You are right, I don’t know a lot about Serif. You are 100% correct in “rallying the troops” for those that want that feature. Its the only way to convince companies to do something. Good luck!
I am very happy with where I am though. My offer above still stands to everyone here that is looking for a alternate tangible solution now.
freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
Joe W.,
I can only add that all my sites are built with Freeway 7 and I am happy to continue using Freeway until the tires come off and the engine explodes. Hopefully, Serif (or some other brilliant software company I’ve not seen yet) can do that before disaster strikes me.
Best wishes,
James Wages
freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
A very sad day - Softpress was more like family to me than a workplace - from 1993 as the first employee - and I still feel a part of that family today.
I feel that we all created something great together and I am sad that the work will no longer continue.
It’s great to see so many kind words from the community here and I hope you can continue to use Freeway in your work as long as possible to create great and beautiful things.
My best wishes to Richard, Joe and the rest of the team as we say goodbye.
Vanessa Gregory
(former Tech Director and developer)
freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
One of the things I, like many others will be doing, is to see what’s out there, and clearly RapidWeaver will be on one of the applications to look at. So it’s good that Joe W has joined - we need as much information as we can get about what tools will allow us to evolve and move forward.
It does seem that RapidWeaver and Freeway are very different beasts. From the off, Freeway was born out of the ashes of Unicorn - a DTP application, which explains why it is and why it behaves like it does. The concept of templates is really an anathema -Freeway always, always works best when you start with a blank page and start drawing elements on the page.
RapidWeaver, from what I can glean, takes the opposite approach. It uses templates, and lets the user customise them to a certain degree. It seems that you can’t just start with a blank document and draw an element on a page. Its behaviour appears to be more like iWeb - when content is preordained, and you work within constraints.
Now, I’ve been trying to see what I can find out about RapidWeaver, and to be honest seeing how things work helps. I found a website - http://rapidweavercommunity.com/tutorials - which may contain what I need to help me determine how RapidWeaver works, and how I could potentially use it in my web work (which can involve a lot of PHP and database driven content) but anything beyond the basics seems to require a subscription.
So not sure at the moment - possibly RW is just not for me. It’s certainly very basic, but are its limitations just too great for me?
As James said, Serif are doing some great things with Affinity - in fact, I’ve pretty much dropped Adobe for their products. When I saw their responsive demonstration that James mention,d that really did make me think that they had the basis of a responsive web design application there - and their interface and tools are really familiar, so it won’t be starting from scratch. I really believe that now the decks are clear (as it were), they could easily repurpose their DTP app to build web pages. I’d certainly be there taking a very keen interest of they were.
freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
With Freeway Pro can make projects like this, and today I share with pride My support the team of Softpress Thanks
and this helped me gain target and earn more.
Thanks
Softpress Team,
Richard Logan and Joe Billings & All Team
freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
Paul - RW is no longer just a template - it has powerful freeform design capabilities. The Foundation stacks by JW, when you open is literally a blank page, you are free to do whatever ya like - add raw HTML, Scripts, or just drop in one of hundreds of stacks - that can be 100% customized. I would never have left FW if RW could not do this - but I have never looked back. I’m happy to demo some sites created with freeform design (Foundation/Stacks) and RW.
Here’s the RW Foundation home page https://foundation.joeworkman.net
These are basic - its come along way since then but def work checking out - Getting Started with Foundation: Part 1 - YouTube
freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
Oh dear… like a bad dream… I never thought Softpress would go away.
I wish to thank you all for your support over the years… With FW I found a second career, one that I cherish…and will continue using FW with my fellow teachers who I have been fortunate to work with over the years.
I will need to process the ramifications of all this.
xo
freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
Justin E.,
Thank you for the 2 links. I didn’t find information about “breakpoints” until 6 minutes into your second video, but I see that only 3 are offered (which is perhaps all you would need):
Mobile (cell phones)
Tablet
Desktop (everything else)
Since you have experience with RW + Stacks + Foundation, would you be able to say how it deals with 2-byte languages like Japanese and Chinese? For example, we can use web fonts easily for English, but unless you restrict yourself to KATAKANA or HIRAGANA in Japanese, you wouldn’t be able to use web fonts due to their multi-megabyte sizes. So instead, I must specify Meiryo, MS P Gothic, Osaka and the like as a font set in Freeway. How does all this work in your RW setup?
