With all capsules full width, what about sidebars?

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   RonElFranposted 7 years ago

   The biggest issue I have with all capsules having to be full width is that there now seems to be no provision for sidebar content. I've had to eliminate several sidebar text capsules because although they have supplementary information that would be useful for the reader, they just can't be fitted into the flow of the main article.
   
   When the material is fairly short, I've used call-out capsules, although with their formatting limitations they are far from ideal. But that would be very clunky for longer sidebar content.
   
   We need a way to somehow highlight such material so that even though it's in a full-width capsule, it's still clear that it functions as a sidebar.

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      Glenn Stokposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Ron, I have news for you. The sidebar content you thought you were using with floating text capsules never showed up on the side for 60% of your readers who viewed your hubs via mobile devices.
      
      They showed up in-line with the main content, and if you were not aware of that then it’s possible that the content was not in the right place. If it appeared too soon, it may have been misleading to the reader.
      
      This is one of the reasons why HubPages is discontinuing the floating capsules, because many Hubbers never checked the mobile preview in the edit tool to confirm correct positioning.
      
      I wrote a tutorial hub about that two years ago when Google first announced the issue. It’s still available.
      
      By the way, the callout capsules have three different display options. I personally don’t like the default. Tried changing it to see if you prefer the one with the text between the horizontal lines.

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         RonElFranposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         Hi, Glenn. Yes, I'm aware that sidebars show up full width in mobile view. The difference is that when a floated right text capsule is auto-expanded, it still retains its distinctive shading, marking it as not part of the regular flow of the article. But when we manually expand such capsules to full width, the option of distinctive shading is not available.
         
         I use all the various callout options, but none have the formatting flexibility of a text capsule. Because of those limitations, using them for content of more than a sentence or two hasn't worked well for me.

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            Glenn Stokposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            I don’t know what you mean by auto-expanded. That hasn’t happened yet. It will happen on January 15th and I am sure it will not retain the shading. They never said that it would. But I could be wrong.
            
            I know what you mean about the callout capsules and I happen to agree with you. I noticed, too, that the formatting is different from regular text capsules. One option with the shading centers the text. The other option left-justifies the text, but doesn’t allow paragraph separations. That’s awkward.  I wish they would provide more formatting options.
            
            You might want to try using a table capsule. Delete all extra columns and rows and keep just one row and one column. You can format the text any way you want. I talked about that in one of my tutorial hubs too.

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               Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

               Half-width capsules automatically become full-width when viewed on a mobile. That's what Ron is talking about, I'm sure.

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                  Glenn Stokposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                  Oh, that’s what he meant. Silly me. I should have known he meant that since I originally told him they show up in-line with the main content on mobile.

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            Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            Ron, I don't believe it ever retained its distinctive shading when auto-expanded.

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               RonElFranposted 7 years agoin reply to this

               Marisa, on my Kindle right-floated text capsules with shading show up full width with a gray background.

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                  Glenn Stokposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                  Ron, I just checked by comparing one of your hubs on my desktop and on my iPhone. You are absolutely right! The floating text capsule retains the gray background when it is full-width on the iPhone.
                  
                  I find it interesting that when we make it full-width manually it looses the gray background. Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
                  
                  I'm going to ask the team to chime in on this contradiction. It's important to know because anyone who fixes their hubs manually before the January 15th deadline will lose the shaded background.

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                     Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                     Well, blow me down.  I always assumed it would lose its shaded background, because when we make it full-width manually it loses the gray background.
                     
                     I agree with Ron, it would be fabulous to have the choice of a full-width, shaded capsule.  I know the callout capsule has that option but (a) the colour is very dark and (b) the text is larger than normal.

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                        Glenn Stokposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                        I also agree with Ron. And we know it’s possible too, since the gray background is kept when it’s done automatically.
                        
                        By the way Marisa, the callout capsules have the same size text as text capsules. Are you, maybe, comparing the title field of the callout to the text area of the text capsules?

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                           Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                           I don't have time to go and check the callout capsules right now, but I had the impression that I wasn't able to get the same effect with the callout capsules as I could with a shaded text capsule.
                           
                           I do know that I prefer the soft blue of the text capsule to the ugly gray of the callout capsule, but I'm sure there was something else about it that didn't quite work.  Is it the gray callout capsules that have centred text?

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                              Glenn Stokposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                              Yes, there are other issues. The gray background option uses centered text and the other is left-justified.  I was always upset with that too. It would be nice if they had an option to select justification similar to how it works in table capsules.
                              
                              The other problem is that you can't separate paragraphs. They fall together in callout capsules with no spacing.
                              
                              I agree with you about the soft blue background. I'd prefer that in callout capsules to. The dark grey is too harsh looking, so I use the other callout format instead, where the text appears between the horizontal lines.

