Create a simple page with Pages that looks like the content of an article?

[David N.]

I am trying to understand how to create a simple page in Pages that would look like the content box of one of the default articles layout (white box with slightly rounded corners, text of default size), but without the header (title and author) and without the pagination or the comments at the bottom). 

So really, just one white content box with slightly rounded corners so that the page looks the same as the articles. 

I've created a page, set to "Page Builder", then in Page Builder I drag a WYSIWYG editor and type text, however I get no padding, no white background and the text is tiny (13px when my articles are 17px). 

So I tried adding:

<article class="ipsContained ipsSpacer_top ipsBox ipsResponsive_pull">
	<div class="ipsClearfix ipsPadding">

Before my text and that creates the white box. But the margin at the top is wrong, and I have to take care of the font size... before I go any further, is there an easier way to go about it?

[Sonya*]

This is how IPS is designed unfortunately. 

 

[Davyc]

1 hour ago, Jamynee said:

I am trying to understand how to create a simple page in Pages that would look like the content box of one of the default articles layout (white box with slightly rounded corners, text of default size), but without the header (title and author) and without the pagination or the comments at the bottom). 

I've faced loads of issues similar to yours and the only way around it is with some imaginative CSS code added to the custom CSS file.  I'd need access to your page to see what CSS is needed (not admin access, just access to the actual page) 🙂

[opentype]

It’s a tricky situation. If they add these stylings as a default, it would break all the uses where that is not wanted or useful. 

I will often just wrap everything in <div class="ipsBox ipsPadding"></div>. That is usually enough. 

My online course talks in detail about such issues and how to solve them. 

[David N.]

44 minutes ago, opentype said:

It’s a tricky situation. If they add these stylings as a default, it would break all the uses where that is not wanted or useful. 

I understand. But perhaps it could be a special kind of WYSIWIG block that has the same style as a default article or forum topic container?

[David N.]

6 hours ago, opentype said:

I will often just wrap everything in <div class="ipsBox ipsPadding"></div>. That is usually enough. 

Thank you @opentype! That gets me pretty close, however the box is still not lined up on the left with the "Home" breadcrumb at the top like the boxes on a forum page.

Wait! It's not lined up if I use the page builder, it lines up fine if I create a HTML page! So at least there's a way. 

Edited May 11, 2022 by Jamynee

[Marc Stridgen]

Glad you have what you need there. Often the problem with changing these things, as mentioned by opentype, is we could break every persons site who has already used them. The issue is if we apply any styling we are wrong, and if we dont we are wrong. As you mention, there could well be another block introduced maybe. Post that up in your suggestions area if you would like to see something like that appear in the future

[Sonya*]

34 minutes ago, Marc Stridgen said:

The issue is if we apply any styling we are wrong, and if we dont we are wrong.

There could be an option though in the widget itself. Apply ipsBox? Yes/No. This would not break anything and anyone can set it the way they needed. 😉 

[David N.]

52 minutes ago, Sonya* said:

There could be an option though in the widget itself. Apply ipsBox? Yes/No. This would not break anything and anyone can set it the way they needed. 😉 

I like that idea. 

[Marc Stridgen]

1 hour ago, Sonya* said:

There could be an option though in the widget itself. Apply ipsBox? Yes/No. This would not break anything and anyone can set it the way they needed. 😉 

As mentioned, please put these within the suggestions area 🙂 

[Sonya*]

Just now, Marc Stridgen said:

As mentioned, please put these within the suggestions area 🙂 

I am a bit confused. 🤨 I have reported it in Help & Support https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/topic/466740-same-block-with-background-and-without/ I thought, it is something, that is open and will be solved some day. Am I right, that the linked topic is abandoned now because "if we apply any styling we are wrong, and if we dont we are wrong."?

If yes, it would be nice, if you put this comment in the linked topic, so that I know, it is something that will be never solved. Then I can create a suggestion in Feature forum. 

 

[Davyc]

14 hours ago, opentype said:

It’s a tricky situation. If they add these stylings as a default, it would break all the uses where that is not wanted or useful. 

It is tricky, but doable so that other elements are not affected - which is where the imaginative part comes into play. I've done this loads of times and had to think outside the box more than a few times to drill down to what I needed and where. I like your idea of the wrapping the element in a div as it makes it simpler to style the div, but that's not always an easy ask for people who don't code.  Using the new page builder blocks sure makes it easier when you know how to code as everything can be added in the box elements independently, but again you need some understanding of code.