From about 16:00 in your second video link, it talks a little about the 3 types of images (mobile/tablet/desktop) that can be used, but how I do ensure Retina graphics (144ppi) are visible on any platform (i.e., that graphics always look sharp on hi-rez displays)? And is it possible to get your page to serve 72ppi graphics to low resolution displays but server the 144ppi images only to Retina displays?
Next, at 24:35, I see the “Getting Started with Foundation” text in the header smash against the “Menu” text at right when page width is minimized. That of course looks terrible, so how do you rectify it?
Next, how do you incorporate a search field into the header, akin to what I ask in the following thread?
Lastly, what is the total cost for RW, Foundation and all the Stacks we see in the 2nd video?
Thanks,
James Wages
freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
Sorry - I cant go through all this - but its all DOABLE. Nothing I read above hasn’t been done in RW. Things like 3 breakpoints? Well now you can set your own, Font pro will allow you to load up type-kits, webkits etc from your own server or Adobe /Google servers anything you want in any language at the same time.
I dont work for RW - but please go to the stores/forums/communities etc - its all there! Live and buzzing.
Cheers - now off to the boozer.
freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
After switching over to Freeway Pro from GoLive/Dreamweaver years ago I will miss the anticipation of new features with each new release.
It’s hard to find apps with as much ease of use and familiarity for a graphic designer.
Currently, I am beta testing Foundation Framer a new offering that will be available soon from Coffee Cup. This app looks pretty promising as it has built in components from the Foundation 6 framework, integrates flexbox, nice CSS control, uses a grid system, has a lot of standard elements with drag and drop simplicity and is very responsive friendly with the ability to add multiple breakpoints and uses a visual slider to see how everything flows for different screen sizes.
freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
@Frank: I’m testing Responsive Site Designer and their beta version of
Foundation Framer too. They’re a bunch of keen fellows at Coffeecup with an
excellent support. Its still not overloaded with options but its well built
and pretty straightforward. I like it.
But also Muse is a good alternative to Freeway. Webydo is also meant for
designers who lacks coding but more expensive since they extremely raised
their monthly prices.
2016-07-08 22:50 GMT+02:00 Frank Bridges email@hidden:
After switching over to Freeway Pro from GoLive/Dreamweaver years ago I
will miss the anticipation of new features with each new release.It’s hard to find apps with as much ease of use and familiarity for a
graphic designer.Currently, I am beta testing Foundation Framer a new offering that will be
available soon from Coffee Cup. This app looks pretty promising as it has
built in components from the Foundation 6 framework, integrates flexbox,
nice CSS control, uses a grid system, has a lot of standard elements with
drag and drop simplicity and is very responsive friendly with the ability
to add multiple breakpoints and uses a visual slider to see how everything
flows for different screen sizes.
freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
Information for existing FreewayTalk / Groups.io users - Site Feedback - Softpress Talk
freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
https://freewaytalk.softpress.com/person/options
There’s a whole lot of questions that video poses in my ind, and none of them seem to be answered.
I started watching the video, but I’m finding myself asking questions like “how do you love that logo from the left to the right”? Stuff that I know is easy in Freeway, but I don’t see much of that going on. I kind of feel that you’re dealing with a whole load of prescribed units, and if you want to change something fundamental in the layout that you are basically having to remove and replace.
A lot of folk here - myself included- are very much fans of the whole DTP paradigm, and I’d really like to see how that works in other apps. When a client phones up and asks for some layout changes, I want to be able to accommodate that request quickly and easily.
There’s a whole lot of other stuff that I could list - as I probably hinted before, inclusions of scripts - JavaScript, PHP, my own CSS (because we know that at some stage we’ll need it).
I guess I’ll have to join a few forums and see just what the deal is with other software.
