Ok bought V4 - been using V2.5 since it came out.

Curious - new to V4 but I can't see how its all that much better than V2.5. Admit-tingly only been in it 15 minutes and don't get how to do some of the easy things I did before but I tell me why this version is so much better? I sure it is but missing it for the moment.

I assume that the help section the videos seem to be for V3 - so this must be similar to V3(?) so it works here.

Best way to learn this program? In the forums there are a couple of videos listed but some of those links don't work.

Thanks,

Byron

Hi Byron
There are loads of things different you just need to tale ti,e to look around
one great improvement is that you can now have the elements with a coloured border of your choice, which makes it easier to see when you select one
on the top bar go to the tab "Actions" open it & choose "preferences"
when the window pops open there you will see the settings for choosing the elements border colours & the little tooltip thingy (dark icons) light icons being the default

You can set the colour values to be plain hex (#FFFFFF) ir CSS hex( #ffffff)
You can set the frequency of "Auto Back Up" (default every 10 minutes)

That is just one of many
Another is it is easier to see a selected element in the "Inspector tree" along with any child elements
within it (if any)

I must admit there is a lack of information/videos/articles etc for those that prefer something like that, but basically the way you build stuff is the same, except it's now "containers" rather than Rows or Columns, but that is quickly gotten used to.
My advice is spend some time trying it out don't try to jump in to make a project straight away much the same as I always advised people to do that way back in SD 2.5 days.

Open a theme take time to look at it see how it is constructed etc etc

Keep coming back here ^ asking, even if you think it is a basic should be an easy thing tp do, ask & someone will usually be able to clear the fog.

WOW! Byron, so you took my advice?!!

Just holler if you need some help! Some of us are always watching over these forums.

The other thing is that SDv4 had the new (well not so new now) CSS Grid layout, which in itself isn't essential for website designing at the moment, but unless you intend retiring from building websites in the next 5 years or so then you should at least make a start learning how to implement it within Site Designe, even if it's just playing around practicing

Inger - urs I suppose it was time!

I am using the latest version of SD V4. I have built a simple web page with about 30 components that include paragraphs, images, headings etc. It is a sample of a written report the viewer can scan to see the work I do. I built everything beginning with the BODY of the page so heading, etc. are directly on the body. Now I find the need to add a container between the body and all the components and text so as to be able to limit the width of the sample report as well as keep it centered as the view port expands otherwise everything is far too wide to look good or stuck to the left side of the screen. The problem is, I see no way to move all the components and text as a group into the new container? Must it be done piece by piece? Attempting to move each item in the Elements Tree is a problem in that it requires drag/drop the item from the bottom of the list first so as to maintain proper order. The list is quite long and this method is unmanageable.

Thanks for suggestions!

So set the maximum width of the body to whatever you feel looks good then set the left and right margins to auto auto.
You can then do the same for any text or paragraph if so desired

Thanks for the prompt reply. Sometimes things just seem more complicated than they have to be!

That's true,
mind you if it was going to be (let's call it for the sake of simplicity) a proper web-page
for want of a better description, then that solution wouldn't really be suitable, but in this case, seemed to be the best.

For future reference, moving elements up or down to position them using the elements tree thingy, is the easiest way is achieved by selecting an element, then ctr + up or down arrow on the keyboard until the desired position is attained.

Using keyboard shortcuts in the Elements Tree is indeed useful. To put a number of items in the tree into a container I use Ctrl+right_arrow* as follows.

1. I put the destination container below the items to be put in it, and select the item immediately above the container.
2. Repeating the following keyboard sequence gets the items into the container in the correct order -
Ctrl+right_arrow up_arrow up_arrow
3. If a large number of items needed to go into the container I would use a simple macro (I use Macro Toolworks) so that pressing a single key would do the sequence at item 2 above.

Frank

* That puts an element into the container at the same level immediately below it in the Elements Tree.