I personally think Freeway is still the most intuitive app out there FOR TABLE BASED LAYOUTS. The very mention of tables is a heinous crime worthy of burning at the stake for the Responsive Designers among use, but what I say is nevertheless the truth. I love Freeway for legacy layouts and would never in a million years use another app for that. But we all know the web these days is Responsive or going Responsive. And for that, Freeway never appealed to the web design newbie or even to people like me who have used Freeway since 1999. Sure, many people surpassed me and they love to gloat about that. More power to them. I’m stupid. I’m a dummy. I admit that. And that’s why the old SoftPress motto appealed to me: “For those (James Wages) who don’t see the world as code.” But to get things done in Freeway, modern things, you need a lot of code and fiddling. I hate that.
But even though Sparkle looks like it can be learned in 30 minutes, can I accomplish the same in Sparkle as I have been doing in Freeway? I must admit I am skeptical. And is Sparkle better than the other app Macworld was pitching? And what of Rapid Weaver? Rapid Weaver + Stacks + Foundation looks to beat them all, except on long term cost.
But since my sites are still in a legacy table-based format, I am still happily using Freeway. But as I have been saying in this thread, a year or so from now, Freeway may no longer work and are we really going to forgo OS updates only to keep using Freeway for table-based layout? I think that would be rather silly, which is why I, like so many of you, and exploring other possibilities.
–James Wages
freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
I noticed that Xara Web Designer 365 Premium hasn’t been mentioned as another option. I originally came across Xara software several years ago after searching for a good graphics and photography application.
Xara Photo and Graphic Designer is the other title that I use for photo editing work. I also do quite a bit of HDR photography on both Mac and Windows. Recently I installed Bootcamp so I could use several very good apps including Xara in particular.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Serif comes out with a web design application for the Mac in the future as that company has recently discontinued WebPlus on the Windows platform.
I am quite shocked about the situation with Softpress. Best wishes to all the staff and everyone in their future work.
freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
What I’m looking for is another application with which I can download my website from the internet, rework it some, then upload it from the new application.
My website (in footer), which I’ve painstakingly built in Freeway over the past 12 years, has about 375 mobile-friendly pages. I’m 73 years old, fairly low tech, and don’t have enough remaining energy to tackle reconstructing my website one page at a time in new software. The thought of that is intimidating and probably not doable at this point in my life.
I appeal to those of you who know other applications well: are there any other than Dreamweaver that will do what I need? That is, allow me to download my entire website from the internet and reupload it from the new software?
If not, it appears my only option is to continue with Freeway 7 Pro until some future Mac OS upgrade becomes incompatible with Freeway. Thanks for any options or advice you might offer.
freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
Depending on how much reworking you need to do, it may be worth having a look at Pinegrow. I had some success loading an entire site built in Freeway and Pinegrow rendered it perfectly, allowing me to make changes to text/images but anything more than that would require some coding.
Thomas made a video showing how this is done (it was this video that encouraged me to have a go)
Mark
On 23 Jul 2016, 4:41 am, Jim Feeney wrote:
What I’m looking for is another application with which I can download my website from the internet, rework it some, then upload it from the new application.
My website (in footer), which I’ve painstakingly built in Freeway over the past 12 years, has about 375 mobile-friendly pages. I’m 73 years old, fairly low tech, and don’t have enough remaining energy to tackle reconstructing my website one page at a time in new software. The thought of that is intimidating and probably not doable at this point in my life.
I appeal to those of you who know other applications well: are there any other than Dreamweaver that will do what I need? That is, allow me to download my entire website from the internet and reupload it from the new software?
If not, it appears my only option is to continue with Freeway 7 Pro until some future Mac OS upgrade becomes incompatible with Freeway. Thanks for any options or advice you might offer.
I just finished watching Thomas’ video, and thank you, Thomas, for making that. Pinegrow may not help you grow a forest in your yard, but it seems to be the “HTML importer” we have all wanted for YEARS in Freeway. That doesn’t necessarily make it a perfect choice for editing though, and I’ll need to look at the Trial more closely to assess its merits.
I should add to this discussion by saying that we need to take care with our “Freeway replacement.” This evening I discovered the Macaw app for the first time and noted how very intuitive it is AND it apparently creates very lean and beautiful code too. Then I looked closer and found the company is now closing its doors, having sold out to InVision.
Clearly, choosing a company that’s been around for a while and has a growing user base would likely be our safest bet. Not sure about the company behind Pinegrow, but RapidWeaver has been around for a long time and doesn’t appear to be headed into closure anytime soon. And I must admit that Joe Workman is really a working man with all the video tutorials he’s handcrafted to get users up and running. Blocs and Sparkle apps have their own unique WYSIWYG appeal. They just haven’t been around as long, so who knows how long they’ll stick around.
