It's Here – Backdraft 2.0: The responsive framework to super-charge Freeway 7!

Freeway
1

Fellow Freewaytalkers,

I’m immensely excited to announce that the long-awaited Backdraft 2.0 is here! This is the biggest update to Backdraft ever, and for good reason: by using Freeway 7’s new features, we built the easiest-to-use and most powerful version of Backdraft to date.

In a very real sense, Backdraft 2.0 takes Freeway’s core idealogy (that anyone should be able to build great websites easily, quickly, and visually), and “turns it up to 11” as they like to say in the music industry. It allows anyone to build fully custom responsive websites using inflow construction and Freeway best practices.

What’s new?

Backdraft 2.0 has eschewed the hacky hand-coded CSS of earlier iterations in favor of the new responsive layout features in Freeway 7.

This means that anyone can now easily make adjustments to their Backdraft website at various breakpoints in Freeway’s construction view – goodbye to mucking around in CSS files! They can simply select a breakpoint in Freeway 7’s new media bar, and begin tweaking widths, padding, margins, colors, heights, background images, and just about every single setting the in the inspector. The beta testers have been loving this, and I think you will too.

I think Backdraft 2.0 will truly change the way people use Freeway. It offers lots more customization power while retaining the ease-of-use, simple customizability, and speedy website creation that Backdraft has become so famous for.

However, could we have stopped at that one feature? Maybe, but there was too much coffee left in the pot! Here’s some of the other stuff we jammed into this update:

  1. FOUR (you read that right, four) new header modules, including the oft-requested fixed header (like the one on softpress.com) that sticks to the top of the browser window while you scroll. Check 'em out here.
  2. A full-width wrapper module that makes it easier than ever to create full-width footers, headers, and body sections.
  3. And more! See the full release notes in the Backdraft 2.0 documentation website.

On the business front, we’ve also had several changes.

  • Backdraft finally has its own domain name (getbackdraft.com) and the website has been subjected to a lot of polishing.
  • We are now working with a new order processor that will make shipping new updates much easier and management more powerful (yes, we can finally change your email address now).

Give it a try

Okay, enough with the announcements, how can you get your mitts on a copy of Backdraft? Hop over to http://getbackdraft.com and download the free demo! Once you’ve played around with it for a few minutes, and you’ve decided that Backdraft is for you, you can hop back onto the website and buy the full version for just $40 USD.

Go forth, and make the web responsive!

Caleb Grove, developer of Backdraft.

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I forgot to mention: if you’ve already purchased Backdraft, and haven’t received your upgrade email with directions to get your free upgrade, use the form at the bottom of the help page to let me know.

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3

Well done Caleb, I’ve already received the email and downloaded the update though I haven’t upgraded to FW7. I hope Backdraft 2 will still work with FW 6.1.2.

Ashley

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4

Thank you Ashley!

Backdraft 2.0 is Freeway 7 only, as it leans heavily on the new features that Softpress introduced in that version. If you want to use Freeway 6, you will need to use Backdraft 1.5.

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5

Caleb, you are a lovely man. Looking forward to having a play with it! Well done for getting Version 2 out.

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6

Caleb, you are a lovely man.

will second that you are a star!, look forward to having a go with all the new features.

Matt

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7

Thank you Matt and Noel! I look forward to seeing what you two can create with it!

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8

Amazing work Caleb (reminding me to start with a bunch of new episodes) - supporting BD2 as we did in the past (gosh - I don’t no when I’ll find the time for).

Freeway7 is a great approach (not perfect yet) - but close to.

What I like is your way using Master-Pages. Because it’s NOT this Master/Child thing - it’s the backUp idea of developing modules for use whenever and wherever you like (I’m doing it exactly the same, btw).

Cheers

Thomas

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9

Thanks for all the hard work Caleb… You are such a great teacher and have taught me so much about responsive layout. If I had not worked with your Backdraft, and I would not have been able to comprehend FW7, and Backdraft is so easy to work with.
great success with it!
Carla

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10

Instructions say “to use the demo install included actions and open in .freeway file (in BD 2.0 folder) in FW7.”

Downloaded demo and all folders open and see no ‘actions’ to install
Please enlighten

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11

Ann,

The actions should be directly inside the Backdraft 2.0 Demo folder:

If you don’t see them, you may need to redownload the demo.

Please let me know if that helps you, and thanks for trying Backdraft out!

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12

thanks… got it installed and iat page 3 of creating 1st BD pg setup, adding modules. Ok until step 2…
Item 3 click on sideBySideHeaderWrapper in site panel… but NO such Item is there. ONLy these in BD: Extra Modules: (in this order)
popupHeaderWraper
popupHeader
logowrapper2
Icon2
page name2
navigation2
mobileNavig
Navigation
fullwidthwrapper
Deleteme
--------------that’s the end of the master page site panel ----- site folder below has only
BD Strating Page
ResponsiveWeb one
(and a deleme sub item under each)
++++
in case it means something:
The popupHeaderWrapper name in left SITE panel, has only the name of ‘er’ in the inspector HTML panel (my quotes)

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13

Ann,

Glad to hear that you got it installed, and thanks for the thorough report!

The reason why you don’t find the side-by-side header is because it isn’t in the demo – it’s only in the full version of Backdraft. Go ahead and use the popupHeaderWrapper instead. Why you only see ‘er’ in the inspector is because there isn’t enough room in that text field to display the whole name. If you click inside it and hit the ← key on your keyboard, it will show you the rest of the name.

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14

thanks… that was FAST!!
ann

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15

Thank you so much Caleb!

My clients were asking for mobile friendly websites earlier on this year. I was so pleased to discover Backdraft. What a fantastic framework for designing sites to fit the multitude of mobile devices today.

Thanks to Caleb and the Softpress team, I’m now able to satisfy my client’s needs by designing fully responsive websites with Backdraft and Freeway 7!

Thank you for all your support too : )

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16

I must say that I am no web designer but out of necessity I had to learn some basic web design software for my photography business! Starting with Page Mill then Adobe Go Live and finally Freeway Pro 6. I was very happy with my website design using Freeway Pro 6 till I heard about the responsive websites and an email from Google telling me that I need to make my website mobile device friendly and responsive. So I updated to Freeway Pro 7 thinking that it would be a simple modification to my old design!! and boy I was dead wrong!! So I searched the web and came across Backdraft 2.0, I watched Caleb instructions and that was all I needed to get started. I purchased his Backdraft 2.0 (well worth the price) and with his friendly detailed instructions I was able to create a responsive website. So. Caleb, thank you for such a great work and your excellent support.
Morad/Image Perfect

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17

Morad, thank you for sharing practical experience with Caleb’s Backdraft. It’s encouraging to see someone (other than one of the resident geniuses) get a responsive website up and running with Freeway. Good for you.

Question, I notice that the slide show on the home page seems to blink just before the next slide changes. Do you have any idea what might be causing that?

Check it out at www.image-perfect.com

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18

Just looked at the slideshow, no blinks here (120Mb downstream)

Richard

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19

Hi Craig,
That blinking is the Wowslider issue and they don’t have a solution for it yet! according to them blinking happens when you have two or more tabs open in the browser and you are going back and fort between the tabs. If you just come in to my site slideshow should run smmothly with no blinking. Can you tell me what browser you used and your download speed. Thanks

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20

I just checked again, the blinking only happens with Safari 6.0.5 browser. With Chrome 41.0 browser it looks fine and there is no blinking. I didn’t notice any difference with number of tabs open.

Craig

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