[opentype]

At the moment, I would wait to see what this new “Page Builder” thing is that appeared on the Pricing page. Maybe that replaces all the current ways we deal with custom pages. 

[Sonya*]

1 minute ago, opentype said:

At the moment, I would wait to see what this new “Page Builder” thing is that appeared on the Pricing page.

It is just Pages, that they call Page Builder now. Pages are not fully available on the smallest IPS Cloud plan (Creator). There are only:

• Dynamic pages
• Custom blocks from data feeds
• Custom blocks with WYSIWYG editing

But no databases. Databases are only for Creator Pro and above. 

[opentype]

10 minutes ago, Sonya* said:

Databases are only for Creator Pro and above

[Sonya*]

55 minutes ago, opentype said:

If you "Upgrade to Cloud" in the Creator plan, you are going to lose a lot of functionality, that is included in self-hosted. E. g.

• no Pages databases
• no custom apps except those placed in Marketplace
• no API access (e.g. webhooks or REST API)
• no integrations like SendGrid, Pixabay, Facebook Pixel, Maxmind etc.
• no Elasticsearch and thus no similar content widget based on it
• no hosting in the EU

This is what I understand from the new pricing plans. So, it is indeed a feature downgrade, if you switch from self-hosted to Creator. You have to go with Creator Pro to get the same functionality you have as self-hosted.

Edited May 11, 2022 by Sonya*

[opentype]

I really don’t understand what is going on. 
For the last several years I had a $30/month package covering the entire software suite. 
It was discontinued and I looked at a $54 plan, but it introduced new limitations like “no external apps”. 
Just months later, that plan is gone as well, and it’s at least a $99 plan. But that again removed crucial features. 
So just to keep the existing site going as it was, I would have needed to go from $30 to $169 now. That’s a price increase of over 560%! That is insane. 

To be clear: I fully understand that private companies choose their market segment. They don’t owe it to the public to be cheaper, offer free service or anything like that. Not even if other products in the same field are cheaper or free. 
But a company does owe something to their existing client base, especially with a company like IPS where 100% of the revenue comes from one product and therefore entirely from the existing client base.
There needs to be some kind of trust that both business partners are in a win-win partnership and that there is a willingness to keep it this way. We are your existing clients. We pay for the product, so it should be built for us and around our needs and at least somewhat around our financial abilities.
Because, at the moment, I honestly feel like an idiot if my license fees pay for the development of features today, which I will not be able to use tomorrow, because they are reserved for some higher plan for a future big corporation client. I should at least be able to keep using the product I know with roughly the same features and roughly with the same price I knew and accepted when I made the original purchase. Otherwise there is no reason to have any trust in the software provider. And even if I try to stick with the software, how am I supposed to plan for the future of current and new licenses, when price increases of over 500% can happen at any time? It’s easy to say one cares about their customers, but everything that happened since last year regarding plans and pricing betrays any such promises. 

[Matt]

1 hour ago, opentype said:

But a company does owe something to their existing client base, especially with a company like IPS where 100% of the revenue comes from one product and therefore entirely from the existing client base.

I agree completely. Any existing customers (self hosted or cloud) that are looking to switch to a newer package should contact sales and we'll always do what we can to repay that loyalty.

Cloud platform customers on a current package (outside of some very old plans dating back to the 2010s such as the 10 user) will not need to move to one of the new packages.
 

1 hour ago, opentype said:

Because, at the moment, I honestly feel like an idiot if my license fees pay for the development of features today, which I will not be able to use tomorrow, because they are reserved for some higher plan for a future big corporation client

I understand why you feel that way, but we have no plans to remove the self hosted licensed version and if such a time came, there would be a multi-year deprecation schedule.

[My Sharona]

On 5/10/2022 at 12:13 PM, Jamynee said:

I am trying to understand how to create a simple page in Pages that would look like the content box of one of the default articles layout (white box with slightly rounded corners, text of default size), but without the header (title and author) and without the pagination or the comments at the bottom). 

So really, just one white content box with slightly rounded corners so that the page looks the same as the articles. 

