7.1 is horrible right?

Has anyone who has previously used Squarespace and was familiar with the design process tried making a new, from scratch site using 7.1?

All of the Design customization is GONE! There's a super convoluted way to go in and customize in settings, but you still have way less control than before — not to mention the templated font combinations are TERRIBLE. 

Is there any way to go back and use the old Squarespace??! Is any one else as angry about this as I am? It's like Squarespace decided they wanted to make the design process baby boomer-friendly, since... yanno, that is who is designing the vast majority of websites. 

You can still use both Squarespace 7.0 or 7.1

https://www.squarespace.com/templates?onboarding_v7_1_0819=control

I've been using Squarespace for years and just tried to start a site with 7.1 and I agree, it's awful. The lack of design customizability options is completely unusable for me. If they discontinue 7.0 without making major changes to 7.1 first I'll have to stop using the platform. 

I am in the process of moving a small clients shop and in many ways the new version solved some of our issues in 7.0. Its also a fairly simple site, my customer will have an easier time now. I love that we can choose between layouts on pages instead of being tied to a template. BUT I find that it is difficult to freely style these layouts and the gallery section is so limited in use compared to a gallery block. I need to be able to make galleries with text on the side instead of sections that take the whole space. Also the gallery functionality has been limited. A big drawback for image makers. I am not moving my photography site.

4 minutes ago, bheiberg said:

I am in the process of moving a small clients shop and in many ways the new version solved some of our issues in 7.0. Its also a fairly simple site, my customer will have an easier time now. My main complaint is that the gallery is so limited now. I need to be able to make galleries with text on the side instead of sections that take the whole space. Also the gallery functionality has been limited. A big drawback for image makers. I am not moving my photography site.

 

If you want to create gallery slider & overlay text, you can use this plugin. I did for a client on ss 7.1 yesterday 😂

If you only want gallery & caption, you can search Gallery Caption round two on forum, there is a great guide by @brandon, of course it is free, just copy & paste code.

That might be useful - i will take a look. But what I meant was that I need a text block on the left side of the screen and then an image block on the right, which rotates through images. None of the gallery/slideshow sections allow that.

I am not using a blog. Just a page in 7.1

Agreed, it definitely feels like it's been made to accommodate business owners who know nothing about web (and probably are only shooting themselves in the foot by doing their own website) and a big middle finger to the designers they hire to build them sites (who actually know how to give them a site with brand consistency, that navigates easily, flows through information at a good pace, etc). I like the page layout features, but good god the type and color global changes are just shit. 

Agreed, I've really been struggling with it. The conversion from desk-top to mobile font sizes is really off too. Frustrating. 

It's really counter-intuitive, so much so I was frankly shocked. I've designed w/Sqsp since v.5 and it's always been really exciting to see each new version since. They've always included great improvements, had very few issues/bugs and were elegant --- until this version.

Version 7.1 is a throw-back .... reminding me of the clunky "Gremlin" car from the 1970's. I'm sitting this one out for a bit -- I'll continue designing w/7.0 but produce some 7.1 tutorials & guides to help DIYers who are or will be using it. 

On 2/6/2020 at 9:07 PM, Mkibby said:

Has anyone who has previously used Squarespace and was familiar with the design process tried making a new, from scratch site using 7.1?

Yes. It's a different way to build pages and I find it refreshing and quite powerful. Maybe you should take a breath and just try it out by building a trial?

On 2/11/2020 at 2:16 PM, Martinsflx said:

323/5000

Hi Martin I disagree I believe 7;1 offers a unique way to present your work differently and creatively and simply.... that's not basic, its creative! Anything thats basic gives the designer an opportunity to do their best "creative" work. The more a thing can be developed the better it is. I think 7.1 is therefore better. Just a thumbs up  for 7.1

 

 

Version 7.1 is horrible, I feel like using any other web page creator page. 

 

It is not possible to modify the templates in 7.1 as much as in 7.0

 

They have gone back in functionality, squarespace 7.1 is made for the basic user who wants to have a website equal to any other website out there, not cool. Anyone knows how to go back to 7.0 from 7.1 on a new site?

@Mkibbyi have!!! i really hate 7.1. it's so awful and frustrating!! this kinda stuff is exactly why i left wordpress. i'm so mad.

I don't use it now for the very reason you said, too much like Wordpress. Looks way me too for my taste. The 7.0 templates and the very classy site you can build with any of them,  are why I chose to use Squarespace over every one else. I can be cruising the web and almost immediately know if I have come across a 7.0 Squarespace site, just something sharp about it.   Can my mind be changed?  Time and improvements to 7.1 will tell. 

