Master Page issues with pages in subfolders?

[TEMPEST]

I have organised my site to have sub folders for each section of the website, i.e. products, services etc.

Each of these pages were created by using a master page that is sitting in the root of the project’s folder structure.

In the Project Browser they have the double overlayed square icon in white that shows it’s referring to a master page, BUT whenever I make a change to the master page and click the circular arrows next to ‘Components’ on the menu bar, and say update all, they never pick up the updates from the master page.

What do I need to check to fix this or is there a problem with having pages in sub folders?

Here is the Master Page where I have removed the extra BS5 padding to a paragraph element. After updating all, this is what shows on all the other pages:

You can see that the Master Page’s update to the padding didn’t get pushed correctly.

Here’s the project structure:

[Jerry]

Looks like a parent directory reference is missing. Have you updated your relative path for the core bootstrap files (CSS and JS) as well as your custom CSS on the pages nested in a folder? e.g. <link href="bootstrap/css/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet"> becomes <link href="../bootstrap/css/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet">

[TEMPEST]

(post deleted by author)

[TEMPEST]

Hi Jerry

Thanks for engaging and your suggestion.

Pinegrow is very weird and inconsistent to me. I initially ran into issues with my ‘offcanvas’ menus in that I created the master page first, then created the offcanvas menu (that is in the master page) but obviously the links to the website pages were to pages that didn’t exist yet.

Then I had to create the folders and the pages themselves and then I had to MANUALLY edit the offcanvas sections in the master page to add in the correct paths to each of the pages and when complete, I had to go back and MANUALLY update the master page to ensure it used the correct paths for all the new pages.

When I then created all the sub pages I obviously had to change the paths you mentioned to the css and bootstrap files (again - this should have been done by PG IMHO).

When it came to the index.html obviously that was in the same root as the master page, so I had to again MANUALLY strip out the ‘../’ so that the references were correct for just that one specific page.

I say PG is inconsistent because IMHO it should automatically manage all this based on the locations of the files when they are created - just as it automatically does things (I didn’t ask for) when I create sub folders like make individual style.css in each folder, rather than use the existing ‘master’ one.

So perhaps I have inadvertently got things out of sync, but AFAIK there is nothing in the way of the documentation that talks about managing your project’s structure with sub-folders like this and how that breaks or works with master pages etc..

Here is the HEAD section of the master page:

And here is a HEAD section from an example of one of the sub pages that are inside a folder:

and finally the HEAD of the index.html that’s in the same root position as the master page:

Is there a problem with how I created everything or with these heads?

[PeteSharp]

@TEMPEST

, BUT whenever I make a change to the master page and click the circular arrows next to ‘Components’ on the menu bar, and say update all, they never pick up the updates from the master page.

The quick update does open pages. Which explains your confusion. Instead select Update the whole project. This will update pages not open.

[TEMPEST]

I DO ALWAYS select update all. I’m not confused about that, I said I did update all - I figured despite not remembering the ui words, it was clear I was doing the whole project.

[PeteSharp]

Well you said you used the circular arrow?

Also don’t forget to save all your pages.

The green dots on the right side mean unsaved changes.

[TEMPEST]

See what I said?

@TEMPEST

BUT whenever I make a change to the master page and click the circular arrows next to ‘Components’ on the menu bar, and say update all

Yet again, you missed a key part of what I said - I said ‘update all’. Despite using the wrong term, it’s pretty clear to me I was saying in chose the update entire project option - implied by ‘all’.

And as for these screen shots, yes those sub pages haven’t been saved - but that is entirely irrelevant because I took them during trying to get it to work and trying multiple things.

I feel like unless I spell everything out in immense and perfect detail (which would be too long to write and no one would read) you continually fail to understand and we spend reply after reply talking past each other.

Let me be clear.

I am clicking the arrows (as the docs say I have to) and I am then clicking update PROJECT, which as you spotted puts a green ‘changed’ circle next to the pages - AND YET THEY DON’T TAKE THE CHANGE I PUSHED FROM THE MASTER PAGE!

The margins/padding/gutters DO NOT UPDATE!

[PeteSharp]

@TEMPEST

you continually fail to understand

Ok. I can only go off what you write, I cannot be expected to know you mean something else, or the images you post are “entirely irrelevant”.

I won’t spend any more time attempting to help or replying to your posts.

All the best with it.

[TEMPEST]

The images are NOT IRRELEVANT. They are there to show the data in the head sections for comparison - as that seemed to be pertinent based on the input from Jerry, yet it seems you ignored all that and pointed out something irrelevant and to be honest it was frankly insulting.

And what I wrote WAS clear, in intent if not in using the exact labels from the ui from memory.

Shame you have to display that fragile male ego so publicly.

[Emmanuel]

@TEMPEST

Just to be clear, @PeteSharp isnt a support or Pinegrow team member. He is a helpful Pinegrow user like you who is trying to help. This forum is a community forum where users help each other, with the Pinegrow team offering friendly oversight.