I've created a page, set to "Page Builder", then in Page Builder I drag a WYSIWYG editor and type text, however I get no padding, no white background and the text is tiny (13px when my articles are 17px). 

So I tried adding:

<article class="ipsContained ipsSpacer_top ipsBox ipsResponsive_pull">
	<div class="ipsClearfix ipsPadding">

Before my text and that creates the white box. But the margin at the top is wrong, and I have to take care of the font size... before I go any further, is there an easier way to go about it?

Back to the OP...

Not sure if would help you in the overall scheme of it all, but there is a Block within the Block Manager that will allow you to do what you mention above.  Within the Pages section try using the "Page Builder: Text" block. You can input html in the "Text" box and then create a "Border", "Padding", "Font Size", "Font", along with a few other pre-set options in the "Advanced" tab.

I utilize it this block quite a bit on my 'pages' and it works rather well.

 

[David N.]

1 hour ago, My Sharona said:

there is a Block within the Block Manager that will allow you to do what you mention above.  Within the Pages section try using the "Page Builder: Text" block. You can input html in the "Text" box and then create a "Border", "Padding", "Font Size", "Font", along with a few other pre-set options in the "Advanced" tab.

Thanks a lot! I will try it and post back here. 

[David N.]

On 5/19/2022 at 6:08 PM, My Sharona said:

Not sure if would help you in the overall scheme of it all, but there is a Block within the Block Manager that will allow you to do what you mention above.  Within the Pages section try using the "Page Builder: Text" block. You can input html in the "Text" box and then create a "Border", "Padding", "Font Size", "Font", along with a few other pre-set options in the "Advanced" tab.

Thank you so much! That is exactly what I was looking for. It wasn't immediately obvious that I could enter HTML in that block, but it seems to work great. 😀

[CheersnGears]

On 5/11/2022 at 6:25 AM, opentype said:

I really don’t understand what is going on. 
For the last several years I had a $30/month package covering the entire software suite. 
It was discontinued and I looked at a $54 plan, but it introduced new limitations like “no external apps”. 
Just months later, that plan is gone as well, and it’s at least a $99 plan. But that again removed crucial features. 
So just to keep the existing site going as it was, I would have needed to go from $30 to $169 now. That’s a price increase of over 560%! That is insane. 

To be clear: I fully understand that private companies choose their market segment. They don’t owe it to the public to be cheaper, offer free service or anything like that. Not even if other products in the same field are cheaper or free. 
But a company does owe something to their existing client base, especially with a company like IPS where 100% of the revenue comes from one product and therefore entirely from the existing client base.
There needs to be some kind of trust that both business partners are in a win-win partnership and that there is a willingness to keep it this way. We are your existing clients. We pay for the product, so it should be built for us and around our needs and at least somewhat around our financial abilities.
Because, at the moment, I honestly feel like an idiot if my license fees pay for the development of features today, which I will not be able to use tomorrow, because they are reserved for some higher plan for a future big corporation client. I should at least be able to keep using the product I know with roughly the same features and roughly with the same price I knew and accepted when I made the original purchase. Otherwise there is no reason to have any trust in the software provider. And even if I try to stick with the software, how am I supposed to plan for the future of current and new licenses, when price increases of over 500% can happen at any time? It’s easy to say one cares about their customers, but everything that happened since last year regarding plans and pricing betrays any such promises. 

There should absolutely be some sort of Dev package for people like you who develop plug-ins, themes, etc but who have (likely) fairly low traffic or space concerns.  If it is too expensive of a platform for developers to build for, all the rest of us who use the platform will also suffer from the lack of Devs. 

[opentype]

11 minutes ago, CheersnGears said:

There should absolutely be some sort of Dev package for people like you who develop plug-ins, themes, etc but who have (likely) fairly low traffic or space concerns.  If it is too expensive of a platform for developers to build for, all the rest of us who use the platform will also suffer from the lack of Devs. 

Yeah, it is not looking good for the Marketplace. It only still works for a handful of people, who started years ago and already have a range of products (and even they are getting fewer and fewer). But it is not attractive at all to start today. You need a $850 package to develop, test and showcase products for the entire suite. And that package isn’t the main focus anymore, so you better get a cloud package as well, but not one of the lower tiers, as they lack standard features and can’t even install custom apps …
So, you really must create some killer apps to justify those costs.