New feature: Gravity
Protopage now supports two ‘widget positioning’ modes: Free positioning and Gravity.
Free positioning, which Protopage has had since launch, means that you can position widgets anywhere on the screen, and even allow widgets to overlap.
Gravity is a new positioning mode which will help you tidy up your page if you have a lot of widgets. Gravity does not allow widgets to overlap, and will automatically move a widget upward if there is free space above it.
The diagram above explains this – but the best way to understand it is to try it!
To switch between free positioning and gravity modes, choose Colors / Settings from the bottom toolbar, and you’ll see the widget positioning options.
March 15th, 2006 at 8:42 pm
A couple of extra notes about those switching to gravity mode:
1. We’ve changed the horizontal ‘snap-to-grid’ from 4 pixels to 8 pixels. This means that you may need to resize the width of your panels to make them line up properly.
2. Have you noticed that rearranging your page with gravity feels like playing tetris? :)
March 15th, 2006 at 9:32 pm
Please also do let us know if you find any bugs – we’ve found a couple in the last few minutes which are now fixed.
March 15th, 2006 at 9:57 pm
First off, when I accidentally moved one of the widgets, I could not get it back into its original position. The grid did not allow for it, strangely enough, so I had to rearrange all the other widgets to get them aligned. Odd effect.
In addition, and I don’t know if this is related, the rearranging of items inside a bookmark widget does not work anymore. Whether I rename an entry in edit mode or just move it up, after I press ›save‹ it’s all back to the way it was before. Some sort of glitch or could it be me?
March 15th, 2006 at 9:58 pm
Sorry, I did not read the comments before commenting myself. Stupid, stupid, stupid, sorry, sorry, sorry! :-)
The second problem still remains, though…
March 15th, 2006 at 10:07 pm
Thanks – this issue should now be resolved. Please let us know if you find anything else…
March 15th, 2006 at 11:16 pm
Ah, it’s working again. Wow, that must have been like the fastest customer support response ever – thanks a lot! :-)
March 15th, 2006 at 11:22 pm
Would it be possible to also institute a “reverse gravity” setting?
I tend to do my best to arrange all my widgets as top-and-left most as possible, because of limited screen space at 1024×768.
March 15th, 2006 at 11:43 pm
We’ll certainly be bringing out some kind of forum in the future. We really like it when people send in individual feedback via our contact form – it’s a fantastic way to gauge demand for certain features (it’s better if many people ask for the same thing – because then we can prioritize it farther. Each person also asks for a feature in a slightly different way, which allows us to cater for as many specific needs as possible). It also enables us to email you back to ask for further information / clarifications.
March 16th, 2006 at 3:10 am
I am suddenly having problems editing my widgets. Seems to have happened after today’s change.
March 16th, 2006 at 4:31 am
I’m having the same problem. When I click “edit,” it takes me to the protopage main site.
March 16th, 2006 at 11:51 am
Same here, I’m unable to edit, and my pop3 mail no longer works again.
March 16th, 2006 at 11:54 am
The same thing is happening to me,andonce you are taken to the protopagemainpage you have to login to your account again! This hasonly started happening this morning.
Lauren Says:
March 16th, 2006 at 4:31 am
I’m having the same problem. When I click “edit,” it takes me to the protopage main site.
March 16th, 2006 at 12:26 pm
We’ve got an issue at the moment affecting some versions of Internet Explorer – we’re working on this now. Thanks to everyone that has been writing in with detailed bug reports.
March 16th, 2006 at 12:48 pm
The problem is now fixed. Some versions of Internet Explorer were rejecting clicks to edit widgets – this is now working. Sorry for the inconvenience to anybody who was unable to edit their page.
March 16th, 2006 at 2:13 pm
Love the new feature. How about the ability to set gravity on certain pages only? i.e. I have 4 pages, and would only like gravity on 2 of them.
March 16th, 2006 at 3:14 pm
I changed my positioning into gravity to see how it will look like.. and then i changed it back into free… I gave it time to save.. then I closed the ie window.. when i came back and reopened it, the positioning was like gravity but in settings was free, and I couldn’t change it back to the old type… (it made no change when I switched the positioning in the settings winsod)
with many thanks
Aryan
March 16th, 2006 at 4:04 pm
I think what you’re describing is how Protopage is designed to work. If you switch to gravity mode and save the change, then if later you switch to free positioning your starting point will be the positions of the panels as laid out in gravity mode. Therefore if you switch to gravity and save, then if you later want to come back to free then you’ll have to rearrange your panels again the way you want them.
March 16th, 2006 at 5:50 pm
I love the Gravity setting as it’s helped clean up my widgets considerably. I definitely agree with Alan and the “Reverse Gravity” setting, but would it be possible to align some widgets to the left and some to the right side of the screen? I use different sized monitors and would like my widget positions to scale depending on the system I’m on rather than having to keep at one setting to match my smallest resolution that I use.
March 16th, 2006 at 7:11 pm
I realized shortly after making my post that what I want isn’t really “reverse gravity” so much as I would like the gravity setting to still make use of the top margin between the page title and the dock/calendar.
March 19th, 2006 at 6:59 pm
Reading the comments, I would just like to say that having the possibility to use the top part between title and the dock is much needed for me. I use my protopage on multiple computer/browsers and not all have large resolutions.
Also, having some sort of lock, or pin for individual notes would be most useful.
The gravity option is nice, but I think having it working on a page basis instead would make it even better.
You guys are making an awesome job, everyone who saw me using protopage registered right away.
April 9th, 2006 at 1:46 am
Great article. I am just sad I dont know how to reply properly, though, since I want to show my appreciation like many other.
April 19th, 2006 at 1:25 am
Gravity is a very fine feature. It saves much work and improves the appearance of the pages. I would have called it Lighter-Than-Air (LTA) since boxes rise — not sink.
Thank you for your continuing good efforts. I can’t wait to see V3. How about some teasers?
Best to all,
Bob Hare
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