Default settings for new groups: đŸ’©

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Some feedback that I feel compelled to scream very loudly about:

In the last Bubble Boost, the default settings for new groups was changed to 40px min height & fit width to content.

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Yes, we have been asking for different defaults forever, but this change did not actually solve the original problem. Ask any developer, and they’ll say they STILL have to change these two settings for probably 95% of the groups they create.

That’s like all day long. It’s more than a paper cut. It’s crazy-making.

I would love to hear what other Bubblers think about what these settings should be. I’ll start:

  • Minimum height: Please change this to something like 10px min height. No bigger than 20. And not 0 - we all get that 0 wouldn’t work. It should be small enough to not have to re-size if the group includes only a single line of text.
  • Fit Width to Content: This should be unchecked. It is so rare that a group needs this setting. The only thing it’s really useful for is buttons. Please please please uncheck it by default. (And while you’re at it, please uncheck it for input fields and repeating groups, too!)

Now, if I may rant for a moment


I understand that there is a line you all have to tread, catering to various experience levels and building styles. I can absolutely empathize with that - there is obviously no way to make everyone happy in all cases (aside from allowing us to set our own defaults, ahem). But I can’t see how the settings that were chosen are useful for anyone - beginner or not. I have heard that a lot of discussion was had on the Bubble team about these specific settings (I would LOVE to have been a fly on the wall for those conversations). But the bottom line is, the wrong solution won out, and I would humbly ask your team to find and ship one that actually solves the problem.

Truly, I want to be the kind of human who’s just grateful an effort was made. It feels bad to complain like this. And I’m sure it must be so demoralizing for your team when you do the thing you think we want and we just moan about a few pixels in return. But here’s the thing - when an update like this misses the mark, the only thing it accomplishes is an even stronger feeling that decisions at Bubble are not thoroughly, thoughtfully considered from a developer’s perspective, and that the people making these decisions do not actually USE this platform.

It’s demoralizing for us, as well.

And at this point, this sort of bloop’d update has happened frequently enough that I think a lot of us are just primed to be pre-annoyed about any change. I won’t pretend I know anything about how to execute something like this better. But it doesn’t seem like whatever process you’ve got going right now is actually working well for your users or for your team.

Anyways. Please consider making this change.

I :blue_heart: Bubble.

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Simple solution to make everyone happy, but that for some reason, Bubble leadership just doesn’t seem to understand: Add tons of dev personalization/preferences options, with this being one of them. Same thing for a number’s “formatted as” especially for the 20 click-currency settings. Alternative would be to just remember the last settings used. So if you’re always setting it to 0 and not fit width, that’s what should be remembered.

And as I said on the call with the boys – something else that the leadership doesn’t seem to appreciate: We know that the Bubble Boosts were a huge hit with the entire community. Why not dedicate a small team to ship boosts every day or every week of every month??

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100% agree with Kelly.

I’m still needing to change those two settings almost every time I create a group.

I can’t understand why the Bubble team went to the effort of changing the defaults
 but then chose the wrong defaults.

Please fix this first, and then at some point please also go through all of the other elements and change the defaults
 there are still some wacky settings on loads of them e.g. inputs, dropdowns, checkboxes are all fixed width by default.

Thank you for reading, we still love you Bubble team.

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This is exactly the feeling it creates.

RE the main request here, it doesn’t make any difference if the default minimum height is 40, 400, or 4000. I will have to change it to 10px after creating a group.

And uncheck the ‘fit width to content’.

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So right Kelly!

And if Bubble really thinks users need these 40px min height + fit width to content enabled by default
 is it not about time that we can set our own defaults? A little checkbox to enable default fit width to content for example?

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@heythere it needs to be 0. I will fight you on this.

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May be too much to ask but being able to set my own defaults would be :exploding_head:

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I agree with @brenton2 .

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There’s no need to have a custom default for this, which would surely be a lot more effort. Just change it to what Kelly has suggested. The vast majority of groups are set that way and it’s a pain in the a$$ to change it every time.

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Creating a fake user to agree with might be the nerdiest thing I’ve ever seen on the bubble forums. Respect.

But say why 0. I require a rationale.

