What's the deal with 10 dynamic lists per page?

The limit of 20 dynamic lists is impeding our use of the Webflow CMS. Is it something the team plans to expand in the future - somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 or more?

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I’m also looking at about 30 for content for tabs A,B,C,D etc.

Once again, I run in to a problem that Webflow haven’t told me about before usage…

What do I do now?

Dear Webflow (and Webflow Community),

I realise I should have read the limitations first (though fully understanding these limitations prior to properly working with the CMS is very difficult)… however, I’ve just been bitten by the 20 dynamic list per page limit in a very bad way.

I have a site not far from completion that needs to use multiple dynamic lists for each sub category - in my case it’s for a restaurant/bar menu categories and items. You can see the work in progress here: http://sosq.webflow.io/menus – each menu sub-category header (eg. starters, mains) has to be manually added and in my case, the design shows many menus on one page, hence needing more than 20 lists (I actually need 30).

@brryant Is there anything I can do or you can do to save me from an embarrassing meeting with my client and a re-build?

(If anybody has a way this can be done without needing multiple dynamic lists, please let me know, thanks)

Yours hopefully,
Matt

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Im not sure if I understand, so excuse me if this is an idiotic suggestion.

But I find that sometimes we think we need dynamic list, but we could just use an dropdown selector.
I guess its going to be called starter, main etc for a long time in the future. So why not just do it manually?
You can then filter it after that drop down.

@krubens many thanks for the suggestion – I’ll look into it and report back :slight_smile:

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@krubens Unfortunately, using a dropdown does not seem to help my case.

Currently, I have a CMS collection for menu items:

  • Soup
  • Olives
  • Fish
  • Steak
  • Ice Cream
  • Cake

And a CMS collection for menu categories:

  • Starters
  • Mains
  • Desserts

I would like to use the usual menu layout:

Starters

  • Soup
  • Olives

Mains

  • Fish
  • Steak

Desserts

  • Ice Cream
  • Cake

The only way I have been able to achieve this is by creating separate dynamic lists for each menu category then use the filters to show the correct menu category items in each list (unfortunately, the menu category name must be hard-coded too).

++++ dynamic list1 > filter ‘starters’ ++++
Starters (text must be hard coded)

  • Soup
  • Olives
    +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

++++ dynamic list2 > filter ‘mains’ ++++
Mains (text must be hard coded)

  • Fish
  • Steak
    +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

++++ dynamic list3 > filter ‘desserts’ ++++
Desserts (text must be hard coded)

  • Ice Cream
  • Cake
    +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

In the site design I have, the menus for multiple sites are all on one page so I end up with needing lots of individual dynamic lists.

If I try to use dropdown menu for the menu category instead of a collection with a goal of being able to use fewer dynamic lists, I end up with a list like this (all CMS generated, no hard-coding):

++++ dynamic list1 ++++
Mains
-Fish

Mains
-Steak

Desserts
-Ice Cream

Desserts
-Cake

Starters

  • Soup

Starters

  • Olives
    +++++++++++++++++++

The main problem is how the order is based on the date added – it’s not possible to sort the list by the dropdown menu categories in any way (at least that I can see) – so I can’t specify the order the menu categories appear in.

The second problem is how the menu category names (Starters, Mains, Desserts) appear before every menu item – I don’t know how to prevent this using the CMS – I need just the first one to display (I say ‘using the CMS’ as I could attempt to display:none the unwanted ones with custom css pseudo selectors).


The only thing I can think of is to add the all content I need that exceed the 20 list limit manually (ie. without using the CMS) – my client will be able to edit the manually entered text via the CMS but will not be able to add new items themselves. I can only hope this is enough for them, or face rebuilding the whole thing using another platform!

An unfortunate situation all in all.

@brryant @thesergie Any chance of an increase in the number of dynamic lists to 30?

Hmm…

For some reason its hard for me to get my head around it. But lets see.

