Introducing Our "Connect" Series of Remote-Manageable Widgets
Today we released Sidebar Connect. This clever navigation widget allows for flexibility not previously possible in Muse. Menu content can be updated remotely by the designer or client, without ever opening the Muse project. Many levels of submenu navigation and unlimited links are now a reality as well.
How is this possible? Our Connect widgets use simple spreadsheets to manage content within the widget. We use .CSV files, which offer a very familiar interface for those who commonly use spreadsheets. And for those that don't use spreadsheets regularly, these files are super simple to use, and can be edited in any spreadsheet editor such as Excel, Numbers, or even Google's free Sheets web app. We always include both local and web template files that are pre-filled with sample content and ready to go!
Using .CSV files opens up options that are not possible using the widget option panel in Muse - such as SEO text and unlimited selections. Using web based spreadsheets in Google means that any change made to the spreadsheet updates in a live website instantly! One additional benefit is that we can create sets of great-looking styles and presets that are prebuilt for individual widgets like image galleries. Updating your gallery's entire look and feel can be as simple as updating a style sheet.
We have more Connect widgets on the way that will utilize the spreadsheet content management system. We're very anxious to hear your feedback on this new system, and we're happy to explore new directions of widget development based on your suggestions.
Thanks for reading!
I have been looking for a good gallery for a while, so I hope this is it.
Your older Mosaic Image Gallery was close to what I what I was looking for.
However I found it to be impractical, after setting a gallery how I liked I thought I would duplicate the page and simply replace the images with different images, things started to glitch and gaps appeared not ideal and not good having to start the gallery from scratch every time.
I could only use images with the same proportions as the thumbnails, this is not ideal as I have both landscape and portrait images I wish to display.
Ideally I would like square thumbnails that can easily be re-linked to a new set of image and adjust itself to more or less images.
I will give this Connect a try on the weekend, thanks guys.