Column counts in Subsection and Product Lists

[John Ennals]

I'm trying to implement Swift, but I've hit a brick wall. I need to force a particular section to show a product list in single column format regardless of screen width - this is to produce something similar to the Reservations pages on my existing site, for example: https://www.tortoys.co.uk/acatalog/R...ns-SMI028.html. This is effectively a list of products with a total at the bottom, so it wouldn't make any sense in a multi column format.

Unfortunately Swift V1 does not support column counts, and the Implementation Guide helpfully says it may be supported in future releases, or may not.

Please can anybody point me to the bit of code that determines the number of columns? I'm fine with creating layouts, editing CSS and script etc., I just can't see where to look.

Many thanks,
John

[DavidCP]

Hi John, Sorry I don't have an answer but wondered looking at your site if you were thinking of keeping the left and right sidebars. In my view these work well in desktop and should not be just thrown out because less than half browse on a mobile. I can see that with your current site it is responsive and the sidebars go when the viewport is smaller. Swift only has a left sidebar when there is a filter, so at the moment you would lose your sidebars and their navigation.

[John Ennals]

Hi David,

I'd like to keep at least one sidebar, either for New Products or brochure links (or both). If I can overcome the single column issue, that's the next thing I'm going to have a look at. As you say, Swift has a left sidebar for filters, so the underlying structure is there. Also the product page has a right sidebar for related products, in which I've found you can also show brochure page links.

The Implementation Guide doesn't say anything about sidebars, other than the column count reduces to 3 when one is present, so I don't know whether they're supposed to be fully implemented in Swift or not. Hopefully somebody from Sellerdeck will enlighten us.

[EdHarrison]

I have decided to accept the columns and look, it's grown on me. I have found myself spending too much time altering bits that have adversely affected my real work too much.

Some daft things were forgotten in the beta like social media buttons such as like and share.

My favourite feature, the image zoom, if you haven't tried it in mobile its brilliant, about time!

[John Ennals]

Referring to my original post, I think I can achieve the single column layout simply by creating a version of the Responsive Product List layout with the list items styled as "min-width: 100%;". I was expecting it to be more complicated...

Now looking forward to going live with Swift in the not-too-distant future, with or without sidebars. Some of the static information I had in sidebars could be accommodated quite nicely in tabs on the product page.

[Buzby]

Is this the same issue you have with columns on desktop view?

This is how my page looks in 18.03 Smart theme https://www.titanvilla.co.uk/oludeni...tan-Villa.html

This is the same page on 18.04 with Swift theme https://www.titanvilla.co.uk/oludeni...tan-Villa.html

Sellerdeck seems to be totally ignoring the column count.

I am being asked to shell out over £130 a month if I want to use this theme, so want to make sure it is usable, but so far it feels shoddy.

[John Ennals]

Is this the same issue you have with columns on desktop view?

This appears to be a different but related issue.

Column counts are not supported in V1 of the Swift template, as explained in the Swift User Guide:

At full page width, Subsection and Product lists display in 4 columns, reducing to 3 when a sidebar is present, 2 and then 1 in smaller screens and narrower browser windows

Whether column counts will be supported in future versions is a known unknown at the moment. You might be able to force a 2-column format by setting min-width to 50% (see my earlier post).

I notice that your Smart 18.0.3 example page doesn't resize progressively as you change the size of the desktop browser window, whereas your Swift example does (albeit in 4 column format), so it might be worth persevering with Swift.

John

[Buzby]

Many thanks, I hadn’t seen about the columns not working.

I will wait until they have a fully working template before I consider it as a future option.

[Mantra]

Referring to my original post, I think I can achieve the single column layout simply by creating a version of the Responsive Product List layout with the list items styled as "min-width: 100%;". I was expecting it to be more complicated...

Now looking forward to going live with Swift in the not-too-distant future, with or without sidebars. Some of the static information I had in sidebars could be accommodated quite nicely in tabs on the product page.

Our site is running on a V16.0.3 smart responsive design theme with featured products (on home page) and tabber add-ons applied on selected products.

The release of the new Swift template appeared to be a big leap in the right direction to achieving improved mobile site functionality which led me to consider upgrading to V18.0.4 to test the new Swift template out.

However, I put the brakes on doing this when I realised that the implementation of the Swift template would completely overwrite the existing design with the production of a single column display for both mobile and desktop applications.

The aspects of the Swift template that I particular liked was the introduction of the hamburger menu for mobile viewport and the sticky menu bar for desktop scrolling.

This led me to implement the standard hamburger menu code considered in the post below:

https://community.sellerdeck.com/for...to-a-hamburger

This worked fine so I now have a fully functioning hamburger style menu with some further development by Jonathan that is enhanced into an accordian style menu down to sub-section level with Store Section and Information Groups and a sticky menu navigation bar. The Information Group is particularly useful for displaying the Brochure fragment page links from the left sidebar desktop view to include site specific information like Privacy Policy and Delivery & Returns (grouped together like the Swift tab) taken from T&Cs text/variables.

Martin
Mantra Audio

[Buzby]

I do like Swift, and will changeover to it when it works properly. I feel it has been released too early.

I have also found it doesn’t work as well in Internet Explorer which accounts for 12% of my traffic.

I also have a few bugs I have mentioned in another thread that Sellerdeck don’t even acknowledge, so my hopes of them being sorted any time are slim.