BlocksBox is literally a blank page when you first bring it up in RW's Preview mode, but there are categories of variations that allow you to quickly style the layout for your website. The variations in the Theme Inspector include: background color using the color picker, a custom background image, background image position, background image repeat (horizontally, vertically, or both), top spacing, header logo, font, font size, text color and styling using the color picker, photo album styling, blog styling, file sharing styling and contact form styling. These variations let you define some constants throughout your website, but everything else can be as dynamic as you wish since it is all added through Blocks.
RapidWeaver users are so accustomed to the navigation menu being one of the defining features of a theme that it can be a bit awkward to envision a theme without a navigation menu. The Blocks plugin provides the flexibility to create your menu with BlocksBox -- using plain text, image text or images you've collected or created yourself. Blocks' mouseover feature for images presents some particularly exciting options for your navigation menu where you can create some really cool hover effects for the menu options.
For my testing I created a splash page for a website using BlocksBox. I used a repeating image horizontally and vertically for the background of the site and placed the logo in the top left-corner of my Blocks page. I then added some text in a text block and added some text images I created in Photoshop for the menu options. Using the mouseover feature I animated the menu links by having them change colors on hover. In about 20 minutes I had a nice-looking splash page that doesn't look like something normally created in RapidWeaver. The BlocksBox-included variations made it especially easy to accomplish an attractive background without knowledge of CSS.
As it exists in its current version, BlocksBox is quite a powerful tool for creating a completely original website. The limitations I noticed were on account of what is expected to exist in a "normal" RapidWeaver theme. Typically a Blocks page will be the content area of your website that fits into a structured content container, but in the case of BlocksBox the Blocks page is the website, so that means that you will need to create the containers and divisions of your site's layout using lines and/or graphics if that's what you want. Graphic designers or people with some graphic skill will benefit when using BlocksBox -- not to say that BlocksBox users need to have graphic design skills to create something impressive. By the way, there is a nice showcase at the JonasThemes website that will give you some examples of the power behind BlocksBox.
Jonas has given me a beta version of his next update to BlocksBox, and at first glance it appears the new features will address some of the perceived limitations. At the least the update presents options that will make the design process even easier, so I look forward to the public release of this update in the future. And speaking of Jonas, I asked him to answer a few questions for me and so I will close-out this article with some insight from the BlocksBox Man himself!
RapidWeaved: How did your idea for BlocksBox come about?
Jonas: At first I build websites using the standard RapidWeaver themes. But after making about three websites I wanted to be able to have more influence on the layout. Because of the predefined layout in RapidWeaver I was forced using iWeb instead. But then I missed all the great page-styles and plug-ins, so I switched back and found the solution in using really minimal themes in combination with Blocks. I still wondered why there was no theme made specially for Blocks. I contacted Isaiah from Yourhead and he was shocked as well that no theme-developer created it yet. At that moment I never wrote a single line of code but three weeks later the first (not so stable version) of BlocksBox was launched to my own surprise.
RapidWeaved: What were some of the challenges you faced while developing the theme?
Jonas: The biggest challenge was to learn all the necessary code (.plist xhtml and css) and at the same time writing the BlocksBox-theme. I learned a lot during the development. And actually I still do not like writing codes but that's why I wrote BlocksBox.
RapidWeaved: How dependent is BlocksBox on the Blocks plugin? Can the theme be used without Blocks?
Jonas: BlocksBox has been written with Blocks in mind. BlocksBox can't function normal without it. Due to page-blocks most other page types can be imported into the Blocks pagestyle. BlocksBox makes Blocks a lay-out editor instead of just a content editing plug-in.
RapidWeaved: Since you started with a virtually limitless theme, do you see yourself creating more themes in the future?
Jonas: I am having some more theme ideas but at the moment I want BlocksBox to be better and more customizable first.
RapidWeaved: What are your plans concerning updates/upgrades for BlocksBox?
Jonas: I am currently working on a major BlocksBox upgrade. In the new version people do not need to enter the theme if they want custom background and it will also be possible to use the standard RW menu-system. Due to my study it may take some more time then originally planned but it will be sweet. Besides the theme the website will be updated as well with a lot more information.
