Build mode, Components, and Slots

Design help General
1

Hey, Webflowers!

I’m a seasoned Webflow dev, but still don’t understand why Webflow doesn’t allow our clients to edit components globally in Build mode? Am I missing something?

I understand that Build mode is for, well, building pages and so on, mostly per-page building. However, there are cases, and quite many of them, when clients would love to update master components throughout their sites. Imagine an advertisement banner that appears on every page. It has no properties, because it should be just a component with the same design site-wide. It is impossible (I hope I’m wrong) for our clients to work on cases like that in Build mode.

Basically, there are a few issues with components in Build mode:

  1. Clients can only edit components via properties, i.e. editing a component’s instance, not the component itself.

So it is impossible for clients to, say, change the aforementioned ad banner across the site. They need to use Design mode to do so.

  1. Clients cannot add components inside component slots.

Honestly speaking, I didn’t know that it was an issue even. I was building a solution for my client, and it worked in Design mode, but I found out that it was not the case during Google Meet call when I presented it to the client. Now I do an extra additional Build mode testing to ensure everything works as intended.

As an example:

You create a site for selling sparkling water with different flavors. You have different thematic pages (travel, work, gaming, etc) which are quite similar in structure, but design is a tad bit different, hence you make a products section and convert it to a component, so it can be reused on said pages. Then you proceed to add Slots to the component expecting your client filling out these Slots with product cards (another component), so it’ll be a breeze for them to add unique sparkling water for every thematic page.

The thing is, you can’t. Why? Clients cannot add Components into Slots if said Slots are inside another Component in Build mode. No idea behind this reasoning.

Apologies for quite an extensive post, but I hope the community can shed a light on the reasoning behind these limitations.

2

Hey Georgy,

The Webflow dev team is aware of the design challenge around “site-wide” component properties in build mode. I haven’t heard what plans they have, but it’s square on the radar.

That said, I’d still frame your problem, and open a ticket where you show your specific problem scenarios so that it helps prioritize and direct focus here.

Regarding the second issue with slots, it sounds like you’re nesting components directly inside of other components. That’s useful for the designers, but those inner component’s slots & properties are inaccessible to build mode users.

The way I usually approach this is to construct external hierarchies of components and slots. The outermost component determines everything, so you put a slot there, place elements inside, which might also have slots, etc.

With this approach you can build some very complex stuff, and build mode users add elements to those “exposed” slots. I do full build-mode accessible construction of forms and navs this way. It does heavily atomize your components though, so use a good naming convention grouping so it’s easy for editors to find the right part types for the right slots.

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1 Like
3

100% agree on #1… WF seems to be providing a very limited approach to client building/editing. I understand wanting to limit clients/editors/builders ability to change things on the site (e.g. styles). but at the same time, the Build Mode is so limited it’s almost unusable.

Another example where this would be useful is something like a footer where there is an address or telephone number shown. Right now, a client using Build Mode cannot update the footer globally across the site. So the only options are:

  1. make the footer content CMS driven; which is a waste of a CMS collection/items for something so simple
  2. client pays me to do make the update; which is a waste of their time and money

Issues like this and a lack of dynamic navigation (that automatically updates as pages are added) make selling WF to clients coming from other CMS’ where this functionality is universally standard much harder. WF really needs to liaise with agencies/freelancers more to understand what’s needed in Build Mode for an agency-client model. Right now it’s far too focused on in-house roles that are supported by in-house designers.

1 Like
4

Yeah, I might do it, maybe it’ll highlight the issue for Webflow team.

I really hope they will make it possible, because it will allow our clients to do so many things, like changing a global/site-wide ad banner.

I know that these are inaccessible to Build mode, hence why I used a hypothetical situation as an example why it should be available.

This is definitely complex, thanks for sharing, but my point was about allowing our clients to create pages with components and be able to put other components inside each other — well, those that have component slots, of course.

5

Yes, this is what I’ve meant.

I do not think it is as limiting as you imply, but, yeah, site-wide changes are a pain, huge one at that.

I love Webflow, have been using it for a long time and recommend it for every project (that fits, of course, but that’s like 95% of them), but some features seem very obvious, but not yet here.

Hopefully, the team will add these features relatively soon.