On 8 Jul 2016, 8:09 pm, JDW wrote:
Justin E.,
Thank you for the 2 links. I didn’t find information about “breakpoints” until 6 minutes into your second video, but I see that only 3 are offered (which is perhaps all you would need):
Mobile (cell phones)
Tablet
Desktop (everything else)Since you have experience with RW + Stacks + Foundation, would you be able to say how it deals with 2-byte languages like Japanese and Chinese? For example, we can use web fonts easily for English, but unless you restrict yourself to KATAKANA or HIRAGANA in Japanese, you wouldn’t be able to use web fonts due to their multi-megabyte sizes. So instead, I must specify Meiryo, MS P Gothic, Osaka and the like as a font set in Freeway. How does all this work in your RW setup?
From about 16:00 in your second video link, it talks a little about the 3 types of images (mobile/tablet/desktop) that can be used, but how I do ensure Retina graphics (144ppi) are visible on any platform (i.e., that graphics always look sharp on hi-rez displays)? And is it possible to get your page to serve 72ppi graphics to low resolution displays but server the 144ppi images only to Retina displays?
Next, at 24:35, I see the “Getting Started with Foundation” text in the header smash against the “Menu” text at right when page width is minimized. That of course looks terrible, so how do you rectify it?
Next, how do you incorporate a search field into the header, akin to what I ask in the following thread?
Information for existing FreewayTalk / Groups.io users - Site Feedback - Softpress Talk
Lastly, what is the total cost for RW, Foundation and all the Stacks we see in the 2nd video?
Thanks,
James Wages
freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
https://freewaytalk.softpress.com/person/options
Paul & JDW,
Sorry for being absent from the thread most of the day…
Justin covered most of the questions but here is my take on things…
RapidWeaver has themes (templates if you want to call them that) and they are awesome for people that want to get a jumpstart in designing a site. However, my Foundation for RapidWeaver product allows you complete freedom to build what you want. You have a blank canvas to build whatever you envision.
Justin shared the first video in my Getting Started with Foundation series. Yes, that is me in the video. I have hundreds of videos on my YouTube channel. I have really embraced video because I feel that its a great way to make a personal connection with everyone. Its also the most effective way to show people how to do something that they have never done before.
Here is my youtube channel. I am working on organizing it a bit better and trying to take it to the next level. However, there are a ton of great video on there. https://www.youtube.com/c/joeworkmannet/playlists
Think of building your website using LEGO. You have building blocks called “stacks”. Each one could be a column layout, text, image, slideshow, gallery, etc. There are tons of them available. None of them require that you know any code whatsoever, you simple drag the stack onto the page and start adjusting your settings to your liking.
There is also a built in way to leverage layouts that you have built using stacks across multiple pages. This way you only have to build, let’s say your site header and footer once. Then simply use it on every page. Want to update it? No problem change the header or footer in one place and it updates everywhere. Its pretty amazing.
In terms of non-Latin based languages, RapidWeaver works great. I have numbers customers who build sites in Japanese, Korean, Cantonese and Arabic languages. I even have a right-to-left version of my Foundation product available for these users. Many of them have used my Font Pro product in order to easily import custom fonts in their languages. This way they are not stuck with just the defaults available.
By default my Foundation product has 3 break points. You can override these break points on a case by case basis in many stacks. I feel that 95-98% of the time, these 3 break points have been sufficient. However, with that said, in my next major version of Foundation, I plan on adding a 4th breakpoint. The reason is the iPhone 6Plus has really added a new common screen size that can at time be very annoying. So I will definitely nuke that problem in the bud.
In terms of the Menu on Mobile… that is getting pretty detailed for this conversation. But there are ways to rectify that. This video was simply a getting started video to go over the basics of how to get a website built as quickly as possible. Solutions for this could be to simply reduce the Site site to be something shorter (even if only on mobile). You could make the text smaller as well, but then that could make it less readable. Those are just 2 ideas… there is more than one way to skin that cat.
Now in terms of cost, here is the breakdown for what you would need to get started building with RW + Stacks + Foundation.
I had a discussion with Dan (from Realmac) and Isaiah (from YourHead) today and we would like to all offer all Freeway users a nice discount for moving over. They would like to offer all users a 30% and I will gladly sweeten the pie a little more and offer 40% off Foundation.
RapidWeaver: $99 - 30%
Stacks: $49 - 30%
Foundation: $99 - 40%
You can get the RapidWeaver discount at the following URL: https://www.realmacsoftware.com/store/offers/freeway-alternative/
For both Stacks and Foundation, you can use the coupon code “freeway” at checkout in order to receive the discount.
