[Pro] EASIEST and QUICKEST alternative

There’s no doubt of the big attraction for clients or web designers to use Wordpress. Script is free, bung it in your hosting using the installer, most templates are free or purchase a good looking templates for a few beers. Boom. Job done. Site budget was a low £250.

I disagree with your comment about Wordpress SEO. Out of the box a beginner with Wordpress would have an excellent site for SEO if you compare a beginner site make with Freeway (gif text?)

I’ve never created Wordpress for a client site but I’ve worked on many. I use Perch CMS for client sites and build a site from the ground up.

David Owen
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On 12 Aug 2016, at 06:36, Robert Mitton email@hidden wrote:

But WordPress is the worst thing someone can do to a business client. They hire someone to build website and then get a blogging piece of shit site that is terrible with keeping any organic SEO intact. I wish there would be a law where it is simply illegal to have a business website made with WP.


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Well said Walter,

And just to bring a slightly lighter side to the dyslexia part of the conversation (and it isn’t to belittle dyslexia in the slightest).

With words I’m fine, but I have a sort of numerical dyslexia, a page of numbers is just a jumble to me, so a few years ago a previous employer put me in charge of stock number spreadsheets……

…what a bloody great hash up that was!!

Have a lovely weekend all.
Trev

On 12 Aug 2016, at 01:20, Walter Lee Davis email@hidden wrote:

Folks, let’s keep it civil.


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I’ve been on this forum version for a long time. And prior to this when this was an only email mailing list going back to 1998/2000 ish was that Freeway 1 or 2.

Many may have noticed posts with spelling or words misplaced. At time of poor concentration client jobs have been reprinted at my cost over the years because of this. It’s a thing never put a name on it. I may explain lower school/english results. But I excelled at Art made a career and a business out of it. There’s ways of getting things checked. And double checked. And checked again.

But you’re managing to read this. And I managed to read posts you’ve written. You passed the basic requirements to code.

I’ve never taken dyslexia as an excuse that "I can’t code” when written in a well crafted email. I’ve seen email’s from people with reading and writing skills issues it’s a whole different ball game.

I can appreciate "I don’t want to code” (been there) or “I have no interest to learn code” (been there too). I can’t grasp “I can’t code because…” as an excuse.

Weirdly I read HTML, CSS, PHP code more clearly than written paragraphs between. I’m seeking the visual patterns of closing tags etc. Is that pleasing the art side of my brain?

David Owen

On 8 Aug 2016, at 07:26, TomBliss email@hidden wrote:

(and I’m totally non-code - dyslexia rules that out, I’m afraid).


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Then with respect David, you do not understand the problem. Dyslexia comes in many forms, in my case the strongest is an inability to find mistakes in text or code even though I know them to be there. The only way I can do it reliably is to cover the text and look one word at a time through a slot or hole. So for me it is not so much the making of mistakes that’s the problem (my treatment back then was to learn to touch-type and I’ve always been a pretty good speller) it’s to notice when I’ve made a mistake and then having noticed it when reading back to actually find it. That may sound strange, but it is so. Likewise I can write music music manuscript, but I can’t play it back. Also I can do complex sums (I did maths A level back in the 1860s) but if I transpose numbers on the page, well…


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Yup. My main failing too. I do understand. It does not stop me from coding.

David Owen
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On 12 Aug 2016, at 10:02, TomBliss email@hidden wrote:

inability to find mistakes in text or code even though I know them to be there


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Yes I can…

David Owen

On 12 Aug 2016, at 10:02, TomBliss email@hidden wrote:

Then with respect David, you do not understand the problem. Dyslexia comes in many forms, in my case the strongest is an inability to find mistakes in text or code even though I know them to be there. The only way I can do it reliably is to cover the text and look one word at a time through a slot or hole. So for me it is not so much the making of mistakes that’s the problem (my treatment back then was to learn to touch-type and I’ve always been a pretty good speller) it’s to notice when I’ve made a mistake and then having noticed it when reading back to actually find it. That may sound strange, but it is so. Likewise I can write music music manuscript, but I can’t play it back. Also I can do complex sums (I did maths A level back in the 1860s) but if I transpose numbers on the page, well…


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I really fully respect the shortcomes of dyslexia and what you guys can do
or can’t, but… has this change in subject not become ‘a little bit’
beyond the essence of this thread?
Or does it lead to an alternative replacing Freeway?

