I’ve been anxiously waiting for V6 and bought it to support the development of Freeway.
I’m astounded that V6 still only has 1 level of undo and messy 1990s mini windows vs consolidated window as all modern apps have.
So far I’m not impressed with V6. Seems more like V5.7.
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It certainly only cost as much as a 5.7 – with much better positioning
tools and stabilized inline layout. I can make some hay with that 
–
Ernie Simpson
On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 7:55 AM, Richard email@hidden wrote:
I’ve been anxiously waiting for V6 and bought it to support the
development of Freeway.I’m astounded that V6 still only has 1 level of undo and messy 1990s mini
windows vs consolidated window as all modern apps have.So far I’m not impressed with V6. Seems more like V5.7.
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I’m not sure what you mean by “cost as much as a 5.7”. All updates to V5 have been free.
Sure there are features that others were looking for but for me, multiple undos and a consolidated interface were basic needed features at the top of the list. Other web design apps have had these for years. Freeway has said multiple undos was a top request.
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Hi richard
I do agree it would have been nice to have multiple levels of undo… but I can also see that there must have been a colossal amount of re-wrting of code to allow fw6 to spit out the html5 output in now creates natively. It really is quite a different animal in the way it constructs and publishes the html and to be honest if they hadn’t had ploughed the lions share of resources and time into the output then FW would have been stuck down a dead end.
I fully understand some peoples annoyance that some requests have not happened yet and yes they would have been nice but FW needed to make the jump… to moving the majority of those inline styles out into an external style sheet and creating proper html5 documents
Personally I feel the upgrade cost of 49 pounds is an absolute bargain in this day and age and to think that for last few years the upgrades have been free makes it even more remarkable especially compared to adobe who have just charged me a gazillion gold doubloons for the creative master suite. :o)
Kindest regards max
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I’m no fan of Adobe. I’ve tried Dreamweaver many times.
I don’t know any other app that only has the 1990’s era 1 level of undo. Multiple undos is such a basic expected function in 2013 and the fact that it is still missing in Freeway V6, after all of these years, is startling and very disappointing to me.
I’ll have to investigate some of the new features of V6 but missing such a basic function mutes it’s usefulness to me.
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Richard,
I haven’t looked at FW6 and I won’t while I’m in the middle of production. However, I’ve grown used to FWs method of only a single undo. It does stink and is frustrating, but at this point aren’t you used to it? I make frequent saves and then, before I embark on something big, save one more time. If I really mess something up, “revert to saved” saves my bacon. If I’m really nervous, I’ve been known to work on a backup.
I agree it would be nice to have multiple undos, but it is not the only app I have that is restricted to a single undo. Getting in the habit of saving every 5 minutes usually takes care of it for me. Good luck and try to enjoy playing with version 6. I for one can’t wait and I’m thrilled that it will still support Snow Leopard. I didn’t expect that!
Doty
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Doty,
I’m not really used to it since every other app I use has multi levels of undo. That is what I am used to using modern apps. FW is the only exception and I am constantly reminded of it. I have to quit FW without saving and open the old version up to resort to 2 undos ago. Or keep saving copies, close one, open the old one. Very inefficient workflow.
Even 10 undos kept in memory would be better. My current FW site is 23MBs and I have 24GBs of memory available in my iMac.
Also I was mistaken about multi level undo being around since the 1990s.
Multi-level undo commands were introduced in the 1980s:
Here it 2013, 30 years later.
–Richard
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Okay, so the updates were free. Whatever. My point is it’s an improvement
and it was cheap.
Richard, I know for a fact that you are not the most disappointed Freeway
user ever… my own wish list is older than some people’s children. But it is
what it is… a very affordable improvement.
Despite what anyone says, in a few weeks we will have absorbed all the new
stuff and moved on with using it to make cool stuff. Five is dead, long
live 6!
Until 7 that is 
–
Ernie Simpson
On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 8:44 AM, Richard email@hidden wrote:
I’m not sure what you mean by “cost as much as a 5.7”. All updates to V5
have been free.Sure there are features that others were looking for but for me, multiple
undos and a consolidated interface were basic needed features at the top of
the list. Other web design apps have had these for years. Freeway has said
multiple undos was a top request.
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On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 11:23 AM, Richard email@hidden wrote:
I’m not really used to it since every other app I use has multi levels of
undo. That is what I am used to using modern apps. FW is the only exception
and I am constantly reminded of it. I have to quit FW without saving and
open the old version up to resort to 2 undos ago. Or keep saving copies,
close one, open the old one. Very inefficient workflow.
