What you are referring to is called a Library. These consist of code snippets, layout options, etc that can be placed on other pages and updated in one location. This is something we are looking into, but as all things it will take time.

I see, no argumentation there at all, that's not what I was thinking the Master Page system was. Sounds like they are using a local only type of "PHP includes" which as Adam has already mentioned are basically the same thing as a Library when using Dreamweaver, allowing you repeat sections of your pages from page to page with one file only needing to be updated should you need to change it. You have my vote on that too, being used to using Libraries in Dreamweaver I would love to see that type of feature in RLM and in RSD when it's released.

As for work around with the current version of RLMP, here is the essence of what I was thinking about for new post on this topic: If I can have just one copy of coffeegrinder and wireframe-theme css files in one place and referenced just by the master page then this is pretty workable. For this to happen, the main.css file needs to contain all the unique styling for a unique child page. By carefully giving all the rows, columns, and elements class names in RLMP, I almost got this to work. However, when I tried to change the number of columns in a row at different break points, main.css didn't reflect this and I had to use new copies of coffeegrinder and wireframe-theme for that page (actually didn't test to see if I needed both of them). So, I'm not sure why some css is easy to push into main.css and some doesn't get reflected there? The only issue I actually encountered in a small test was the number of columns by changing the number of spans. Any thoughts about this?

I'm not sure there is much interest in pursuing this but I did a little test to illustrate the issue with main.css. I couldn't figure out how to use the img tag for this forum, so I set up page to illustrate (with screen shots) how RLMP managed a set of images and some text for desktop, tablet and phone screen sizes:

http://www.bikex.net/coffeescreenshots.html

Here is the main.css code:


You can see that some css is in main but not the css used to change the span of columns. Is there a way to force this into the @media sections?

I think you're overthinking this a little bit David. You don't need to add it manually it's all done for you in the program.

If you want to change your column widths in a different spot than the defaults created (if any were created at default) or other than those you already have, just create another breakpoint and change the spans at that breakpoint. It's really that simple and the program handles that transition very well actually. All the code is created for those breakpoints and everything goes to the code where it is supposed to then. There's no guessing involved which in the end is what you're doing trying to work it out manually.

Just my opinion of course

I fear we are talking past each other. I think I understand breakpoints in RLMP pretty well. Adding breakpoints manually is just not the issue.

This is about dealing with the master-child page issue where a child page has different layout in the body portion of the page from another child page. Perhaps one child page has 6 columns in the mid part of the page and another one has 3 - but both want to use the same master page layout for the top and bottom portions of their respective pages. However, each child page needs to handle breakpoints differently for their mid section.

It would be pretty reasonable to tell a MS Visual Studio developer that they need one additional css file for each child page that has unique requirements - in practice this might only be a handful of unique layouts for many pages. What is not going to be well accepted is to require all three css files to be repeated for each unique child page layout. Too much duplication. Although that approach does work because the cascading effect is such that the master page is rendered first with the initial coffee css files and then the child page is rendered with the second set of files - at least that is what my testing currently shows.

My screen shot example showed that changes like text size are in the main.css file but column span changes are not - they are only reflected somewhere in the other 2 css files. If the column span change for each breakpoint showed in the main.css this whole problem of master-child page would be quite workable.

If there is some other way of dealing with this issue that is consistent with the realities of developing in the Visual Studio world, I would definitely give it a try. Even if this is something that must wait for a future release of RLMP, I'd be happy to test it in the development stage. I have the general impression that the Coffee Cup is not always thinking about Microsoft developers and perhaps could benefit from some testers in that world.