2016-08-12 11:02 GMT+02:00 TomBliss email@hidden:

Then with respect David, you do not understand the problem. Dyslexia comes
in many forms, in my case the strongest is an inability to find mistakes in
text or code even though I know them to be there. The only way I can do it
reliably is to cover the text and look one word at a time through a slot or
hole. So for me it is not so much the making of mistakes that’s the problem
(my treatment back then was to learn to touch-type and I’ve always been a
pretty good speller) it’s to notice when I’ve made a mistake and then
having noticed it when reading back to actually find it. That may sound
strange, but it is so. Likewise I can write music music manuscript, but I
can’t play it back. Also I can do complex sums (I did maths A level back in
the 1860s) but if I transpose numbers on the page, well…


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It is in a fashion. I think the proponents of coding are saying yes there are loads of alternatives apps to Freeway from what I seen some need an understanding of code and manipulating raw files to get the best out of them. Those that don’t want to do that? The ship is already well on it’s way to the horizon.

Maybe Blocs is the easiest to run with from a starters point of view. I fear some from a Freeway background will have an immediate problem uploading the files. Last I saw there was no FTP included. Is that still the case?

Maybe that’s the lowest common denominator, a built in FTP upload. Shorten the alternatives to which can do that.

David Owen
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On 12 Aug 2016, at 11:19, email@hidden wrote:

Or does it lead to an alternative replacing Freeway?


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There are so many FTP programs out there to easily upload your files, it is
just one step extra. The settings for FTP will not be different.
Perhaps Norm from Blocs will integrate FTP in an update.

2016-08-12 12:52 GMT+02:00 David Owen email@hidden:

It is in a fashion. I think the proponents of coding are saying yes there
are loads of alternatives apps to Freeway from what I seen some need an
understanding of code and manipulating raw files to get the best out of
them. Those that don’t want to do that? The ship is already well on it’s
way to the horizon.

Maybe Blocs is the easiest to run with from a starters point of view. I
fear some from a Freeway background will have an immediate problem
uploading the files. Last I saw there was no FTP included. Is that still
the case?

Maybe that’s the lowest common denominator, a built in FTP upload. Shorten
the alternatives to which can do that.

David Owen
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On 12 Aug 2016, at 11:19, email@hidden wrote:

Or does it lead to an alternative replacing Freeway?


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Well I think it might be significant that out of 13 people posting on this thread, 4 confess to some type of dyslexia. Having looked at quite a lot of authoring packages I plumped for Freeway as the only one that I thought I could work with. I suspect I was not alone. In fact it would be interesting to know what the percentage of dyslexics within the FW community is. Given the points raised above, I’d hazard that it might be quite high, and if so, this might explain why so many people did not follow up on the new features and capabilities that Freeway kept offering. Not only were we not terribly interested in anything other than coloured boxes, text and pictures, we actually didn’t understand what they were on about. I don’t even know what FTP stands for - or any of the other terms you chaps all use with such confidence. I used Freeway like I used Greatworks Draw, and until we had to start being able to make websites that shrank down to phone size (I expect there is a proper word for this) it did everything I needed.

If I could make it in Word, I could make it in Freeway, and that’s probably all I’ll ever need to do. Websites don’t need to be sophisticated to be effective.


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I never heard about it, but for anyone who thinks this program could be
usefull in some way: Dragie. With an imbedded CSS/JS coder. 19 bucks.

Briahsoft Technologies
https://deals.ondesoft.com/search?query=Briahsoft+Technologies

2016-08-12 14:38 GMT+02:00 TomBliss email@hidden:

Well I think it might be significant that out of 13 people posting on this
thread, 4 confess to some type of dyslexia. Having looked at quite a lot of
authoring packages I plumped for Freeway as the only one that I thought I
could work with. I suspect I was not alone. In fact it would be interesting
to know what the percentage of dyslexics within the FW community is. Given
the points raised above, I’d hazard that it might be quite high, and if so,
this might explain why so many people did not follow up on the new features
and capabilities that Freeway kept offering. Not only were we not terribly
interested in anything other than coloured boxes, text and pictures, we
actually didn’t understand what they were on about. I don’t even know what
FTP stands for - or any of the other terms you chaps all use with such
confidence. I used Freeway like I used Greatworks Draw, and until we had to
start being able to make websites that shrank down to phone size (I expect
there is a proper word for this) it did everything I needed.

If I could make it in Word, I could make it in Freeway, and that’s
probably all I’ll ever need to do. Websites don’t need to be sophisticated
to be effective.


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I never heard about it, and can’t find a lot of information about it…but
for anyone who thinks this drag & drop program could be usefull in some
way: Dragie. With an embedded CSS/JS coder. Only 19 bucks.

Briahsoft Technologies
https://deals.ondesoft.com/search?query=Briahsoft+Technologies

Or perhaps its usefull just to compare the options with its competitors.

