloads are a lot speedier and more reliable. However during this upheaval, there is a chance some links may be broken and occasionally you might find the website temporarily goes offline or displays a security certificate warning. We are working hard to minimise the disruption caused and ensure the transition goes as smoothly as possible.

For the next couple of days, automatic updates (in Stacks and RapidWeaver) may also not work for you. Rest-assured if you do need anything urgently, simply login to your secure Paddle account to download the latest updates manually.

In other related news, DropCMS is temporally going to be mothballed. It serves little purpose (with the demise of Dropbox Public folders). It is hoped that this stack can be repurposed for something else. There are already some very interesting ideas for this stack.

Incidentally if you are making use of Dropbox (for hosting or warehousing files) its of paramount importance you move your files elsewhere, before 15th March. After this date, you will not be able to hotlink or embed files directly in your website. Instead, the current links will take people away from your website, to a Dropbox branded page. Read the free eBook I released at Christmas, if you want to build a more robust file warehousing system.

This is a major update for the free Embed stack. The main change in this stack is that it now supports HTML5 audio, HTML5 video, text files, warehoused images and image galleries; alongside existing support for iFrames. Please see the website for updated examples and documentation.

The purpose of Embed is to help you quickly embed common media types into your webpages. People often come to us asking what code is needed to embed different types of media that aren't natively supported by RapidWeaver. The Embed stack provides a reliable, safe and easy method towards embedding different content types. Many of the content types now supported in Embed 2 require no complicated code or configuration. Images, audio and video all scale responsively.

Changes in this FREE stack update include:

New 'none' option for the thumbnail grid, to completely disable the display of thumbnail images

New 'ID' setting, so you can easily give multiple instances of ProGallery (on the same page) unique IDs

Added the ability to trigger a ProGallery stack using a custom image, button or link*

Added the ability to have the page open with a ProGallery image or video open*

We're now using DIV tags for caption content, which should afford more flexible use of HTML markup

*Please see the website for details on how to get either of these new function working. 

If your website uses CloudFlare, please remember to clear your cache after applying this update and publishing your changes!

And the verdict is “It’s a great little stack”.

https://rapidweavercentral.info/dotmatrix-stack/

I asked on Twitter and Google+ in December about what you liked in the Filter stack and any changes or improvements you wanted to see, as part of the interface update (that was already planned). Lots of feedback was received and nearly all of those feature requests have been incorporated into this latest version.

Again, the most significant change in version 4 is the user interface. The old fashioned 'repeats' (where you choose in the settings how many items to display) are being discontinued in the Stacks API; so we've embraced the new 'sub-stacks' system in Filter 4. This single change makes Filter stack even easier and faster to setup. You can easily add new filtrable items with no markup required, change their order via drag-and-drop, duplicate existing items, copy items between pages or projects and delete old ones. It's a really slick new system and the Beta testers have been loving it!

There are now more style options for category buttons, so you can apply settings to make them look like buttons in your existing website. Plus other things like the option change button alignment. The new option of a sidebar lets you place these buttons on the right or left of your filtrable items, within a responsive column.

Typeahead support has been added. This means that when your website users click on a category button, initially nothing is shown. As they begin to type in the search box, matching search terms are shown (formed using tags). Clicking one of these tags applies that particular criteria to the active filter.

The new Algorithm setting lets you toggle between an 'or' operator or an 'and' operator, when applying filters. This advanced feature permits you to customise how strict the filtering is; through partial or absolute tag matches. In some setups, this can prove essential in controlling what a website user sees.

Another welcome new feature is the ability to apply a range of background effects to your filtrable items. Choose between transparent, a solid fill, vertical gradient, horizontal gradient, diagonal gradients, background images or an RGBa semi-transparent fill.

This is just a brief overview of what's changed. The good news is that Filter 4 is a completely free update for all existing Filter stack users, regardless of where or when you purchased the stack. Filter 4 will safely install alongside older versions of the Filter stack. It you got Filter after 1st January 2015, then you can download version 4 of the stack from your Paddle Locker. If you purchased the stack before then, simply email a copy of your purchase receipt and we'll give you a 100% coupon code to re-buy the stack with. Please note that Filter 4 requires Stacks 3 - it will not work in Stacks 2.

Filter is a superb stack for any setup where you need the ability for your website users to search or filter content simultaneously. It is an intelligent stack and offers many ways to customise the style and layout of your content. We have a lot of faith in this stack; so much so that Filter is the same stack used to power the landing page on the Stacks4Stacks website! Filter is fast, it works with all major web browsers, it boasts excellent SEO qualities and minor details like print / PDF output have all been accounted for.

Don't forget that if you are looking for a lighter alternative to the Filter stack, the SortStack provides a wonderful method for people to click and quickly filter items (without the search capability), plus sort items into ascending or descending order or display items at random. Free demo versions of both SortStack and Filter are provided, so you can compare them side-by-side.

Starting that new blog on your website for 2016? Then the MicroBlog stack might be exactly what you're looking for! This is a useful new stack for quickly deploying a basic blog. MicroBlog lifts content from the Tumblr micro-blogging service. This stack will pull-in your most recent Tumblr posts seamlessly into your webpage. You can create new blog posts through the Tumblr website, via email or SMS or any of the existing Tumblr apps. This gives you the freedom to blog about anything, from anywhere. Exactly what blogging should be about!

Key features of MicroBlog:

It's simple to setup, no complicated code to wrangle with or ugly iFrames to spoil your website appearance

Control how many of your most recent posts are displayed, so you can display just one on a landing page or multiple on a dedicated blog page

Precisely customise the date format of your blog posts shown

The option to display some dummy content in RapidWeaver preview, so you can see what you blog would look like before you publish it live

Support for regular, photo, audio, video, conversation, link and quote post types

All titles and headings are fully customisable, making this stack ideally suited for non-English websites or in instances where you simply want to change the terminology displayed

An optional responsive sidebar to display blog links by title or publication date, plus an RSS subscription modal and links for your readers to submit questions or content of their own

MicroBlog is the same blog addon being used in the new Stacks4Stacks blog. It works with all major web browsers and is mobile-first responsive. We've purposefully omitted lots of style settings from this stack, so that it will inherit font styling and colours from your existing RapidWeaver theme; for greater consistency with existing webpages.