7 Replies Latest reply: Jul 10, 2014 12:01 PM by nicofnot RSS

    Classes / Objects in RF

    swieder227 Community Member
    swieder227 Dec 9, 2013 12:59 PM

      Being able to create Classes in RF would be helpful and reduce the amount of redundant tasks. The same way that Paragraph styles work in InDesign or Classes work in CSS. The smart workflow would be to edit a specific object oriented class once, and have all similar objects update at the same time. The way it currently works, you have to go into each object and edit the same properties on each.

       

      For example, say I have a simple 3 button menu system like this:

       

      Screen Shot 2013-12-09 at 3.49.54 PM.png

       

      I have a breakpoint where I want to go from a horizontal large-button list to a vertical list with less spacing. Something like this:

       

      Screen Shot 2013-12-09 at 3.51.21 PM.png

       

      Right? This is the concept of Responsive Design and the main feature for prototyping and working within RF. Well, currently (this is the issue I'm talking about...) you have to go into the first item, change the width %, change the text size, change the margin on the image, change the margin on the divider, change the margin on the text, change the padding on the container, etc. Then do that three times again (maybe four, five, six, however many items you have).

       

      If there was a class -- or a consistent style I could apply across the board -- that would make it much quicker and easier to mockup designs without repetition AND seemingly coorelate to the way CSS classes would work.

       

      I understand that is this is in beta, and that's why I'm giving feedback. And I also recognize that there may well be other limitations, technically speaking, that I have not thought of. But this so far is my number 1 gripe. Any conversations and feedback welcome

        • 1. Re: Classes / Objects in RF
          Brian Wood CommunityMVP
          Brian Wood Dec 9, 2013 1:40 PM (in response to swieder227)

          If you edit a property for one media query, you can position the pointer over the property field and click the little "Apply property to all regions" button that shows, to apply the same change you make to all of the media queries. It also depends on

          • 2. Re: Classes / Objects in RF
            swieder227 Community Member
            swieder227 Dec 10, 2013 6:51 AM (in response to Brian Wood)

            ...

             

            sorry, but not what I meant.

             

            What I'm saying is comparable to a CSS class. Where if you have several similar items (such as the 3 menu items in my images above), updating one 'master class' updates them all.

             

            Or think of it the same way as Paragraph Styles in InDesign. You have a style class that you apply to a bunch of different subheaders, and when you update the style it propagates across all instances.

            • 3. Re: Classes / Objects in RF
              Divya Manian Adobe Employee
              Divya Manian Dec 10, 2013 1:52 PM (in response to swieder227)

              Ah yes. You are right. We have also been thinking about this more like re-usable symbols that you may have seen in Flash. So it could not be limited to styles but also content and assets. We do not have this yet, but we are definitely thinking about this. Thanks!

              • 4. Re: Classes / Objects in RF
                Brian Wood CommunityMVP
                Brian Wood Dec 10, 2013 1:55 PM (in response to swieder227)

                Ah - I get it too. Something like that would be useful.

                • 5. Re: Classes / Objects in RF
                  stephenhess Community Member
                  stephenhess Jun 24, 2014 3:13 PM (in response to Divya Manian)

                  I just wanted to emphasize how useful this would be. One of the key properties of a good design tool is that you can iterate with the tool faster than you can with code. Right now if I have a bunch of form fields for instance and I want to experiment with how they're spaced or styled, in Reflow, I have to go through each individually whereas in an editor I could just add an attribute or two to a class and see the result. The ability to copy and paste visual styles makes this a bit less arduous but it's still super annoying.

                   

                  I could imagine above the Layout and Styling tabs, a field named "Class" that is defaulted to "none". From here, you could create a new class or apply an existing class. When you make changes to element that has a class, you would indicate that the element is out of sync and the user could apply the changes to the class - like how you apply to changes to various viewports/breakpoints.

                   

                  One thing that would be tricky here is allowing the user to specify which layout/styling attributes are part of the class. When you create a class or sync to a class, the user will need the ability to prescribe / leave certain things out of the class. For instance, I may want margin-top but not margin-bottom to be abstracted into the class.

                   

                  Ideally, you'd have the ability to apply multiple classes as well.

                  • 6. Re: Classes / Objects in RF
                    Vic Mitnick - Adobe Adobe Employee
                    Vic Mitnick - Adobe Jun 25, 2014 3:14 PM (in response to stephenhess)

                    Hi Stephen, Brian & others -

                    Yes, we definitely agree that this would be a great feature to have in Reflow, and it's on our list, for sure.

                     

                    thanks for your continued interest in Reflow.

                    Vic

                    • 7. Re: Classes / Objects in RF
                      nicofnot Community Member
                      nicofnot Jul 10, 2014 12:01 PM (in response to Vic Mitnick - Adobe)

                      When can we expect this feature to become available? I have been spending way too much time organizing the generated code (HTML & CSS) from Reflow export. It is so much trouble I am giving up on it. Please let me know as accurately as possible when to expect this feature.