Issues with new Grid list block

Really liking the new Grid list block so far. I assume that it’s a totally new infrastructure given how fundamentally different it is from other list blocks, and I’m excited to review documentation on it to understand what it enables (including event listeners and other custom code extensibility). However, it (and the Grid list details block) seems more like it should be labeled ‘Beta’ at this point rather than ‘New.’ In addition to the known issue with cover media + lookup fields, it appears that list filtering with URL is not yet supported in the new Grid list block as documented for other list blocks. And the new approach to top/bottom padding for the block is very limited compared to legacy blocks (and makes it hard to be consistent across pages that use any other blocks).

I’m very grateful for the continued feature velocity, but I think this release could have used some better (any?) communication (and testing) before showing up in the editor without any caveats.

5 Likes

I agree with the comments above.

I would also expand on the styling issues: it seems to be impossible to style the text (sizes) in the block for consistency with other blocks and creates more problems than it solves.

It seems there can be two action buttons visible, and that’s progress, but why only two?

I like the idea of Sections introduced by this block. Again, the formatting options are limited and I can’t find any documentation for the two new blocks.

2 Likes

I’ve spent a bit more time with the block and there are a couple more issues:

In the Top Section, when text colour/size is changed in the editor it does not change on the page or published site.

There are three text sizes: small, medium, large - the largest size to format tags is .6875rem (inspected with Developer Tools).

In other blocks there are many (16)? font sizes to choose from 3XS to 10XL.

I’d love to use the new blocks, but at the moment they don’t offer sufficient range of (working) customisation to be workable. Will there be further updates to these blocks soon please?

2 Likes

Thanks for taking a moment to share these notes with us! I’ve passed them onto our team and we will continue to work to improve them!

There is a list of improvements coming in the next days and week(s); we wanted to get it out as soon as it was meaningfully usable :slight_smile:

I’m also in love with the new Grid List and List Details modules. Let me add a few more things to keep improving them. These I have found are still making me having to use a combination of the old modules with the new ones to get to the style that I want, but I’m sure we’ll get there soon:

  • Action buttons that open an external URL don’t disappear when the Airtable URL field is empty. This was a behaviour of the old Action buttons that is not working with the new ones, so we end up with empty action buttons that do nothing on click when that field for that record is empty

  • Fields at the Top Section disappear when deleted, and there’s no way to bring them back. This makes it necessary to delete the entire block and create a new one from scratch if you regret the decision of deleting them. If you are going to block the Top Section to some default fields, then the hide option of the ‘old’ blocks was a better way to do it imo

  • [bug] On content Sections that are in row layout, the content goes back to grid layout when the Label is empty.

  • Styling of the Top Section quite limited. Just to reiterate on what’s been mentioned already, I’d love some more styling options for the top section. Specifically centering of the Top Section content in the middle of the page and allowing to make the cover and text larger.

Keep up the amazing work. I can’t wait to see the rest of the new modules!

2 Likes

Thanks for taking the time to share this with us @Javi ! The team is listening.

Keep them coming, gang! We’ll get these blocks up to par soon. :soon:

I’m glad to hear that others have also been sharing their love for the new blocks, and the relevant feedback to further improve them.

Also very happy to hear the positive response from the team, without taking it defensively.

I think the change to BETA was a good move!

1 Like

The new blocks are growing on me, so I’m persevering and really pleased to read that the feedback is appreciated and that there are further improvements to be released.

In the editor, long text fields do not have rich text formatting options; markdown is also not rendered on page.

1 Like

Apologies, in the editor the Rich Text can be edited if the field is Rich Text not Long Text.

Rich Text fields still do not render as Rich Text (or Markdown) in the on-page block.

I’d love if the top action button could also open a dynamic URL rather than a static one. The item buttons have this ability, but not the top button.

3 Likes

If a field in any section is set to type: embed, the height of that row defaults to around 460px (plus padding)

Other fields in the same section (text etc.) are 22px (plus padding)

There are three settings for Aspect Ratio that make minor changes to the embed height but the results are not ideal.

Can embed fields be 22pm, or 0px, or fully customisable please?

Hey James, what would the dynamic URL for topbar buttons be based on? Could you share maybe some use case in mind?

RE: Embed

Hey Mark, will it work if you simply define the height in your embed HTML code and we remove all controls for that field (so height will just be whatever you set)?

Hey Austin,

For me, it would be a specific url linked to the user. Specifically, a formulated url to a fillout form.

James

Hello, indeed, we appreciate your feedback a lot. I would like to let you know that the rich text formatting is already live, now Grid and Item details blocks support rich text formatting.
Please check it out on your end too and in case of any issues, let me know :slight_smile:

1 Like

Noted! We did collect similar feedback and would love to offer this at one point (no timeline yet).

Also, hopefully our new conditional form will just eliminate the need of using external forms altogether :wink:

1 Like

I’m hoping that too! I’ve joined the private beta and looking forward to getting stuck in next week.

Thanks Viktoria, this is great news :grinning:

I’ve wrapped my embed with:

'<div style="height: 45px;">'

Embed code here

</div>

It hasn’t made a difference to the rendered on-page height yet.