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Oh no, here it goes @fede.bubble @brenton.strine :rofl:

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I want to know what @brenton2 thinks of @brenton.strine comments

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The screenshot made me chuckle - it’s quite comical how the height change was supposedly a step in the right direction while effectively not changing much, and the fit to width was just insult to injury :laughing: it often makes entire screens get squished to oblivion when grouped

The Bubble team has been doing some amazing work - for example on improving the reliability and stability of the platform over the last few months. Such a monumental technical effort, and so important for the future of the ecosystem as a whole. We really cant thank them enough for their work.

But then to miss the mark on something as silly as default widths and heights of groups


We should focus on the positives - but we are reminded of this annoying little setting way too many times per day

I completely agree with you 10-12px default height, no fit to content- and way more boost days!

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I wonder if bubble devs actually use their own product, surely they would know by now how painful this is for users.

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I can’t speak for @brenton2 , who is clearly a different, but bvery smart and handsome person from me, but IMHO, the real question is WHY 10??? What actual benefit does giving groups 10 pixels of height have?

I dare anyone to say the reason is drag and drop. Do you know what happens when you try to drop an element in the design canvas? It doesn’t matter if your group is 10 px or 40 or 500, it’s not going to land where you want. And if, nay, WHEN that happens, you better hope you’re not a beginner. You better be a seasoned pro, able to draw on all your powers of deduction and intuition to find that element before it ruins your app. Because that’s what it wants to do. Why do you think it didn’t stay where you dropped it? It’s because it wants to wreck everything by hiding in some undiscoverable place, and stay there until after you push to prod and real users are trying to click on that button and then BAM that group rears it’s ugly 10px head and pushes something out of alignment and that click on that button? Isn’t happening.

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Bruh. Chill.

I was just thinking because if the contents end up collapsing that the container can size down to 0.

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@heythere welcome to the party

@brenton.strine reason for 10px min or 20px min in height with nothing greater than 20px is not for drag and drop. It is so that a user can see that the element was actually placed onto the canvas, because with a height of 0px, well, the height is 0px and not visible, so will lead to confusion by a user as to whether or not the element is now actually on the canvas.

The reason for no more than 20px and likely 10px is a better maximum, is because of text elements. Sometimes a group is there just as a container of a text element, needed for design purposes, and it is not likely a text element font size is less than 10px, so the 10px group height will not negatively impact the spacing/design of the position of the text element.

Needs to be big enough for somebody to see it was dropped onto the canvas, but small enough that it doesn’t interfere with most developers typical design needs, and no checked defaults like fit width, especially on groups.

Width 10px min, no max no fit width
Height 10px min no max no fit height to content

OR

Give us access via the styles tab to set the height and width so we can create our own styles

OR

Give us a universal settings area where we can set the defaults for each element type individually

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Couldn’t agree more on this!

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Noooooooo I actually like fit height to content for groups!

Everything @boston85719 said. I could not have said any of it better. Except the fit height to content thing. Hard disagree.

I’m with you on drag/drop. A group needs to be huge for dragging anything into it successfully. And even then, it’s glitchy. My 10px rec doesn’t have anything to do with drag/drop.

No bueno. Especially if you have gap spacing. Then you have this invisible group that creates a bunch of extra space b/c you have two gaps in a row. You gotta have show/hide conditional for stuff like this, or your spacing ends up all wonky. I did a whole talk on wonky spacing, in case you didn’t know. :wink:

Yup. Or as @alxgrepe said in one of the Bubble group chats yesterday


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It’s a little funny to imagine them all testing this out and being like “Nailed it, guys!”

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For me, the issue is not so much the height of a Group when you create it


I think 10px or even 40px is fine then - (although fit height to content should DEFINITELY be the default).

The issue is when you Group existing elements into a group (especially a row).

In this case, it should be obvious that the desired behaviour should always be Fit Height to Content with 0 minimum height. Making the min height 40px here (or anything other than 0) makes no sense at all.

The menu item says ‘Group elements into a row’.

It doesn’t say ‘Group elements into a row and add a load of extra space at the bottom for no good reason’.

And all groups should always be created with no max width and fit width to content unchecked.

But really, as someone else pointed out already (and due to the clear disparity in opinions on this), a simple global setting in the editor to define the default settings for groups is all that’s need to resolve this.

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