2016-08-12 14:38 GMT+02:00 TomBliss email@hidden:

Well I think it might be significant that out of 13 people posting on this
thread, 4 confess to some type of dyslexia. Having looked at quite a lot of
authoring packages I plumped for Freeway as the only one that I thought I
could work with. I suspect I was not alone. In fact it would be interesting
to know what the percentage of dyslexics within the FW community is. Given
the points raised above, I’d hazard that it might be quite high, and if so,
this might explain why so many people did not follow up on the new features
and capabilities that Freeway kept offering. Not only were we not terribly
interested in anything other than coloured boxes, text and pictures, we
actually didn’t understand what they were on about. I don’t even know what
FTP stands for - or any of the other terms you chaps all use with such
confidence. I used Freeway like I used Greatworks Draw, and until we had to
start being able to make websites that shrank down to phone size (I expect
there is a proper word for this) it did everything I needed.

If I could make it in Word, I could make it in Freeway, and that’s
probably all I’ll ever need to do. Websites don’t need to be sophisticated
to be effective.


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FWIW and from my point of view, the ftp bit is not an issue. I use Fetch to upload my image galleries (would have loved Exhibeo 2 to have taken on the gallery role … so close, yet so far). With Fetch you can do exactly what FW does. Nominate a folder on your Mac and a folder on your ftp site and it will keep them synchronised, including deletions if you choose. It’s fast and simple. There are no extra keystrokes compared to FW.


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This is the site to learn Freeway 7. Thomas did a great job with this.

Chris


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On 12 Aug 2016, 12:20 am, waltd wrote:

Folks, let’s keep it civil.

OK, Walter - point taken - guilty as charged.

So allow me to add some additional notes:

The big surprise

Back in 2012, I was pretty convinced that this audience will fail. It came to me during our very first discussion about responsive design. You, Ernie and me (and some others) gave it a try (my very first example is still available: http://www.kimmich-dm.de/templates/liquid/index.html ). It has been made with FW version 5.6.5! To this time, we still worked with “inline styles” - far off any “native” tools inbuilt.

You see that we tried to collect money for the Actions Forge Next and we failed here as well - but that’s not the point.

Point is, people were convinced, that inflow-construction is a luxury good. Not required and a sucker! This attitude is kept up 'til today.

At this time, I started theLounge - a paid subscription area where I tried to wrap the how-to in some video episodes. Surprisingly the outermost part of subscribers never ever were part of FreewayTalk!

###The alternative to FreewayPro

As already said: NONE! There is only one alternative: Getting used to inflow-constructions. Because it is the basic underlying construction for ALL other applications. We are not in a comfort zone and we do not have any choice (I said this thousand times as well).

###Webdesign is a job

Wether dyslexia or not. Point is that web design is neither for ourselves nor for our clients! It is for the expected audience and their needs! We solve problems for our clients! That’s what we hired for. So we try to see clients craft with our eyes. We are today a butcher, tomorrow the baking man. And we try to fascinate a reader of each single craft. Preferably, we do this in small chunks of text. This is just because people are not really ready to read more than five sentences (wether they could or not)!

I hear you people saying, that you struggle with scanning a row of numbers or a sentence into a logic structure? But on the other hand, you declare “too much white in templates”? I cite:

Wordpress has its uses, but the inability to tweak Themes in .com is a real pain. Most of the themes are far to blog-centric for my purposes - far too much white and no way to resize the basic frames.

Let’s change “too much white” into:

###Whitespace

To me, whitespace is (beneath some other definitions) the optimized way presenting text. It shall increase reading experience - and can even help people with dyslexia scanning text portion better. So your pain is either not really big or I simply misunderstood “too much white”!

Furthermore, whitespace plays for me another significant role:

Say you have a link (or button) and it isn’t wrapped in enough room, chances are good that you miss this element or you struggle handling it on smaller screens (a finger can be thicker than you think).

Sounds bitter?

Not at all. It’s yours to ignore the rules. It won’t bring back an application anyway - no matter what you decide to do. I tried to make my homework. I tried to practice my tools every day some minutes. I’m trying to break “lessons” into its atoms rather starting in understanding the universe first.

I tried to infect you with the same virus. And I even tried to show you my ways. And I miserably failed.

And you?

Think about it for a while.

###Last but not least

This is FreewayTalk, so I should spend an expertise:

Transferring a 4.whatever document into version 7 is certainly possible. But if I recall it correctly, the amount of problems were partially hefty. So if you do - do it with care - literally. Duplicate your project so you can step back! The more robust your construction - the better the conversion.

Cheers

Thomas

PS: I am aware of diseases out there you can’t do anything.

