Feedback and wish list items for Webflow Symbols and cross site widgets/cross site copy and paste

[x-programmer]

The fact you can’t re-use symbols across projects. Seriously, it is a deal killer for many. You have to re-invent the wheel over and over again. Absurdly frustrating.

The problem with templates is that many times you have to combine them. And developers are used to creating their own “libraries” of objects (or “symbols”) and new projects are usually the simple exercise of putting together collections of objects.

BTW, if webflow developers are limited to customizing templates they might as well use WIX or GoDaddy DIY website tools… much, much easier to use. The true innovation lies in the ability to combine and customize objects/symbols.

I can also see a whole market of objects (or “symbols” or “widgets” or however you want to call them) where instead of buying templates you could buy individual objects with specific capabilities.

There are some really bright coders out there who would happily create amazing “symbols” that anyone could use in their projects (and Webflow serve as the platform and marketplace for those -and, obviously, curate them to insure a safe source of symbols-).

Anyway… just my 2-cents (though I am sure a lot of people share in my frustration).

[McGuire]

A common response to this is mentioning the challenge of CSS class name conflicts. In other words, imagine I’m using a universal/project-independent symbol that has three classes in it: (1) “wrapper”, (2) “section”, and (3) “container”. Now if I drag that symbol into a project that already has those classes, we have a conflict.

I think a solution to that would be to do what OS X does in the event of a filename conflict when moving files into a folder where filenames are the same. The “keep both” option simply appends a number to the end. In other words, we can simply avoid the conflict by automatically appending a “2” at the end. In the example above, our project-independent symbol’s classes would be renamed to (1) “wrapper 2”, (2) “section 2”, and (3) “container 2” upon adding the symbol to a project that’s already using those class names.

I am in complete agreement that this feature is very much needed, and I can’t think of a single bigger game-changer for designers that build site after site after site. This would save so much time.

[x-programmer]

There are many, many, many ways to deal with naming conflicts. As you mention, it could be as simple as renaming classes of imported symbols whenever a conflict is detected.

Or the solution could be simpler though not as elegant as a drag and drop: the combination of a symbol clipboard (which they could call “Personalized Symbol Library”) and a clunky yet effective wizard.

I think the Webflow developers are stuck in this issue because they want an elegant drag and drop solution instead of opting for a multistep process that might involve one or more dialog boxes. Sometimes the perfect is the enemy of the good (and, in this case, indispensable).