The new Toolset Blocks is of no use to me as a developer because of the extremely limited ability of Gutenberg for designing elements/layout. As I understand it we can still use the new Blocks plugin in the old way that Views works by updating the settings. But I also noticed that the Maps are legacy now too. Are we not able to use Maps with the new Blocks plugin with all the same features as before?
In a nutshell, I've very concerned that I'm going to lose one of the most powerful parts of Toolset which was Views with the maps. Is there anything we will no longer be able to do with the new Blocks plugin? Toolset is a huge part of my WordPress "Stack" and I just want to prepare myself if we are going to lose any functions or features because you've gone the Gutenburg route. -Thanks!
Views and Blocks plugins are essentially the same, but with different settings for the default UI, and with either plugin active you can change that at Toolset > Settings. (I recommend installing Blocks rather than Views, which is being hidden behind the legacy tab in the downloads page.)
If you do use the Block editor and its View block then the way it works with Maps is different than how it works with the legacy interface.
But if you have chosen to use the legacy editor then it works just the same way as before, you create the View and in the Loop editor section you use the Fields and Views button to insert shortcodes for the map (outside the loop) and the markers (inside the loop).
There are times where innovation will happen in Blocks where legacy Views gets left behind. Off the top of my head, the styling options for Views filters are currently very limited, and when we improve that it is likely to be done in Blocks and won't translate to Views. But I can't think of major features in Maps that would not be available in legacy. The next main update for Maps will be to add support for OpenStreet maps for example, and I'd expect that to work in either.
We are aware there is a core of users that don't like Blocks and the legacy interfaces should be maintained for a long time, even if the innovation happens elsewhere.
It's not that we don't like Blocks it's that Blocks will never, ever, be able to do what you can do with straight HTML and CSS b/c the UI would need to be enormous to give us the flexibility of CSS and HTML. Blocks is good for very simple designs with slight modifications but what we do is provide clients with unlimited possibilities, imagination is the only limitation.
I know that toolset is all about "building without coding" but it's also extremely helpful for building out post-types, fields, relationships, and views with solid and flexible queries faster than hand-coding. I'm not sure who else is using toolset as a framework and then taking control of over the layout with css/html as we do but to think you're going to start to limit what can be done with the shortcodes for any part of Toolset is very dishearting. I hope you can find it in your hearts to support the most active and knowledgeable part of your community as you move forward. We've been here supporting you all the way, I hope you value that even if we are not the biggest set of your client base. -Best Regards Benjamin
Hello. Thank you for contacting the Toolset support.
I understand your concern Benjamin like few other clients and it totally makes sense.
But as Nigel shared his feedback, We will keep supporting the legacy plugins but the only difference is we want to make Blocks as powerful plugin as legacy views so you wont require to switch to legacy views. We will keep adding features to blocks and keep supporting views.
