Just in case this suggestion from quite a long time ago by more than a few people at that time has gotten lost ....
I'm finding more and more that it would be so much easier to check codes and grab codes etc. from other pages if we could open more than one at a time. It's very hard to compare things when you have to switch back and forth constantly with opening them where as having them already open is so much quicker. Not to mention there are many times I'd like to edit things on multiple pages that aren't linked together, but similar etc.
There's also the complication of having so many pages (30+) that you have to constantly scroll up and down the list to get to the pages you want to reopen, over, and over, and .... you get the idea I'm sure.
Just my 10 cents on the subject, but it was suggested a long time ago, and seems it's gotten lost in the process. Hopefully this is something we can look forward too in a not too future update.
I like this idea as well, and especially the idea of being able to copy/paste between pages or even different projects.
However.......
Pinegrow allows multiple pages to be open at once, and the biggest issue they seem to have with this is the undo (ctrl-z) feature. It seems to have a very difficult time keeping track of what has been undone on which page. One of the things I LOVE about BSS is that its undo works perfectly, so that would be my only concern. As long as BSS can implement multiple pages and make sure the undo can keep track of things across pages, I'm all for it.
Yeah it would definitely need to keep track of the undos as well as it does now.
Just in case you're not aware though, we can copy and paste things between pages/projects already, it's just not as convenient within a project as it would be with multiple pages open at a time is all.
Personally I wish BSS would separate it's Undo/Redo feature from the Components list, but that's a discussion for another area lol.
This is a great idea, Jo. This would be a great addition to the app, but it is quite a big undertaking. We are working on improving parts of the app that will allow us to implement this in the future.
Thanks for the info Gabriela. I'm hoping that at some point someone will give us the opportunity to brainstorm the needs on this as I'm sure there are many. :)
Bump @gabby : Just wondering where this feature stands as it’s been 4 years since this post was created (there’s a couple others I found as well when I searched). It’s more and more needed and would be great to know this is coming soon.
+1 on this feature. My only worry is that it might slow the program down. BSS has definitely gotten slower on my system over the last 4-5 releases. (Although, in fairness, I have to admit that I’m running it on a pretty old machine, and it probably would run like lighting on a new system.)
I don’t use VS code often enough to really have a familiarity with the way it handles undo/redo but the problem I foresee with the undo/redo being page-specific would be linked components. If you edit a component that’s linked on all the pages, it has to alter the the chain of events saved in the undo/redo sequence on all the pages, even though you’re not actually working on those pages.
I guess somehow it would have to get shoehorned into the chain of events on the other pages. Something in my gut tells me this could lead to problems if you start bouncing back and forth between pages undoing/redoing things on linked components.
I know the way it’s handled in Pinegrow is a total mess. It’s so bad that it was one of the (many) reasons I never fell in love with that program.
I really like that BSS’s undo/redo is rock solid.
Correctly spotted, the Undo / Redo system is the biggest hurdle to having multiple pages open at once. It will affect a lot of parts of the app like the linked components, renaming files, doing find & replace on all pages, changing design settings… It will be a lot of work and the history will never work correctly in all cases. Overall it would be best to focus on other features.
@martin What could be a comprimise, is that the page dropdown at the top of the stage, could have a simple search, maybe just for the first characer, so if I wanted my features.html page, I could hit the f key and it drops to that page, or in the right area.
@martin if it only affects the currently focused page then it shouldn’t break the whole site, just that page. If I’m at all good at what I do, then I’ll know pretty much what I’ve changed on that page.
Linked Components … If I change something in a LC, it changes all the pages, opened or closed, and it does the Undo/Redo to them all and we’re already used to it, so what’s the difference? That shouldn’t matter whether the pages are opened or closed.
We’ve already dealt with the find and replace, renaming files, etc. for decades with other software including basic text editors so most of us should already know how that works. And of course, if we didn’t change it on that currently focused page, then it wouldn’t be affected unless it was a Linked Component and we’d know that.
I guess what I’m saying is that we’re adults for the most part and you should give us the benefit of the doubt that we have a clue what we’re doing and can adapt to something we’ve already been doing for decades. Maybe the newbies not so much, but they learn eventually as they do with everything now.
P.S. In my Opinion, the changing of design settings should not be included in the production Undo/Redo, maybe a separate system for those?
I think you’re discounting how difficult it would be to implement this from a development POV.
As a “for instance,” Pinegrow has has had multiple pages since the start. Before I found BSS, I used it to build my sites, and the undo/redo tool was simply a disaster. I got in the habit of saving backups of my individual pages before I’d even attempt hitting ctrl-z. There are many posts on the Pinegrow forum by users complaining about how buggy Pinegrow’s undo/redo was/is. It wasn’t even with complex stuff like linked components. It couldn’t keep accurate track of changes made to the HTML or CSS between pages.
Fast forward to 2022, and people are still complaining that PG’s undo/redo system is buggy, and randomly omits steps or breaks the entire undo/redo chain.
If multiple pages being open at once would compromise BSS’s “bulletproof” undo/redo, I’d rather they keep it as a single-page app.
No I understand its a difficult thing, but while your example was a disaster, mine works 100% of the time so far for me with VS Code. That does page by page perfectly, even if I change things in BSS, and do undos, it only undoes what I changed in BSS, not in VS Code, and visa versa. It is pretty seemless. Just my suggestion is all
(Although, in fairness, I have to admit that I’m running it on a pretty old machine, and it probably would run like lighting on a new system.)