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   Robinposted 7 years ago

   Thanks for all of your thoughts on this.  We are reviewing the best options for right-justified capsules. One option is to move some of these capsules to callouts; however, there are some limitations to this, e.g., character count, paragraphs, links, or html within the Text Capsule.  We won't likely allow the option for authors to add a color to Text Capsules, as this can easily be abused and causes an inconsistent design. 
   
   We will let you know as soon as we make a decision.  My advice is to try to update your articles on your own just in case our method doesn't work for your content.  Again, sorry for the inconvenience. 

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      Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      I don't think we're asking for them to change automatically, we'd just like more options in the Callout capsule.
      
      If we could choose the blue shading for the Callout capsules and had the standard options for aligning the text (left, right or justified), then I think we'd be happy to do it manually.

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         Robinposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         We probably won't be adding more options to the Callout Capsule.  Unfortunately, the more options we give, the potential for misuse increases.  My discussion revolves around what to do with right-justified Text Capsules that have a colored background when all capsules go full width.  That is what is being discussed at HQ.

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            Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            I could imagine it would be technically difficult, but I'd have thought a shaded Callout capsule, with left-justified text instead of centered, would be the perfect solution.
            
            I can't see how adding the ability to left-justify to the shaded capsule would be a problem, considering the unshaded version is already left-justified.
            
            The good thing about the Callout capsule is that you can have only one paragraph, which keeps the amount of text limited - so people couldn't abuse it.

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            Glenn Stokposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            Robin, I understand the issue with misuse, and for that reason I agree not to add more formatting options to callout capsules. I also realize the reasoning for not allowing paragraph breaks—since there is a character limit in callouts. I also agree with keeping a consistent design across the entire site. That’s important.
            
            Having said that, I have a recomendation for an idea. How about keeping things simple and just do what already is being done with mobile formatting...
            
            Right-floated capsules that have the light-blue background on desktop already display with the light-blue background when made full-width on mobile. So you already have the code in there, and it functions well. Just use that existing code and provide a ‘check mark’ option to enable it, as previously was the case for right-floated capsules. There's no need to reinvent the wheel and no need to tie up the programmers with extra work converting floating text capsules to callouts.

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   Robinposted 7 years ago

   Thanks, Glenn.  I can make that suggestion, however, I believe our engineers prefer to make the code as clean as possible.  They also need to maintain this feature when other changes occur on our site and that can be problematic.  They tend to not like to have features that are not consistent throughout the site and properly maintained. 
   
   @marisa:  Can't you just use the classic callout if you want the text right justified?

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      Glenn Stokposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Robin, Maybe I wasn't clear. My suggestion was to use the code that you already have in the system. In addition, it would keep the background consistent between desktop views and mobile views.

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         Robinposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         Right, but this would just be for capsules that had the background in the past.  We wouldn't allow it going forward, so there's an inconsistency.  That make sense?  Sorry that I'm not explaining myself clearly!

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            Glenn Stokposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            Maybe we’re both not being clear. lol. Why not keep the consistency of the background between mobile and desktop? Or are you saying the light-blue background will be discontinued entirely? And if that’s the case, why not also get rid of the gray background of the callout capsules (colorbox setting). That’s too dark anyway, in my opinion.

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               Robinposted 7 years agoin reply to this

               Ha.  The background color will no longer be available for Text Capsules.  We aren't planning on changing the callout color, but I can bring it up with the team. 

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                  Glenn Stokposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                  So what you’re saying is that the background color, that’s presently on text capsules viewed full-width on mobile, will be removed. Am I understanding that correctly?
                  
                  If that’s the case, I think you should make that clear to everyone in the weekly newsletter. I imagine many people expect the color to remain when made full-width to indicate that the text is separate from the main content.
                  
                  Now that I’m saying that, I can see why HP is considering changing the floating text capsules to callout capsules. However, that presents another problem—callouts are limited, and they combine multiple paragraphs into one.
                  
                  This is why I was offering a simple solution.

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                  Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                  I understood what you meant, Robin.  If you allow existing shaded capsules to go full-width, then you'd have to allow people to shade normal text capsules in future, and that would get out of hand, right?
                  
                  I just realised why the Callout capsule won't work as an alternative - because the font is larger than normal and more spaced, making it unsuitable for all but a very short paragraph. 
                  
                  I'd still love to see the shading on the callout capsule changed, though.   I thought the original HubPages designer got it right with that blue shading, whereas the dark gray (which presumably was inherited from Squidoo) looks awful.

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                     Robinposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                     Yes, the color background would likely cause issues.  I can just see checkered articles.    I will bring your callout-color feedback to the team.  Thanks, @marisa.

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   paradigmsearchposted 7 years ago

   
   Holograms are going to make this entire thread obsolete within 2-3 years. Trust me. Ditto this one, https://hubpages.com/community/forum/14 … nuary-15th

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