brusselsprouts

Hi, folks - about a year ago, I was working on my first Squarespace website redesign for a client. As someone who was/is still more familiar with Wordpress, I was wondering what the best way was to create the new design for my client without (a) messing up their live site and (b) creating lots of complex/duplicative work for myself. In the end, it turns out that working on a new template and redesigning within the "template preview" mode in 7.0 met my & the client's needs just fine. I'm linking the old thread below in case useful for anyone! However, I'm now working on another redesign project in 7.1. I don't like 7.1! 🙂 In particular, I've noticed that templates are gone -- and with no ability to switch templates, we appear to have lost the ability to use that template preview mode as a staging site. So, the question -- how do you redesign a site in 7.1 without affecting a client's live site? Is there anything similar in 7.1 to what 7.0 had, where you could make and preview changes to both design and content in a new template and publish your redesign (as a new template) when it was ready? Have other folks developed workarounds? I know developer mode is also gone in 7.1 now so 🙃🙃🙃🙃

I found the answer elsewhere for this project, and it was dang simple (like I mentioned, was a Squarespace newbie at the time!). To help folks wondering about this now: I chose a new template for the client (Brine, I forget what they were originally using) and used the template preview feature to create my new design without impacting the live site. This is described in some detail here: https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/205815598-Switching-templates In 7.0, the ability to work in a "template preview" more or less occupied the function of a staging site, in that you're able to create different designs and even rearrange content, have the client see your changes (if they're logged into their own site, that is), and then push the changes live once you're ready. I still prefer WP, but this worked well enough! 🙂 However, this was a 7.0 solution, and I'm finding myself up against the same question in 7.1, now that they've eliminated templates, I'm not sure how to work on a redesign for a new client without creating a lot of duplicate work for myself. (imho 7.1 is the most developer/designer unfriendly platform update I could have imagined!! if I'm missing its virtues, someone sell me quick lol). Anyway, I posted a 7.1 version of this question (because time is a circle?) w/ relevant title and tags here, if folks have answers!

I'm another person trying to get a Reel slideshow to autoplay in 7.1. I've seen a few answers floating around, but none seem to be working for me. Have folks confirmed that the code above shared by @Andrei and @tuanphan makes autoplay work for slideshow blocks in 7.1? If yes, I'm seeing people post that it works either when injected in the footer of the whole site or under advanced settings for a particular page — which is working? And maybe I'm completely missing something here, but should the slug added to target your gallery be your page ID (e.g. collection ID found in body tag) or section id for the gallery itself? 🙃

I'm a freelance designer/developer who's still learning some of the ropes. I'm fairly experienced with Wordpress (but still have lots to learn there too!) but am currently working with a client to redesign their Squarespace site. I've learned that unlike with Wordpress or Drupal, there's no support to create a staging site in Squarespace to make major changes without changing (and potentially breaking) the live site. From browsing this forum, I know I'm not the only one who finds that frustrating. Anyway: my client has an existing Squarespace site, and they want a thoroughly redesigned site, also in Squarespace. They'll need a new template, of course, but also some new content (I'm working with them to create some new landing pages), and a completely reorganized navigation structure. Given that, and given Squarespace's limitations for developers, my question is: does it make more sense / is it more of a best practice to: (a) develop the new template design using a different trial site and/or the local development server (which I've played with a little bit), duplicating or creating new individual pages, and then, when it's time to go live, putting a cover page up and doing everything else on the live site while it's down? (like what's described here: https://answers.squarespace.com/questions/67379/how-can-i-redesign-a-clients-site-without-going-live.html) I'm concerned this would put my client's live site down for a while, so I can test everything * with their content * and get their feedback. And it just... feels scary, and kind of insane, compared to how I'd do it in WP, you know? OR, (b) clone all their content, e.g. using the imperfect-but-doable export to WP > export back from WP to SS workaround, developing the redesign on the clone site, and then, when it's time to go live, switching the client's domain to point to the live site? This mostly seems like the safer option, and this is where I'm leaning, but I'm worried I'll end up spending a lot of time spot-checking content, re-uploading blog posts' thumbnail images manually, etc. (And, reader, they have a lot of blog posts.) And it feels like there should be a better way??? OR is there a more sane © that I haven't learned about yet? tl;dr do I need to use clunky import/export workarounds to create a clone site in order to develop a redesign for a client without breaking their live site, or is there a better way? I tried to convince them to move to WP, but it didn't work, so now I'm here. Any guidance appreciated!