As a child, I had asthma. But there is something you can do: breathing exercises. But you know what? You have to train it in good times (ever and ever again). The only chance to use it in case of emergency. Perhaps other diseases have similar methods?


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Ok Thomas - same name, but completely different opinion about what the internet is for - or should be for, anyway.

I think I stared in Freeway 1 or maybe 2, I can’t remember, but a long time ago. I built the bulk of my website/s then, when I was a professional touring musician and had some free ‘day’ time. The major chunk is still my music site, which is currently not needed, but will be again soon I hope.

I had then and still have no interest in impressing people, or doing clever things online like ordering stock, or tracking visitors so you can bombard them with adverts etc, or whatever else it is that smart designers do. For me the internet is just about simply presented, timely information, for both me and my ‘client’ organisations.

None of my sites sell anything or shout for attention. People come looking for information because someone told them it was there.

And when I say ‘clients’ I don’t mean clients like the people for whom I used to make high end video productions, and the like. I’m talking about community groups who did not then, and still do not have ANY money AT ALL to pay for a website. I have a professional attitude, but this is not a professional relationship. No-one hired me, no-one even asked me. I offered. I volunteered. I volunteer a lot. I have paid work for about 3/4 days a week but I work 7, and long hours too, because I want to try to head off the looming climate catastrophe, and that means doing a lot of networking and worthwhile work - including making sites when none exists.

You will think them clunky and old-fashioned, but they work - apart from this ‘shrinking to fit a phone screen’ thing, which I admit is a growing problem.

Yes, I could have made them in wordpress I suppose, but I’d never heard of it, if it did even exist back then, and anyway they’d probably prefer not to have any adverts at all, and Freeways keeps them clear of all that nonsense.

I remember the arrival of ‘Actions Forge Next’ and I remember I didn’t understand one single thing about it, and also thinking that I’d never need it. I didn’t think it was a luxury good. I thought it looked complicated and unnecessary - why should I spend money on something I couldn’t fathom and didn’t need? And that goes for all the other gizmos.

I have never heard the term ‘inflow-construction’ before either, and I also don’t know what it means. Maybe I will have to find out now that Freeway has gone, but that doesn’t mean that Freeway was inadequate. It was perfect from Version 1 - for me anyway.

Wordpress themes are seldom laid out the way I want. Too much white at the top, making the business part of the page too low sown, too much while between columns when I don’t want any columns, silly fonts, too much white between headers and text, text too big or too small - just not enough flexibility. And don’t tell me I can hack this in the code. I CAN’T READ CODE.

I’m not ignoring the rules. I questioning rules that have been written by people who may not know as much about communication as I do, and who think bling and clutter is a good thing.

I never use aftereffects or motion either. I’m old-school - in fact I started in film and if I cut make it happen in front of the camera, and compile the story with no more than cuts and mixes, then I think I have failed. Less really is more - no matter how many bleeps, pops and starbursts programmers dream up and cram into their products just so people will buy them.

Back in the days when I was first a musician, in the late 70s we ran the gauntlet of getting arrested late at night with posters, and bottles of glue.

That’s all a website is for me. A poster glued to a lamppost.

Best wishes

Tom


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I’m not ignoring the rules. I questioning rules that have been written by people who may not know as much about communication as I do, and who think bling and clutter is a good thing.

Doubting! Whatsoever:

One possible way (quick and easy) recently came in:

Anyway - good luck and all the best.

Cheers

Thomas


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Hey guys,

Softpress closing up shop has left us all in a lurch and I suspect we will each find our own way to muddle through just fine. But in the transition it is rough. TomBliss, I don’t know you, but I see some of my own experience in yours. I started in web design by doing freebie websites for friends and family. I’m also dyslexic, btw. Through FW and the helpful people on this forum, I’ve managed to put some work together I’m proud of even though I’m learning more and more every day.

One piece of advice I have for you is to see if you can get your hands on a copy of FW 5.5. I’m not sure how to go about it, but it is a safer jump from 4 - 5.5, than 5 - 7.whatever. I’m running El Capitan and I have two versions of FW installed side by side, the latest and 5.5 for my old sites that do not warrant rebuilding or recreating to make responsive (that’s the fancy word for the “shrink to fit iPhone thing,” btw). FW 5.5 runs just fine w/ El Capitan.

I was always grateful for this backward compatibility, but I’ve also wondered if it contributed to the demise of FW. From what I understand, supporting legacy software is a real pain and tends to hold back development.

Good luck to you.


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Hi Doty

Thanks for that. Does anyone know where I can get 5.5?

Might it work with my 4 serial number?

Cheers

Tom


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Might it work with my 4 serial number?

Only FW4 will work with a serial # for 4

D


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