On Friday I announced that I would be moving MacFilos from Squarespace version 5 to the all-new SS6. Since then I’ve been fiddling and honing the site in SS6 and not entirely liking what I have found (or, more precisely, what I have not found). For starters, there is a very limited range of templates compared with the land of plenty that is version 5. And no sooner do I find a template I like than I discover vital functions missing.
Some lack an author’s by-line and it cannot be added. Some even lack a visible date in the published post; it cannot be added. Share buttons, which most of us have stopped using, seem to be hard-wired into all the templates and cannot be deleted. Some Markdown features, including block quotes, do not translate properly into the text editor. There is a facility to add a block-quote widget but this is cumbersome and the result is a double-space typographical nightmare which defies editing. All in all, I found two templates I liked, but each lacked at least one vital feature I need.
My developer verison of MacFilos is thus locked in limbo in Squarespace 6 and I shall continue for the time being with Squarespace 5. I now know the current system like the back of my hand (almost) and I have taken the opportunity to change the colours and spruce it up a little.
All this is a pity. Over the weekend I have spent a lot of time chatting to Squarespace help desk gurus and have lost count of the times I’ve been told that a particular feature is not currently supported but that it will be added to the feature request.
Naïvely, I imagined we were no longer at beta stage. I am disappointed.