Can use use webflow CMS without the collection list

Design help CMS
1

When editing collection lists, I am finding myself in the same situation as when I tried to use the Navbar element… It doesn’t behave the way I expect, with funky margins/padding issues. With that, it was just easier to build my own than use the one out of the box. Is there a way to build my own collection list system and still use the Webflow CMS?

If not, maybe I can get help with styling the collection list. I can get the layout I want but it doesn’t handle responsiveness the way I want it to. Usually, I use divs with flex layouts to get things to work the way I need them to. But when I try to use a flex layout with the collection list wrapper, the page goes crazy. When I try to use Divs to get things to behave the way I usually do, I am blocked by an error that reads “Element can not be placed in a collection list wrapper.” This effectively blocks me from getting the responsiveness to work in a way that doesn’t look like hot garbage. I could probably figure this out if I were more experienced but this is the first site I’ve ever had to build and I am still very green. Any help would be appreciated.

What I would like to see is the articles arranged in a grid that, at desktop screen sizes, has three articles. When I shrink the width, it should adjust to 2 that fill the width (right now they stay the same width as when the screen fits 3). This should adjust until it only fits one column.

As far as I can tell, this is a very standard and simple use case. but without the ability to add divs and use flex I can’t figure out how to do this.

Thanks in advance for any help

Here is my public share link:
https://preview.webflow.com/preview/niless-dapper-site?utm_medium=preview_link&utm_source=designer&utm_content=niless-dapper-site&preview=25e04b85d1f9a5761cdbe64b2b0f8036&pageId=65b84be03bca2c261440ba2a&workflow=preview

2

The collection list has no styling until you add it.
Most likely you’re using a template with classes you’d need to adjust.

I think this is the layout you’re looking for-

3

Awesome! Thanks for sharing! I’ll be sure to check out the rest of your videos. While I understood that one has to add styling to collection lists, I wasn’t able to do so in the way I’m used to. This is great and gets me 90% there.

One more thing. Is there a way to make the height of collection items consistent across a row so they are all the same height? Currently, it changes based on the description text in each item.

image
image984×785 230 KB

Here is my public share link:
https://preview.webflow.com/preview/niless-dapper-site?utm_medium=preview_link&utm_source=designer&utm_content=niless-dapper-site&preview=25e04b85d1f9a5761cdbe64b2b0f8036&pageId=65b84be03bca2c261440ba2a&workflow=preview

4

Sure, basic web design,

  • shorten your text for the brief you’re displaying, or
  • set heights on your text frame and overflow: hidden, or
  • do CSS line clamping
5

Thanks! Looks like shortening the text is the best option.

I really appreciate your help.

Cheers,
Niles