Multi-ref fields are a compelling feature, but they are hugely limited and difficult to work with.
They have administrative limits;
- The ordering of these fields is fixed, so you must add items in the specific sequence you want them to appear.
- You cannot re-order items. You must delete items from the end, to insert your needed item, and then re-add those items.
And they have presentation limits;
- When you present content from a multi-ref field in a nested Collection List, you are limited to 5 items. Yes, five.
- Those 5 cannot be filtered, or sorted- so e.g. trying to display events at a venue falls apart fast.
- Multi-refs cannot be accessed through ref field connections. If [A] has a ref to [B] and [B] has a multi-ref to [C], then a collection list bound to [A] cannot nest a collection list bound to [B]'s multi-ref.
When to avoid using multi-refs
Signs you're using them wrong
- If your multi-ref fields contain 10+ items
- If you're struggling with the inability to reorder your multi-refs
- If you feel frustrated that there is a limit of 5 in the nested Collection List, and you're searching for script hacks to overcome this
You're probably trying to use them in a way they were not intended, and your world will be full of frustration.
So what are multi-refs good for then?
Yes they do actually have valuable uses.
There are two main use cases where I find multi-refs valuable;
USE CASE #1 - Added non-essential info
Present a non-essential attribute of your items, like tags.
EXAMPLE - I have a Blog, and each Article has tags like #tech #webflow and #figma. I want each of these to be clickable, so that I can display e.g. all articles about #webflow.
I'm not going to have a ton of tags, and I don't need to show them all in the main article list page, where they'd be displayed in a nested Collection List.
On the Article collection page, I can easily show all of them, because there the tags are in a regular Collection List rather than a nested one.
This is a good use case for a multi-ref field.
USE CASE #2 - Sample sets
Display a selected sampling of related items, as a convenience.
EXAMPLE - I have a list of Products and I want to show a few of the most popular Variants. On the main catalog page, I want to list my 100 top product, each with up to 5 popular variants.
This works because again, the limit of 5 is fine, and next to those 5, I will place a link titled "See all variants".
Tips
Splitting Multi-Refs
In an [A] -> [B] => [C] setup, a CL bound to [A] cannot access [C].
A small part of this access limitation can be overcome by splitting the multi-ref field into a primary single-ref and other multi-refs field.
- Primary ref would be a ref from [B] -> [C] that represents e.g. the most important category.
- Other refs would be a multi-ref from [B] => [C] that represents additional categories.
Advantages;
- This approach allows you to access some of the data you need to display in a "most important" or "sample of" kind of way.
- It works great with tools like FS filter.
- It's easy to manage
Disadvantages;
- Need to educate clients on the split ( no duplicates )
- This setup consumes two ref fields of your 5 ( CMS plan ) or 10 ( Business plan ) limit.
