I am involved in complex web projects (corporate websites, web applications for medicine…).
I really want to switch to Xway now.
Features I’m missing in Xway:
Pages in other languages JavaScript, PHP, JSON …
(It was possible to do this in Freeway using the actions Script Doc,PHP Mark Up).
This is very convenient for developing complex projects. In this case, I wrote the entire project on Freeway, including the front-end and back-end. For example, separate APIs in PHP.
Color highlighting of individual folders, pages, and child elements. This significantly improves the readability of the project. Focusing on individual elements.
I couldn’t drag any elements inside the page to a new location. (Maybe I didn’t understand how to do it)
We’ll look into this. We have it logged as a feature request.
Finder-style colour tags in the Site panel are also on our to-do list.
Xway defaults to inflow (relative) layout, because this can be used to create flexible pages that will adapt to different devices (phones, tablets, computers). This is a significant change from Freeway, which defaulted to creating layouts using invisible tables (table layout). It’s possible to create free-form layouts using absolute-positioned items (“layers” in Freeway), but we don’t recommend doing that: absolute-positioned boxes have their uses, but they’re not suitable as a default layout method.
As for dragging boxes: 1. Absolute-positioned boxes can be dragged anywhere on a page (but should be used sparingly), 2. Relative-positioned (inflow) boxes can be dragged into a different order.
For anyone coming from Freeway, it’s helpful to work through the introductory Xway tutorial (there is also an Xway menu tutorial and an Xway flexbox tutorial). Later versions of Freeway did support flexible layout (although it was more difficult because Freeway wasn’t originally designed to do this), and we did release some flexible templates (most of these have now been converted into Xway templates, which are available on our website).
I couldn’t drag the block with the mouse. Only one option worked out - command+x, move the cursor to another block, command+v. The insertion took place after the selected block. Dragging failed with the mouse.
I use flexbox, relative and absolute positioning on the Freeway. Flexbox using CSS3.
The problem is different: my web applications use pop-up and unfolding windows (for example
right-menu1
{
transform-origin: right bottom;
transform: scale(0,0);
transition: transform 500ms;
-webkit-transition: transform 500ms;
-moz-transition: transform 500ms;
-o-transition: transform 500ms;
}
.right-checkbox1:checked ~ .right-menu1
{
transform: scale(1,1);
}
).
To create such windows in Xway, you need to be able to move them to the foreground in order to see the development results. And then back again. I used to do that in Freeway.
And one more question: There is a missing property such as the Show flag in the Freeway.
Xway doesn’t allow you to drag boxes into different parents, but you can drag and reposition boxes that are within the same parent: do this by clicking on a box in the Page view and dragging it to a new position. Xway displays an insertion point (similar to a text insertion point) to show where the box will be positioned. Cutting and pasting is also fine.
There isn’t an exact equivalent of Freeway’s Show checkbox, but there are two properties that are similar: Visibility and Display. Visibility is probably closest, but you should be aware that this also affects the way that a box is displayed in browsers (if a box is hidden in Xway it’s also hidden in a browser).
You can change the front-to-back order of boxes using Z-Index. This is a CSS property that we didn’t support in Freeway (except via the Extended dialog).
Flexbox is directly supported by Xway: there is a chapter in the Xway User Guide, and a separate tutorial (Xway Flexbox Tutorial).
One small addition to what I wrote: if you use the Visibility popup to show and hide boxes, you will see that there are three options: Visible, Hidden, and Undefined. Most of the style popups in Xway have an Undefined option, and this is the best way to return a property to its default state (visible in this case).