Hi, I'm sure this has been asked before and sorry for pushing the question again but I do think it would be very helpful.
I am referring to locked items within the Bootstrap Studio GUI. It would be really useful to be able to unlock the standard Fonts rather than having to strip them out afterwards when not being used. Also, have items within the Carousel like the Controls unlocked so you can delete them when not being used so as to not have unnecessary code in the backend. Yes I know I could convert to Custom HTML but I would still like the usability of the Carousel slide features in the GUI, which I would lose if converted to HTML.
Just create a new body class in your custom CSS with only the font(s) you want. Simple.
Regarding the carousel, you can't delete the controls because that's how Bootstrap designed the carousel - to have controls. You can delete the spans that contain the arrow icons, but if you want there to be no controls whatsoever for a person to click on, just hide the control component using the responsive display option.
The amount of code that would be saved by being able to actually delete the HTML responsible for the controls is so trivially small you'd never notice a difference in terms of page load speed. There are far more egregious offenders when it comes to loading speed than a few extra lines of HTML here and there. You're obsessing over non-issues.
To expand on Printninja's suggestion, when you "Hide" using the Overview tree instead of the Options pane, it removes it completely from the code when exported, so in reality, you actually can take it out, just hide it via the Overview pane by right clicking whatever it is you want to hide and choose "Hide" on that menu. The difference between the 2 methods of hiding is that the Options pane method just comments things out, so the lines are still in the code on export, just hidden from view.
Thanks Jo! I'm embarrassed to say this, but I just updated from 4x to 5x two days ago, and haven't even built a full website yet in 5x, so I still have many things to learn about the program. I was aware of the "hide" feature, but I DIDN'T know it removed the hidden element from the code. That is very cool. You just taught me a HUGE one!
If one wanted to one could devote a huge amount of time to learning not how to code or how to build code, whatever tool(s) one is using, but about UI/UX matters (User Interface / User Experience) independent of coding practices. Were one to do this one would learn it is "conventional practice" (what is supposed to be preferred by most people, irrespective of an individual's personal preference) to keep the controls in the hands of the individual site user -- people simply prefer to select the speed with which they go through the elements in the carousel. In these forums, most of the time, you'll be getting feedback from people like Jo and Printninja which will simply tell you how to get what YOU want (the example, which keeps on recurring, is the use of video on mobile devices), rather than what the "canon" of knowledge about general UI/UX recommends (in the latter example, the recommendation is that the video component should be disabled on mobile devices. For me -- a sufferer of Parkinson's Disease (and hence with slower visual scanning) -- omitting the controls would lead to a negative evaluation of your site with the carousel controls missing. Is that what you want?
Hi and thanks for the feedback.
@Printninja @Jo
But the standard fonts (Merriweather and Open-Sans) are locked? so I would have to remove them from the code after export unless I used a script to strip them out on export. The 'hide' option does not work on 'locked' attributes?
@Printninja @Jo @TeschToy
As for the Carousel I had to custom code, I was experimenting with it as a navigational slider using two named links above the carousel which triggered the movement of the two slides. I wanted to keep as much of the configuration within the GUI (without using custom code) as this would keep the editing future-friendly and easily updatable.
It was also important to keep the code clean and accessible and to have it validated in terms of W3 Standards both for HTML and CSS, although it would be nice to have a Bootstrap CSS that past that validation. Maybe a clean version and an "older browser" friendly version that you can choose between within the export features in Bootstrap Studio.
I've managed to get the site validating OK, except for the Bootstrap CSS and it's pretty much sorted in Lighthouse. See what you think here: flexxit.bss.design/
Best viewed at 1500 and below and some tweaking to do at the mobile end, but it's kinda working well.
I have to say that having unlockable and lockable attributes would be quite a nice feature in my opinion but the logistics of this for the developers is another headache I'm sure.
Thank you all for the feedback, it's much appreciated.
Don't know what to tell you on the fonts, there's just nothing you can do but to use an export script. I believe I've seen suggestions on some of that, but not often.
I'm not sure how it really will affect your site if they are there though. I have checked 2 of my most recently created sites and the only fonts there are links for are the ones I'm using. I typically tend to choose a Google Font since I trust it will be around a while and it throws a CDN in there. The only fonts there are what I'm using so it's not loading a whole bunch of fonts that aren't necessary in your site.
Unfortunately, I've yet to use any website "builder" where there weren't a few constraints as a result of how the program itself functions. Locked items are one of those constraints you learn to accept when using BSS. Most of the time, they're a non-issue, since there are always work-arounds (like converting to code, writing custom code, export scripts, etc...) But yes, they can be a bit cumbersome, since it's frustrating to not be able to do everything you want via the program UI itself.
The developers of BSS are probably some of the most responsive I've ever seen in terms of listening to user requests for future changes to the software. If they feel that a user's suggestion is meritorious, they will often implement it, unless it would necessitate a massive alteration to the program itself.
Unlocking all the components are one of the suggestions that have been made numerous times, by numerous users (including myself), but the nature of how BSS works as a "drag-and-drop" style builder where you don't have to write the HTML yourself makes it impossible for them to make all components unlocked. Over the years, they have made more and more components unlocked and given them visual settings in the UI, but they've explained that the program will never become one where everything is fully unlocked because it would simply no longer be a "builder."
Another program I use (infrequently) for web development is Pinegrow. Pinegrow, much like BSS, is a sort of drag-and-drop visual builder but does not have any constraints. You can do virtually anything in it, because it gives you full access to all the code. It also means that a novice can easily create a non-functioning, non-compliant website just by making a single typo. It's (IMO) not as polished and could desperately benefit from a major refresh to the U.I. (there are too many ways to do the same thing, for starters.) But I digress.
Bootstrap Studio is the middle ground. They've made it easy for beginners to build sites that will work, have clean semantic code, while also giving power users the ability to really do almost anything they want. I find the few minor trade-offs to be more than acceptable for the ease and rapidity with which BSS allows me to build websites.