Is there a Squarespace architecture overview?

I'm building my first site in Squarespace using the v7.1 template, and although I'm progressing, it's going much slower than I'd like.

A reason for this is that I'm in the dark & confused about many aspects of exactly how Squarespace works. To help me I'd really like some sort of technical systems overview document or guide, something to help me quickly pinpoint the elements, classes, IDs etc I need to change to make SQS do what I want without the hours of coding trial & error needed just to affect something as simple as, for example, a simple font color change, or apply a background transparency, to a targeted element. Is there such a thing, does anyone know?

Ideally I'd like a Squarespace architecture overview made for public consumption, aimed at customers that are able to apply code to build & enhance their sites, that provides both a structural overview, which also describes in good detail how site components interact & how a site works exactly, & explains where best (in terms of elements, classes & IDs etc) to apply custom code to achieve desired outcomes. I'm looking for something that sits somewhere between the sort of thing that Squarespace architects & developers might use in house and the reams of publicly available glossy support docs aimed at none-coding Squarespacers. Really a document that describes the hierarchy of elements, classes & IDs etc, their structure, purpose and how these & other supporting & structural components depend on each other & operate together within a site. 

Can anyone, from SQS or otherwise, help out?

47 minutes ago, kacit said:

I'm building my first site in Squarespace using the v7.1 template, and although I'm progressing, it's going much slower than I'd like.

A reason for this is that I'm in the dark & confused about many aspects of exactly how Squarespace works. To help me I'd really like some sort of technical systems overview document or guide, something to help me quickly pinpoint the elements, classes, IDs etc I need to change to make SQS do what I want without the hours of coding trial & error needed just to affect something as simple as, for example, a simple font color change, or apply a background transparency, to a targeted element. Is there such a thing, does anyone know?

Ideally I'd like a Squarespace architecture overview made for public consumption, aimed at customers that are able to apply code to build & enhance their sites, that provides both a structural overview, which also describes in good detail how site components interact & how a site works exactly, & explains where best (in terms of elements, classes & IDs etc) to apply custom code to achieve desired outcomes. I'm looking for something that sits somewhere between the sort of thing that Squarespace architects & developers might use in house and the reams of publicly available glossy support docs aimed at none-coding Squarespacers. Really a document that describes the hierarchy of elements, classes & IDs etc, their structure, purpose and how these & other supporting & structural components depend on each other & operate together within a site. 

Can anyone, from SQS or otherwise, help out?

When it comes to code there are a lot of edge cases to cover and account for, and given the audience of Squarespace it makes sense that there docs and efforts are more focused on what can be done from the Squarespace Design settings vs. what can be customized through code. 

If you want to have more control over the code of your site and understanding what classes and IDs you need to target you can do all of this with your browsers Dev Tools, it will tell you exactly what classes and IDs certain sections on your site have. 

I'd highly recommend learning how to use Dev Tools as you can take this skill across any platform, or site builder. 

Thanks for your reply ryandejaegher .

I'm quite familiar with dev tools, and use these daily in this & other work. My experience with SQS, though, is that it's not straight-forward to identify the correct classes & IDs etc, even when using dev tools. It's usually a matter of trial & error to find the ones you actually need to modify, which is a more time consuming process than it needs to be. If some sort of architecture / framework document were available to help guide customers in this, it'd be very useful.

tuanphan has at least tried to help out with this forum post:

But honestly, it's not great that we have to scrabble around looking for this sort of important background info when time, for most of us, is of the essence. It's doubly frustrating when you realize that such documentation probably does exist within SQS and it's just not been made more widely available for customers to use.