Stacks: YourHead Online Store
Foundation: Foundation 6 Stacks for RapidWeaver
freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
I started watching the video, but I’m finding myself asking questions like “how do you love that logo from the left to the right”? Stuff that I know is easy in Freeway, but I don’t see much of that going on. I kind of feel that you’re dealing with a whole load of prescribed units, and if you want to change something fundamental in the layout that you are basically having to remove and replace.
This is still easy to do inside RapidWeaver. I am not sure which logo you were referring to. However, you are not locked into any particular layout.
A lot of folk here - myself included- are very much fans of the whole DTP paradigm, and I’d really like to see how that works in other apps. When a client phones up and asks for some layout changes, I want to be able to accommodate that request quickly and easily.
Like I said earlier , the editing experience in RapidWeaver is different than Freeway. You can make layout changes just as fast in RapidWeaver.
There’s a whole lot of other stuff that I could list - as I probably hinted before, inclusions of scripts - JavaScript, PHP, my own CSS (because we know that at some stage we’ll need it).
You can use your own JS, PHP, HTML, CSS inside RapidWeaver as well. There is nothing stopping you.
Remember that this video that most of you hear are watching is intended to show newcomers to Foundation how to build a site using it. It expects the users to blindly copy my steps in order to learn how to use the program. If I were to try to explain every settings for everything, new users would get terribly frustrated and their brains would probably explode. 
I will try to make a new video that could explain how the workflow differs between Freeway and RapidWeaver. I am taking my family on a camping trip for the next 5 days. But I will try to get that done as soon as I can.
I would also be willing to schedule a live hangout with any of you later next week so that we could discuss. Would anyone be interested in something like that next Thursday 7/14?
freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
https://freewaytalk.softpress.com/person/options
@Andries, I bought Responsive Site Designer awhile back on one of those MightyDeals discounts and it and Foundation Framer are almost identical in interface. It is a bit of a learning curve from what we are used to in Freeway but it is promising. Like you mentioned their support is very good with quick responses.
freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
Joe W.,
Thank you for the extensive information and video links. I did a quick scan of your videos but I didn’t spot any on SEARCH fields in websites. Please read the following:
I would appreciate your detailed thoughts on how such a search field is implemented in RW+Stacks+Foundation. Right now, my sites use Google Custom Search, so I obviously would like to retain that while exploring how to out a responsive search field atop my site, as I discuss in that other FreewayTalk thread.
Next, thank you for the discounts. Obviously, we Freeway users have a lot to digest first prior to committing to a Freeway replacement, so if the discounts remain valid for the remainder of thus year, that would give us a more realistic time frame to make a decision on what to do. I for one need to figure out how to move my two huge, non-responsive sites to some new web design tool.
I’m open to a live hangout, but being in Japan the time difference may make that difficult. In the meantime, I will be reviewing your YouTube channel as time allows.
Thank you,
James Wages
freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
I would now like to ask for the opinions of Freeway veteran Responsive site designers, including but not limited to Ernie Simpson and Thomas, what your specific thoughts are regarding RW+Stacks+Foundation. There’s clearly a reason you have stuck with Freeway all this time, and Ernie, you spent considerable time creating an amazingly helpful blog on the subject too. Surely you knew of the existence of RW+Stacks and perhaps even about Foundation. So what specifically kept you locked to Freeway? Habit alone, or missing features?
Thank you,
James Wages
freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
I realized that I offered for users to contact me directly but I did not provide any details.
You are also free to join https://weavers.space and peruse topics and ask questions there. I am extremely active there as well.
Reminder that I am heading out on a camping trip with my family for a few days. So my response times will be slow to none until late next week. Although my team will be there answering email as well.
freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
Notice that the forum hides email addresses here… it is… “support -at- joeworkman dot net”
depending on how much email come through, you will probably get a faster response time from that email as 3 of us keep an eye on it.
However, if you would prefer to contact me personally, feel free to reach out to me at “joe -at- workman mail dot com”
freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
A very sad, sad day …
All the best for the Softpress team and hopefully there will be someday a way to go on.
Greets
Ray
freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at: