Foundry 3 Frequently Asked Questions
I’ve been seeing many of the same questions pop up over the past few days regarding Foundry 3. Even though a lot of these are covered in the Frequently Asked Questions section of the Foundry site I wanted to take some time to make a pinned post here on the forum to help everyone out. So let’s dive right in and get started.
Question: Can I upgrade my current Foundry 2 site to Foundry 3?
Answer:
Foundry 3 has been completely re-engineered from the ground up. Every tool has been re-written from scratch. These changes bring more power and speed to both Foundry and your sites, while maintaining drag-and-drop ease. Because of this, Foundry 3 is not backwards compatible with Foundry 2.
But don’t fret just yet! Foundry 2 and Foundry 3 safely co-exist in your Stacks library with no problem. This means you can use the latest and greatest Foundry 3 for building new, modern sites, or retooling old ones from the ground up, while still maintaining existing sites with Foundry 2.
Question: Can I use tools from Foundry 2, Potion and or Thunder in Foundry 3?
Answer:
No. Foundry 3 is a complete new and separate product from Foundry 2. This is especially true of the underlying code that powers these two separate products. While Potion and Thunder may seem like separate things from Foundry 2 itself, they are built to interface with Foundry 2. Because of this when I built Foundry 3 I made sure to bring many of the features of Potion and Thunder into the tools found in Foundry 3. This not only streamlines things for you as the user, but also means not needing to purchase additional add-on packs of tools for Foundry 3.
Question: I can’t seem to find a specific tool, or functionality from Foundry 2 in Foundry 3.
Answer:
In building Foundry 3 I worked very hard on making lightweight code. This came with eliminating jQuery. This is a good thing. It removes reliance on this large javascript library and eliminates possible conflicts between jQuery in Foundry and other 3rd-party developer’s tools. In doing so though I had to rethink and rework many of the tools. Some of them didn’t have immediate 1-to-1 counterparts. A couple of examples that have come up once or twice would be the Motion tool and Table CSV tool from Foundry 2. In the case of Motion I think there could be a possibility of creating a CSS only based version of the tool. It’ll take time to develop so it will have to be done once the support queue from the F3 release calms down some. The latter, Table CSV, probably doesn’t have as good of an alternative. While I think the new Table tool, and its new features (like drop zones in cells) is pretty great, I know a small number of people like to import CSV files into a table. I’d encourage you to find a CSV import tool from another developer on the RapidWeaver Marketplace, or do a manual table creation using the Table tool, or a Markdown-based table in the Paragraph tool.
Question: Can I use Elixir’s Alloy blogging tool with Foundry 3?
Answer:
Yes. In fact I’ve added a small shim tool for Alloy, aptly named F3 shim, that you simply add to your Alloy pages when using the Blog Entries or Editor tools on a page. So for your blog or editor pages just add the F3 Shim right below your Alloy Control Center and you’ll be good to go.
Question: Can I use Elixir’s Flux tool with Foundry 3?
Answer:
Yes, of course. Flux has never been a Foundry only tool. It can be used within any theme or framework, including Foundry 3.
Question: Can I use other third-party Stacks addons from other developers with Foundry 3?
Answer: Yes, you can use other 3rd-party Stacks addons from other developers within Foundry. I work to make sure most other tools outside of Foundry will function inside of Foundry. With so many third-party addons out there though, there’s no way for me to possibly know, test or list them all.
Question: Why is the Paragraph tool Markdown based in Foundry 3?
Answer:
This one is a long one. Please see this post as I expound on the topic here: Regarding the change to Markdown for the Paragraph tool in Foundry 3
Question: Is there a Gallery tool in Foundry 3?
Answer:
I didn’t include a Gallery tool specifically as I thought it would be easier to get more unique galleries using the modular tools. I’ve included a few examples in the Maker template pack you get with your purchase. I went this direction as a dedicated Gallery tool would be limiting the layout much more than simply creating your own gallery designs using the various modular tools. Check out the gallery examples in the Maker Template pack that comes free in the Extras folder with your purchase. If there’s a call for a dedicated tool, that is possible, but I feel like you’ll get a better design using the modular tools of F3 to make your own design.
Question: Can I use both Bootstrap Icons and FontAwesome icons on the same page?
Answer:
Technically, I suppose you could. But you don’t want to for two reasons. (1) Font icon libraries are big already. Loading two is asking for slower page load times. (2) You want to likely keep a consistent look to your page throughout. Both libraries contain beautiful icons, but they’re both two distinct styles. This is why in fact I have both available. Only load one of them.