If one undo isn’t enough (and there are many situations where you cannot
even get one undo) I use Revert to Saved. It’s not perfect, but it works
well enough for me. Especially with a focused strategy of making limited
changes and testing them often.
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Hi Richard,
I share your frustration and disappointment but there are very practical logistical issues as to why it’s simply not possible currently, as crazy as that may sound for such a seemingly simple feature. Because of how FW was designed and built to work from the very beginning - how it abstracts the code from the design process - it would most likely be easier to discard the decades-old code-base and rewrite the entire application from scratch, and in doing so the app would have to redesigned to function in a much different way than it does now. I’m not saying that would necessarily be a bad thing, but the FW people have grown accustomed to for the last 20 years would in many ways be gone.
So sure, it’s possible to implement multiple undos (and a whole lot more cool features) but doing so would have repercussions for the entire application, in ways most people would never think because let’s face it, it’s just multiple undos, right? Then there’s the time required to completely redesign the app which would take away resources from supporting the current version. Then there’s the expense.
I have no doubt SP wants that feature as much as you but are they willing to start over? Can they afford to start over? Or will they continue to ride this train until the wheels fall off? I don’t know and I can’t say. But I do know there are other options available if this missing feature is a deal-breaker for you because in the end, no matter how much we like the people at SP and FW, it’s still just a tool like any other, and if you decide that tool is more of a hindrance than useful, then what?
Todd
http://xiiro.com
On Feb 2, 2013, at 10:23 AM, “Richard” email@hidden wrote:
Doty,
I’m not really used to it since every other app I use has multi levels of undo. That is what I am used to using modern apps. FW is the only exception and I am constantly reminded of it. I have to quit FW without saving and open the old version up to resort to 2 undos ago. Or keep saving copies, close one, open the old one. Very inefficient workflow.
Even 10 undos kept in memory would be better. My current FW site is 23MBs and I have 24GBs of memory available in my iMac.
Also I was mistaken about multi level undo being around since the 1990s.
Multi-level undo commands were introduced in the 1980s:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UndoHere it 2013, 30 years later.
–Richard
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Speaking as someone who has written applications (server-based, in Ruby and PHP; and browser-based, in JavaScript) that implement undo, this is not a simple thing to “add on” to an application. Either you start with that premise in your data model, or you die trying to implement it.
Freeway 6 is an evolution of Freeway all the way back to version 1, it is not the foundation rewrite that many were hoping for.
The Freeway document is a binary file, not an open structure like SQLite (CoreData) or even an XML file, where individual nodes of the data tree can be compared with one another, and a “diff” saved to enable the undo stack. If you wanted to enable multiple undo in Freeway, you would be saving a complete copy of the document after each one-pixel change, not a short list of changes, and the application (and you) would grind to a halt.
I wasn’t there at the beginning when that fundamental decision was made, so I don’t know why it was made that way, but I do know from experience with Mac applications dating back to the late '80s that this was very much the way things were done at that time. And “as the twig is bent”, Freeway has grown and evolved around that initial decision into a leviathan that cannot make a sharp turn like this without a lot of breakage and new effort.
I agree wholeheartedly that the change needs to come, but I want to set your expectations and diffuse your disappointment with some cold facts about how software works inside. As always, my opinions here are not grounded in a reading of the source code – I have never seen a line of it – and I don’t speak for Softpress, either. I have looked inside a few different Freeway documents with a hex editor, though…
Walter
On Feb 2, 2013, at 11:52 AM, Ernie Simpson wrote:
On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 11:23 AM, Richard email@hidden wrote:
I’m not really used to it since every other app I use has multi levels of
undo. That is what I am used to using modern apps. FW is the only exception
and I am constantly reminded of it. I have to quit FW without saving and
open the old version up to resort to 2 undos ago. Or keep saving copies,
close one, open the old one. Very inefficient workflow.If one undo isn’t enough (and there are many situations where you cannot
even get one undo) I use Revert to Saved. It’s not perfect, but it works
well enough for me. Especially with a focused strategy of making limited
changes and testing them often.
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It was a poor development decision, indeed, if that was the case years ago.
Walter said: “it is not the foundation rewrite that many were hoping for.” That’s really too bad. That’s what I was expecting after waiting for years with V5. Piling new code on top of old code (code that can’t be changed to incorporate modern basic missing features), does not instill confidence.
“Riding this train until the wheels fall off”? That’s quite funny, Todd.
