About
FlexibleList is RapidWeaver pagestyle plugin that allows the user to easily create pages where the content is made up of a list of one or more item(s). These items can easily be reordered in the GUI without fear of breaking the layout of the page. But just because I use the word "list" here does not mean that FlexibleList is limitied to creating lists. You can use it to create pretty much anything you want. If you want some inspirations and ideas you can check out the examples that I have published.
A FlexibleList page has a "style" which is what defines the appearance of the page. This style can be exported/imported and also shared with others. And once you have started to build up a library of styles you can easily change the style of a page without having to rework the content (with some exceptions in certain cases).
Each item is composed of a name (optional) and content. All the HTML tags that wraps around each part of the generated content can be customized by the user. A "Table of Content" (TOC) can be generated for all items that has a name which is set to visible. There is also a Header and Footer area on the page where you can add content that is not part of the list.
Almost every part of FlexibleList can be customized to suite your needs. Every setting is briefly explained here and more detailed in the user manual bundled with the plugin, and available from a FlexibleList page in your project. You can also check the online version for the most up-to-date version.
Features
The focus for this plugin has been to leave as much of the content generation code exposed to the end-user as possible without making the user interface too complicated. This has resulted in a plugin that allows the user to control pretty much everything regarding how the page is constructed instead of forcing the user to adapt to how the plugin generates the code around the content.
Main features
- Organize the content as items in a list.
- Add a name and/or content to each item.
- Hide items without removing them from the list.
- Full support for Copy & Paste of items between FlexibleList pages.
- Full support for dragging item(s) between projects.
- Control the HTML code that wraps around each individual part of the page.
- Control which individual parts of the page that should be wrapped inside the user-defined tags.
- Generate a Table of Content for all named items (the TOC can be placed either in the content or sidebar area of the page).
- Generate one subpage for each item instead of adding them to the main page when a TOC is used.
- Link directly to items from other pages using the link panel in RapidWeaver when a TOC is used.
- Hide the TOC from output (useful if you want to link to items but don't want a TOC).
- Customize the HTML that is used to render the subpage(s).
- Export and Import the style for the FlexibleList page, complete with custom CSS that matches the tags you have used.
- Embed resources needed for the style inside the style (e.g. javascript, images etc.).
- Easily apply another style using the style menu which lists all available styles that you have.
Table of Content
FlexibleList can generate a Table of Content list based on the content in the list. Each item that has a name, which is also set to "Show name", will be included in the TOC. Each item that is linked from the TOC can have an optional "backlink" added to the item that takes the user back to the TOC-entry for that item. It is also possible to hide the TOC from the generated HTML if you want to be able to link to individual items but you don't want a visible TOC.
Content on subpages
When you have enabled the option to generate a TOC you also have the option to put the content of each item on separate subpages. This can be handy if you have many items and/or much content which generates a long page. The subpages can either use the same pagestyle as the main page, i.e. a fully styled page, or you can supply your own HTML template.
Styles
The heart of FlexibleList which makes it’s pages really Flexible is the FlexibleList style. This contains all the bits and pieces that make up the FlexibleList page except for the items. This style can be exported to an .flstyle file wich is a plain XML-file with all the settings configured in the FlexibleList setup.
CSS
All the CSS that is needed to create the look & feel of the style can be included in the style. Combined with the Assets part of the style you can add images to your CSS selectors on the page.
Header
You can even add custom code to the <head></head> section of the page which will be part of the style. Combined with the Assets part of the style you can use this to add javascript or CSS files to the page.
HTML
When you configure FlexibleList to put the content on supbpages you can also choose to use a custom HTML template that you define in the settings for FlexibleList. This can be used if you want to use a very slimmed look on the subpages instead of the same style as the main FlexibleList page that uses your RapidWeaver theme.
Assets
FlexibleList also has support for Assets, similar to the Assets in RapidWeaver. The major difference compared to RapidWeavers Assets is that the FlexibleList Assets are added as a part of the style. This means that you can add any kind of file that you use in your custom style and you only have to share the .flstyle file.
Requirements
FlexibleList has the same system requirement as RapidWeaver 3.5, i.e. it should work on any Mac, both PowerPC and Intel, running OS X 10.4 or greater. Although it is not actively supported it should also work together with RapidWeaver 3.2.1.