Why I upgraded my Squarespace site and what I learned from it
It’s been awhile since Squarespace launched the latest version 7.1. I recall my intense frustration with the new platform and my resistance at moving away from 7.0 and my beloved Brine template. I’m not sure what prompted me to give 7.1 another chance but I had an entirely different experience the second time around and there was no turning back.
Fast forward to 2022 and Squarespace launched their new editor on 7.1 called Fluid Engine. I also work in WordPress/Elementor and Wix so it was love at first site, albeit with a few glitches they needed to work out. It’s a true drag and drop WYSIWYG with added bells and whistles for additional fonts, background colors, shapes and so much more!
All that to say that during all these updates and changes, my personal site has since remained on 7.0 until last week when Squarespace offered the ability for Circle Members to update from 7.0 to 7.1 without having to copy the site and resubscribe. I needed a guinea pig and what better guinea than me. Here’s what I learned.
Squarespace does the heavy lifting.
Upgrading from 7.0 to 7.1 is as simple as a click and only takes a few minutes.
It’s low risk.
The new version is delivered to you in the form of a staging site so the live site remains unaffected.
SUPER IMPORTANT that not all elements from older sites translate. For example, on this site created for artist, Carlos Paz using the Greenwich template from the Brine family; the navigation placement over the banner image is not an option. Of course this could be achieved with code but this is a great example of the low risk benefit. We agreed the navigation placement added to the overall design and with a click, I was able to cancel the upgrade and maintain the design on 7.0
Expect clean-up.
While the upgrade is seamless, my experience is that certain elements of the design do not translate. I’ve noticed the most discrepancies in logo size, fonts, spacing and the new ability to make direct changes on the mobile view. I recommend either making a note of fonts used on the current site or having another window open and using the Chrome extension WhatFont or something similar.
Not all elements translate to the same type of block.
For example, on my site I created a gallery for screenshots for all of my projects, using categories to add them in a summary block to the various pages. In 7.0, I was limited to 30 images so I needed to create multiple categories if I wanted to add more than 30.
In the transfer to 7.1, it removed the summary block and placed them in a gallery which IMO makes it so much easier to maintain as there are no limits and no categories to maintain. It’s also much easier to rearrange items. Big, happy, waving thumbs up Squarespace!
Fluid Engine is a separate upgrade.
With 7.1, you currently have the ability to maintain the design on the Classic Editor or Fluid Engine. This can be done by page and section.
Will my CSS break?
Good question and I don’t know the answer but any CSS added to the 7.0 site will be commented out. Remembering you are on the safety of a staging environment, it’s the perfect sandbox to test the code before pushing it to the live site and new version.
Mobile. Mobile. Mobile.
IMO one of the biggest perks of 7.1 is the ability to make adjustments directly on the mobile view. While not as robust as Wordpress/Elementor or Wix in their capabilities to customize on mobile, it’s head and shoulders above 7.0. If you are doing this yourself, it’s a super important not to forget to do this step as their default is rarely (and by this I mean never) ready for public viewing.
Will the cost of my plan increase?
This is an unknown long-term but there was no mention or indication of a price change when I made the change to my site and to quite a few client sites now. Squarespace always has the right to increase plan costs year over year but nothing advertised to date that I am aware of.
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SUMMARY
Overall I couldn’t be more thrilled with my upgrade and the user experience. It addressed some of the pain points of my old site in particular the way I showcase my work and the ability to update it. It’s much easier for me and I feel a renewed excitement as a redesign has been on my to-do list for ages.