–James Wages
LINKS:
MACWORLD Review of Sparkle 1.2.3, with links to review of Blocs 1.3 (noting that both apps are at version 2.0 now):
freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
I’m kind of surprised Macaw was picked up by InVision, though they do seem to have their meaty paws in everything.
(They also won’t stop sending me emails either, even after contacting "customer service”. Pricks)
After the considerable hype Macaw really turned out to kind of a dud. I’m glad I never bought a license. I’m curious to see what InVision (pricks) does with it.
Todd
Office (Chicago): 312.212.3955
freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
" Blocs and Sparkle apps have their own unique WYSIWYG appeal. They just haven’t been around as long, so who knows how long they’ll stick around."
That was my concern as well. When I saw that the Freeway youtube video on making a responsive site had 30K views, and Caleb’s backdraft had almost 5 (numbers which to me would have indicated a healthy business for SoftPress) it seemed futile to assume or expect anything about any of them. Maybe it was thirty people looking at that video one thousand times.
I went with Sparkle just because it serves me well. All I have are slide shows, video and audio files so simple was going to be fine. In the end I just picked what I liked and will hope for the best.
I kind of wanted to see their financials before diving in, however…
freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
I too got used to FW for the box model which was responsive enough, at least for screen size, long before breakpoints. But Sparkle appears to do all of that intuitively in a desktop publishing way, with none of the myriad settings such as Fixed% width, Clear, Float. It even allows overlapping elements easily.
As for whether you can accomplish the same in Sparkle, see here:
Also built-in are Google fonts, Analytics, Multiple Undo, Styles that don’t create erroneous Style1 &c., “Master” elements that appear on each page or section, and much more. The UI is even in one window which I always wanted out of FW—which works like any other native Mac app in split screen, and IMPORTANTLY supports File/Revert to previous versions.
I too was shocked and sad at the news. I’m grateful, in a way, for the how FW made me work at understanding the web (but never code!) and my first thought was I might have to give up designing new web site. But, like Ern, its demise has come as a blessing in disguise as I morph into a more user-friendly world. As someone once said: the operation was a success but the patient died.
freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
Thomas, I know in your video you expressed mild dislike for Sparkle …
Yep - indeed I did. And the promo video was only one of the reasons for.
… but the more I read, the more my right brain really likes those guys…
I’m not wasting a second in products, mocking and denying the “language” it is built on. Just for the sake of playing the Code Nanny for some “clients”?
Re: Sparkle
I’ve checked it out and, while it may be a great solution for many, It doesn’t have anywhere near enough pro level features to be a viable alternative for me. My sites are intended to drive businesses having average unit sales of around $4,000.00 a pop. To be frank, however, once responsive became a key issue, I shifted my use of FW to creating a shell with menus, nested images within text elements, and a ton of HTML5 content created elsewhere, so I no longer need to stretch FW to the limit.
If someone needs a tool to put together a site without bells and whistles, Sparkle is a good solution.
freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
Trey, you may want to jump on over to our Sparkle thread and define what the “bells and whistles” are:
Seriously, when I have time, I will be going through Freeway’s entire feature set for a comparison of what’s missing. I have a gentleman who’s been emailing me off list daily on that point. A lot of people in our Freeway community are seeking a Freeway alternative. RapidWeaver + Stacks + Foundation + Joe W.'s Help Videos looks great. I simply am scrutinizing Sparkle now because if it is a viable solution, the overall cost would be much, much cheaper.
–James Wages
freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
Seriously, when I have time, I will be going through Freeway’s entire feature set for a comparison of what’s missing. I have a gentleman who’s been emailing me off list daily on that point. A lot of people in our Freeway community are seeking a Freeway alternative. RapidWeaver + Stacks + Foundation + Joe W.'s Help Videos looks great. I simply am scrutinizing Sparkle now because if it is a viable solution, the overall cost would be much, much cheaper.
In addition to earlier posts, as far if I’m being well informed: Pinegrow
and Macaw are both apps for making a template, protoptype or mockup. They
have no intention to build complete sites with it. The newer Macaw Scarlet
(the original Macaw is renamed Indigo) has more and better features for
building complete sites.
Andries
Seriously, when I have time, I will be going through Freeway’s entire
feature set for a comparison of what’s missing. I have a gentleman who’s
been emailing me off list daily on that point. A lot of people in our
Freeway community are seeking a Freeway alternative. RapidWeaver + Stacks
Foundation + Joe W.'s Help Videos looks great. I simply am scrutinizing
Sparkle now because if it is a viable solution, the overall cost would be
much, much cheaper.
So for that category of web design app, you are left with Sparkle or Blocs. (Sorry, MUSE may be in the category too, but there’s no way I’ll ever recommend a subscription based app. Never.)
James Wages
freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