It’s like having a fancy new car with lots of features but it the reverse gear only allows you to go back one parking space length.
Ernie, what version does revert to saved use, the last saved version? I do that manually now.
If we will never get multiple undos, SP should come out and say so. It’s been a top request for years that they have not addressed.
What about a history so you could revert to any number of prior versions? That would help.
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On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 2:09 PM, Richard email@hidden wrote:
…Ernie, what version does revert to saved use, the last saved version? I
do that manually now.
Richard, yes - the last saved version is what is recalled. I understand you
are manually doing what Last Saved does automatically, and my suggestion
was intended to give you fewer steps to doing the same thing.
Whatever works best for you.
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Richard,
Revert to saved is an excellent work around and one I use daily. Yes, it reverts to the last saved version. I hit Command-S every time I make a change and tell myself, “Yeah, I like that!”
If you want a history of prior version, I would recommend Apple’s Time Machine. It’s build for this type of functionality. You can set it to back up however often you require.
Hope this helps. Walter, thanks for the info about the back end design. If every piece of software we used was a complete re-write after major updates, I suspect we would have to wait much much longer for updates and they would cost substantially more.
Best,
Doty
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It is not what well want Richard but the closest I’ve found to a multiple undo solution is to place your Freeway document in a DropBox synced folder. Every time you save (you can do this manually or I wrote an AppleScript to do this a while back) the file will get uploaded to DropBox where they store multiple revisions of your work. If you need to roll back to a previous version you can simply download an older version from the DropBox servers.
Experienced Freeway designer for hire - http://www.freewayactions.com
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I think working with a decades-old legacy code-base has finally caught up with SP in terms of sustainability. Mainly that it no longer is sustainable (in practical or viable terms) by current modern application development standards and techniques. As end-users some of our requests for modern improvements can no longer be met in a responsive (by development standards) or efficient manner either because the underlying technology on which the product is built is incapable of supporting it or there are too many compromises that must be made to implement it. I just don’t see how the product can survive in the long-term at this rate, especially in light of how fast and often web technology evolves. It’s frustrating for developer and end-user alike.
Todd
http://xiiro.com
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On 2 Feb 2013, 6:35 pm, Todd wrote:
I think working with a decades-old legacy code-base has finally caught up with SP in terms of sustainability. Mainly that it no longer is sustainable (in practical or viable terms) by current modern application development standards and techniques. As end-users some of our requests for modern improvements can no longer be met in a responsive (by development standards) or efficient manner either because the underlying technology on which the product is built is incapable of supporting it or there are too many compromises that must be made to implement it. I just don’t see how the product can survive in the long-term at this rate, especially in light of how fast and often web technology evolves. It’s frustrating for developer and end-user alike.
Todd
http://xiiro.com
You raise several good points Todd. It would be interesting to get Joe Billings response on this subject.
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On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 2:52 PM, RavenManiac email@hidden wrote:
It would be interesting to get Joe Billings response on this subject.
Good luck. These people have been more tight-lipped about what they are
doing and what they plan to do than any acronymic secret government agency
ever to inhabit the earth.
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But you see Doty, the point isn’t to completely rewrite the app for every full release. The point is that if the entire framework were modernized and optimized then the necessary core tools, ‘hooks’ etc., needed to actually implement the laundry list of features you guys have been asking for for years would be more readily available, and there would most likely be far less need to do implement things piecemeal as workarounds, therefore the app would be, to some extent, future-proof. At least more so than it is currently. But as it stands the devs are essentially working with 20 year-old code (or however old it is). Don’t you think it’s time the closet be cleaned? Eventually everything needs an overhaul, be it software or my wardrobe.
Besides, the methods/processes used to build websites has changed drastically since FW’s genesis all those years ago. Hell, it’s changed a lot in the past 6 years but the core app has not been able to keep pace.
Todd
http://xiiro.com
If every piece of software we used was a complete re-write after major updates, I suspect we would have to wait much much longer for updates and they would cost substantially more.
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On 2 Feb 2013, at 19:09, Richard wrote:
It was a poor development decision, indeed, if that was the case years ago.
When Freeway appeared, everyone else had one undo level. Photoshop was around version 2 or 3, QuarkXPress was barely at v4. The only applications that had multiple undos were FreeHand and Illustrator, if memory serves. These were the days when if your Mac had 8MB of RAM (megabytes, not gigabytes) you thought you were well off.
So, it wasn’t an unusual situation to only have one level of undo at the time Freeway was created.
And here we are something like 16 years later…
=o)
Heather
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