Yes, it is interesting how 7.1 works. Once you have spent some time with it you will find the ways that make it work well. But agree that it is less straight forward, yet at the same time this allows us the experts to be the ones that customers are going to reach out to after they find out how difficult the platform is to work with if you dont know what you are doing. I have built 3 websites on 7.1 and yes I have run into some issues where I wonder what is going on but after you do some research you can find most of the answers or work arounds to help you out. Would love to help anyone that has any questions about using 7.1

On 3/7/2020 at 8:48 AM, e2astudio said:

Yes. It's a different way to build pages and I find it refreshing and quite powerful. Maybe you should take a breath and just try it out by building a trial?

Agree 100%

I don't like to complain about stuff like this, especially when I know there are teams of people who work on these services and they're doing the best they can (thank you!), but:

I created an account only to gripe about how terrible of an experience I've had with 7.1.

Altogether I've spent over 5 hours trying to figure out how to convert the menus in the header from horizontal format to vertical.  I also wanted to put my page's title/logo at the bottom of my homepage.  

I've been using Squarespace for years, and have loved it and this kind of stuff was easy to do.  However, I did not know that my new account was using a new version (7.1) that was very different.

I googled over and over, "Squarespace vertical menu in header", and kept landing onto the same help pages on Squarespace support.  All of them had clear instructions that directed me through menus and options that simply did not exist in my UI.  I was pulling my hair out.  I contacted numerous friends who do this stuff for a living; each of them told me to just choose "vertical" in the header style options.  I combed through the entire menu system, still could not find any way to do this.  I then engaged with the chatbot.  Told it the same thing.  It again directed me to the same page!  Eventually I discovered that on the page it states (clearly, so I guess this is my bad) that I need to go to a different page to see instructions if I am using 7.1 (which i did not even know I was using).  Scanning that page, there isn't any way to create a vertical menu in the header.  So then I figured, ok let me change this template to a template that exist on Squarespace website that has vertical menus.  Lo and behold, there is no way to do this in 7.1; again had to discover this the hard way.  Finally I went to create a new page using 7.0 so that I can have my vertical header, and so that I can put my logo at the bottom of the homepage.

Honestly, such a terrible user experience.  Sorry for the rant.  

In the future, Squarespace, please make it abundantly clear, for dummies like me, that 7.1 is dramatically different than 7.0, and that if i cannot find a feature that i expect to, perhaps it's because I am using 7.1.  And also - please add the option of making my menus vertical?  Like - why not???!

7.1 is absolutely horrendous.  I went in to fix a botched website and was blown away with how terrible 7.1 is.  There were clear glitches that the Squarespace customer service team admitted were glitches and couldn't fix.  Ridiculous.  

I will never use 7.1 on a client website.  7.0 is fabulous but 7.1 has not been flushed out and even completed. 

I think the key is to look at this way,  7.0 and 7.1 are for two very different groups of website builders. 7.1 more for the first timers, build my own site with little prior experience if any. 7.0 for folks who can handle code, built sites before on other platforms, like Microsoft live or whomever. Not intimidated by a lot of options. And we build for all devices, desktops still being the pre-dominate one as opposed to mobile. 

Truly awful. Not more creative, just more limiting and extraordinarily frustrating if you have come to understand 7.0 and have no problems with customizing themes. 

Yes, it's been incredibly frustrating. The worst part for me has been how much it bogs down my computer. Laptop fan goes wild and sounds like a rocket launch. Then it causes my entire computer to freeze and fails to save. This is nuts coming from a browser and a decked out MacBook Pro. I have no problems when I edit my other 7.0 site. 

I'm agreeing with everything said here. Did squarespace get an entire new staff change or something? This feels like a different product, and a bad one at that! What's with COMPLETELY changing the UI on a product that's been so good for years? The UI is really counter-intuitive, like someone else said up there, so much so I was frankly shocked and contemplated switching CMS! Please squarespace. What's going on?

On 3/4/2020 at 1:03 PM, harriethoult said:

Agreed, I've really been struggling with it. The conversion from desk-top to mobile font sizes is really off too. Frustrating. 

 

I can't get over the fact that I can't reduce the font size on mobile. It's embarrassing how huge it is!

I'm also experiencing some weird compression on the site logo that I can't fix.

Thanks for this discussion.  While I waisted a few days creating a site in 7.1, at least you saved me a few more days trying to rescue my work.  Now I'll just start again in 7.0 and find a way to transfer what I have to 7.0

Are there any signs that it;s going to improve? is the a road map for 7.1?
I don't want to go back to 7.0 if they are going to stop supporting it down the road. But I also don't want to use 7.1