Design Customization vs Globals Nested?

(Tbaatar) #1

Hi,

I was wondering what are the pros and cons of using Globals Nested vs Design Customization in in the Design File for static code like the Main Nav, Off Canvas Nav and Footer links?

Many thanks.
T

(Bart Banda) #2

I assume you mean Globals Keywords?

In the Design, it’s always best to use a Nested Design area and then nest a Standard page in that has you include content such as Footer Links and Aside content.

Navs for things like Main Menus and Secondary Menus are best implemented using the menu design area as it’s better for performance, and also gives you easier control of active/hierarchy states of menu items when they are printed.

Hopefully that helps.

(Tbaatar) #3

I always thought using too many design customisation had affect on performance. The navigation that we are using not going to work with menu design areas.

Out of interest what are the cons for using Global keyword e.g %globals_asset_contents_raw:X% to pull in static page contents?

Thanks.

(Marcus Fong) #4

For sitewide static page contents that might work, but if there’s even a hint of a possibility that the contents might vary depending on the page URL then I’d really advise against it.

I’ve seen something like that tried before for general page content, and it had very bad effects with Matrix caching (i.e. pages displaying completely the wrong content, because the content was cached against the design asset shared between pages).

(Tbaatar) #5

Hi Marcus,

Thanks for the feedback. Most of the static content is menu e.g main menu and off canvas mobile menu. There are few dynamic elements such as e-mail signup form and search form. So will need to test these.

Thanks.
T

(Bart Banda) #6

Design customisations, yes, but not design areas. But overall, the more you have the longer it just takes to regenerate the parse file. For most site designs you shouldn’t need more than 5 or 6 nested design areas, even if you have 10 or so it’s still fine.

If you use %globals_asset% keywords directly in the parse file as well, they won’t work when viewing the page/design in simple edit (/_edit), which can have negative/unexpected results.

(Tbaatar) #7

Hi Bart,

Thanks for the feedback. Good to know the limitations.

T