I would make a Collection for:

  1. DISH ( soup, olives, fish )
  2. CATEGORIES ( Starters, Mains )
  3. RESTURANT (Black swan, blind tiger)
  4. MENU

So in the MENU collection you have:

Name
Reference RETURANT
Reference DISH
Reference CATEGORY
explanation of dish
Price

So on the MENU on the PAGE you have

STARTERS (header/Title)

A dynamic list with just STARTERS

MAINS

A dynamic list with just MAINS

and so on.

Remember you can create more than one filter.
So you can create a dynamic list on a page that shows just one type of restaurant and one category and then the dish under every category.

I might still be misunderstanding… if so, Im sorry :slight_smile:

Hi @krubens sorry for the late reply – your description is just how I have it – I have a separate dynamic list for each category. The trouble is that because I am showing the menus for multiple restaurants on one page, I have more than 20 menu categories on the page.

I’ve had to hard-code much of the content which allows client to edit the text but they’re not able to add or remove menu items via the CMS for those sections which is a real shame.

I’ve added a wish-list topic for an increase in the number of dynamic lists per page. @alunj92 @Daniel_Luebke @jawtab @rowan – please shout up if you still in need of this! More than 20 dynamic lists per page - Product feedback - Forum | Webflow

Thanks

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Matt can’t you use the filter options to more effect. It took me a while to get my head wrapped around the way the CMS and filter work but now I have a large collection and then use references and switches to filter things. What if you created a switch for every restaurant? Restaurant A, B, C D.

All the client would have to do is flip a switch to access the menu for the right restaurant. I am creating a baking site and thus far I have not run into any issues. Except trying to wrap my head around how to work the CMS to my advantage.

Its a little messy right now as far as extra fields go as there was a bit of trial and error but the CMS is very powerful.

https://preview.webflow.com/preview/tweetshoppeandvintagetreasures?preview=f5afb0f1836410a7286f5f0d71856830

But why? :stuck_out_tongue:

You have
starters - Black swan
starters - Blind Tiger
and so on?

On every category, you can just chose a resturant and as @jbleroux sais, use filters.

Im pretty sure you can do it without any problems. But I have to think a lot sometimes to get my head around it.

If I get the time, I will try and do it, it might be that I think it works, but it actually doesn’t :stuck_out_tongue: wouldn’t be the first time

Hi @jbleroux @krubens thanks for your suggestions – these things are tough to explain in words! I’ll try to explain as clearly as possible but I don’t blame you if you don’t get to the end!


This is the setup:

Collection: ‘menu categories’ for the top level menu categories – tapas, drinks, cocktails, pizza, food (5 in total)

Collection: ‘menu sub-categories’ – ‘starters, mains, desserts, bar snacks, platters etc (18 in total)

5 x Collections: one for each of the restaurant items:


I need the menus to be displayed in the classic menu style – to be grouped by their sub-category and listed under their category name:

STARTERS
– Soup of the day
– Bread and olives

MAINS
– Fish and chips
– Steak

DESSERTS
– Ice cream
– Cake

DRINKS
– Beer
– Coca Cola


I can’t see a way to have one dynamic list for each restaurant menu as the filters and sort order options do not allow me to group the menu items by category order as shown above. Also, if one single dynamic list is used, the sub-category name (STARTER, MAINS etc) – gets displayed for every item, so we get the sub-category name duplicated before each dynamic list item and the filter and sort options offers no way to only show the sub-category name before the first starter, the first main etc so using one dynamic list means we end up with this:

+++++ Dynamic List filtered by restaurant +++++
STARTERS <— this gets repeated for every menu item
– Soup of the day

STARTERS <— this gets repeated for every menu item
– Bread and olives

MAINS <— this gets repeated for every menu item
– Fish and chips

MAINS <— this gets repeated for every menu item
– Steak
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


If I want to achieve the classic menu layout with dishes grouped by a single sub-category header – I have to use a separate dynamic list for each menu sub-category:

And as I’m showing so many menus on each page need to so many sub-categories per page, I hit the 20 limit.

http://sosq.webflow.io/menus


It’s quite difficult to explain!– I hope this makes some sense. I’m hoping for an ‘epiphany’ moment…

matt is the design the same you just need the info on the page to use switches. Have a list of menu items, all of them, or divided into main categories if you want.

but switches are super handy because you can display product with them or hide it.

have 5 switches have the customer turn on one for each restaurant. for each of the menu items.
Have the switch set on when you are in the particular restaurant item.

for example

I have starter
starter 1 will have a switch that is on depending on the restaurant, I want to place the item in.

restaurant 1 (switch on/off)
reastaurant 2 (switch on/off)
restaurant 3 ect. (switch on off)

initially when you pull items into your starters menu, it will show everything but then you set it in the dynamic settings to only show if switch 1 is set to on, ect.

