Simultaneous Widget Settings Updating in EverWeb 3.3

July 23rd, 2020


One of the things that we always strive for in EverWeb is to make things as simple as possible. Usually this means trying to apply simplicity to often complex tasks of features. Take responsive web design in EverWeb as an example, where we made something that is conceptually difficult easy for EverWeb’s fixed width website builders to grasp. The new responsive paradigm takes EverWeb users to a new level of website building!

The PayPal widget is another great way in which complexity is simplified. The widget lets you build your own e-commerce store with Buy Now, Add To Cart, View Cart and Donate buttons without having to go in to PayPal itself. Many of the most commonly used PayPal options are immediately available in its Widget Settings.

Simplicity in EverWeb also comes in ways in which we only really appreciate when we discover them. In EverWeb version 3.3 we have added a very simple new way to update widgets simultaneously. This, of course, is a great time saving feature, especially when e.g. you need to update multiple PayPal widgets on your web page with a new look ‘Buy Now’ button.

How To Simultaneously Update Widgets

When it comes to simultaneously updating your widgets, there are a couple of things to note. The first is that you can only simultaneously update widgets of the same type e.g. only PayPal widget or only FlexBox widgets. The second point to note is that you can only update widgets on a per page basis.

With the above rules in mind, updating is easy. Using the PayPal widget provides a perfect example, because if you have an online store page in your site, updating each individual PayPal widget with e.g. a new ‘Buy Now’ button can potentially take a long time!

All you need to do is to select all of the PayPal widgets on your page that you want to update. Once they are all selected, go to the Widget Settings and, in this example, change the button style from say the default ‘Buy Now’ button to either a Custom Pay Button Image or a Styled Button. Once you make the change, all of the selected PayPal widgets will update.

This feature is very useful in the PayPal widget as you can also easily change your Form Alignment all at one time, change the shipping fees or even update the email address used for PayPal in the widget.

One important point to note is that you should be careful about what you are updating. Staying with the PayPal widget as an example, if I decided that once I have new buttons, I could update the font use in the Product Description. If I highlight my text and change the font, hey presto! All of the PayPal Widgets selected will have their font update. They will also have their text updated too! So caution is advised when using this feature. In this example, you can try to back out of the change by using the Undo command (Cmd+Z).

One Thing Not To Forget!

The above example shows what can happen if you forget to deselect the widgets after you have made the wholesale changes that you want. Remember that once you have finished updating your widgets, click on a different part of your page to deselect the widgets!

New Feature, Old Feature!

Whilst being able to update the same type of widget simultaneously is a new feature for EverWeb’s widgets, this feature has been a staple for other object types such as TextBoxes, Shapes and Images since EverWeb 1.0. Typically, you can change most aspects of the selected objects using the Shape Options and Metrics Inspectors. When updating TextBoxes, it is possible to update the text font without the text being updated at the same time. In this instance, you can only select all of the TextBoxes. You cannot select the text within more than one TextBox at any one time. Once you have selected the TextBoxes you want to update, click on the Fonts Panel button (or use the Cmd+T command) and change the font to the one you want.

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