I won’t solve your problem here; I’m just giving my two cents.
I think if you start with Pinegrow you’re jumping into a project that’s too big right away.

Ideally you should test the features on a super simple project and grow that test project as you learn. But for a first try I see a big file tree, lots of documents, subfolders, custom tweaks, and special cases that can make it hard to understand what’s going on.

Pinegrow helps, but it doesn’t do the work for you. It’s not a page builder, there is no automation, and some mistakes can be fatal. So it’s vital to really understand how the app works (by thoroughly testing the big features like master pages) before you dive into large projects.

Note: I’m not ruling out occasional bugs or regressions in Pinegrow, but it’s a lot easier to understand and explain what’s wrong if you really get how it was supposed to work in the first place and you can point to a specific case where it breaks.

[TEMPEST]

@Emmanuel

I won’t solve your problem here; I’m just giving my two cents.

And here I was, asking for help in the support forum… crazy.

@Emmanuel

I think if you start with Pinegrow you’re jumping into a project that’s too big right away.

You mean if I start building websites with Pinegrow without having built them with other apps or by hacking away in visual studio code first? Or do you mean something else?

@Emmanuel

Ideally you should test the features on a super simple project and grow that test project as you learn. But for a first try I see a big file tree, lots of documents, subfolders, custom tweaks, and special cases that can make it hard to understand what’s going on.

You’re making assumptions. Most of the folders are empty place holders. And I didn’t start with that. I started with a master page, then added index, then added the sub pages. If I go any slower I’ll never finish before I die!

All of the pages are empty except for a single paragraph of text.

I HAVE/AM starting slowly and building it up slowly hence after creating my master page with a custom offcanvas menu (all working thank you very much) the issues I’m having are using that master page to create all the pages I will - in the future - populate with stuff. After creating them using the master page as a temp,ate and the making a small margin/padding change in the master page, pushing that out to all the project but they fail to update IS THE BARE MINIMUM functionality of master pages that should work, after following your documentation.

As your docs don’t cover explicitly creating folders of sub pages - but neither do they say you can’t - then after doing it and it not working - that’s why I’m on hold here hoping for help!

Yet all that’s been offered aside from Jerry’s input is repeating stuff I already said I did or saying I should start slowly - WHICH I AM!

Would removing all the folders bar one really help? ‘Cause I know for a fact it won’t address the failure to update.

[Emmanuel]

@TEMPEST

And here I was, asking for help in the support forum… crazy.

My wording was probably a bit awkward. I was just passing through today, and Sundays are also rest days at Pinegrow We got your support message and we’ll handle it at the start of the week.

[TEMPEST]

Okay update for anyone that’s bothered or interested.

I created an entirely new project to confirm if what I thought I knew about how master pages work was accurate (tl;dr it is).

I created a master page, then used it to create an index.html at the same root location, then created a sub folder and a new page in there using the master page as teh template too.

Updates to the non-editable parts of the master page got pushed correctly when I clicked the round arrows and chose update whole project.

Just as the docs say and just as I thought.

So I went back to my project (remember, all the pages are empty bar a paragraph element), and tried it again (updating master and pushing) and they failed.

So I deleted all my sub pages, my (virtually finished - very annoying) index.html and triple checked my master page. All looked good.

I re-created the blank index and a blank sub page. Tried to update the master and push the changes and got a weird error this time.

I don’t know what that’s telling me, but I noticed it went away when I removed my page links from my offcanvas menu.

So is my offcanvas menu the issue?

Here is what I’ve done and my reasoning - please, someone, tell me if this is correct or if I’m wrong:

The entire point of using a master page is that I want a nav bar on every page of my site (and a footer).

So I created a custom nav bar in html & css and used the BS5 offcanvas classes to make it work.

I populated the menu with links to pages (in subfolders) that DO NOT CURRENTLY EXIST - but will exist after I save the master page and use it as a template for each of those pages.

So after creating the Master Page and the links for the offcanvas menu, I saved it and then inside a sub folder I created a new page, using that master page as the template and the new page has all the menu links now correctly updated by PG to have the ../ before links outside of the sub folder - brilliant I thought!

But now, if I make a change to the master page and click the circle arrows and update whole project I get this new error for both the index and the new sub page I just created:

and then, at the bottom of the index and sub page there is a huge block comment added by PG:

[Emmanuel]

For a quick weekend exercise, we have a great tutorial made up of ready-to-analyze projects that cover several use cases for master pages available here:

Master Pages | Pinegrow Web Editor

And the test projects can be downloaded here: GitHub - matjaztrontelj/MasterPagesTutorial: Pinegrow tutorial · GitHub > it’s a project published about 10 years ago and it still works perfectly in the latest version of Pinegrow, as has been the case for all the older projects since 2014.

I just ran a quick test by opening the “2-Navigation” case, which is pretty similar to your use case. I moved the pages linked from the index into a subfolder (Pinegrow asked if I wanted to update the links, I said yes) and I tested changes on the master page with no issues.