It will create a list that only has the starters for restaurant 1 and the others will not be pulled into the list.

The idea is actually to make less dynamic lists. But link them together with references and limit what is being displayed with switches or other conditions.

I’m pretty sure this will work.

Try simplifying, create a collection with your food products in it. Create you master category collection and create a subcategories if needed. but link the stuff together with references or multireferences and collections. You have to put the references with the right collection for it to work properly, so that you can access the information and for the different restaurants. I would just create a switch that way. when the switch is on it refers to all the products from one restaurant.

Not sure how else to explain it. But you don’t need as many collections to do what you want to do.

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Running into the same probelm.
It’s 20 now. Still not enough for a Restaurant Menu.
Has anyone found a work around besides making all new pages?

Have you guys had any further luck. If I get a chance tomorrow I will try to do a quick mockup of what I am talking about. I think it may be being complicated with all you lists. You can use reference, multi-reference and switches to do what you want. check out the back end of this baking site.

https://preview.webflow.com/preview/tweetshoppeandvintagetreasures?preview=f5afb0f1836410a7286f5f0d71856830

I use one long list of food and grab it using the filter options. You are basically wanting to do the same thing but on one page which is very possible. Instead of a template you are using the collections on different sections of your page.

always
Jer

Hi @jbleroux thanks for your suggestions and apologies for my late reply.

Its not the amount of collections that is the problem, rather the number of dynamic lists (I currently have one collection for each restaurant to provide a simpler user experience for the admin when editing the menus).

I hope I’m not mis-understanding your idea – I have one collection and uses switches for each restaurant and/or categories, I still have the same problem when I try to create the usual menu layout as I can’t group a single dynamic list’s items by category (starter, main etc) and I can’t get the category name to display once before each category (eg. STARTERS item1, item2 | MAINS item1, item2 etc) so it has to be hard-coded.

I can’t see a way to use the filters or the sort order to fix these problems using one dynamic list – hence the need to use a dynamic list for each menu category.

Thanks again for your suggestions – like I say, I hope I’m not missing something obvious!

hmmm I see what you are saying. Hardcoding the headings doesn’t seem to be a big deal but for four restaurants even starters mains and desserts which is what I was trying you are at 12 dynamic lists. and you have more subs than that. Have you contacted support to see what the reasoning behind the limit?

I’m guessing maybe it is a functionality database thing. Speed issue? Maybe the menus don’t have to all be on one page. For desktop it’s ok four column but for tablet and mobile devices that would be too small and if you stack them. Way too much scrolling.

I guess you have found a limitation for what you want to achieve. I don’t know enough about other database systems but can you have infinite lists and such on other CMS’s?

I read somewhere that webflow imposed the limit for performance reasons – I imagine too many lists slows down the editor in the browser (though personally I’d happily put up with a less responsive UI to have more lists when needed!).

It is quite an unconventional design – for mobile I decided to collapse all the menus and used tabs and some custom code to expand and collapse the menu content when the tab links are tapped. It seems to work well enough considering the number of menus on one page[quote=“jbleroux, post:37, topic:19966”]
I don’t know enough about other database systems but can you have infinite lists and such on other CMS’s?
[/quote]

I’ve used Perch and Wordpress and there are no such limits (at least that I know of) – but of course we don’t get all the other stuff we like about webflow, so I suppose I’ll just have to put up with any limits for now :slight_smile:

Yeah i’m hoping as it grows, I won’t have to use a bunch of js workarounds and some of the restrictions will be gone, but overall for simplifying design nothing is faster that I have found. And Really I just keep pushing the envelope on stuff with functionality.

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