To begin, I would like to personally thank Barry Hoffman of hoffkids.com for firing off several emails to me today which contained helpful and informative tidbits that inspired me to write the following thoughts on Muse. Most links below were provided to me by Barry.
Three years ago, I wrote the following overview of Muse:
But after hearing from Barry today, I gave Muse another objective look. I must admit that the following video is quite impressive and illustrates how very smooth the transition to Muse can be for Freeway users:
The following text review appears to be negative toward Muse insofar as the reviewer’s brain appears to be locked exclusively into that world which says “simpler is always better”:
But we Freeway users are not from that world of limited features. We have grown accustomed to control, and yes, even accustomed to a semi-cluttered UI. Some may argue Freeway offers so much control it is intimidating, and for responsive designs I must humbly agree. I have never been able to create a fully responsive website (to my satisfaction) in Freeway. But after you watch the above video on responsive design in Muse, you as a Freeway user feel mysteriously at home, with abundant control at your finger tips, and with a modern and lovely WYSIWYG UI that we visual designers have always longed for in Freeway. And if you use or have used Adobe apps before, you feel even more comfortable with Muse.
Extensions to Muse remind me of Freeway actions, or Stacks in the RapidWeaver world. Here are two examples:
Such add-ons are very helpful to assist the web designer in accomplishing what otherwise would be very hard for the Visual Designer to do on their own. The existence of extensibility, to me, illustrates the long term viability of the core web design app. I say this because extensions are created by the community, rather than the core app developer. That frees the developer to spend time improving the core app, and all the while third parties continue to offer important and useful content creation tools to users.
In light of the sheer size of Adobe, it comes as no surprise that documentation and training materials are top notch. Such is important for any app in this category which, like Freeway, offers incredible control over the design. Here is but one example:
So what is preventing all of us Freeway users from making the Muse plunge?
Obviously, coders among us have never really been attracted to apps geared toward visual designers. Perhaps they were at one time in the distant past, but then they learned to be a coder and as a result now think more independelty about how to proceed with a web design without too much reliance on any one particular web design app. But that isn’t me nor is it most people who fall into the Visual Designer camp.
And then there is the issue of not being able to publish or preview offline, as per this:
Barry spoke with an Adobe rep and apparently you can publish and preview so long as you connect to the internet once per month, but I personally have not tested that.
But even if that is not a show-stopper for you, perhaps other issue this will be. What prevents “the rest of us” from jumping directly from Freeway to MUSE is the wicked subscription model. Some who happily pay that eternal monthly fee will no doubt take strong issue with my choice of adjectives here, but I know the future is not a subscription model, at least not for me. Subscriptions are “rentware.” You may not get evicted as if you were renting an apartment or house, but what about when you wish to stop paying rent? You evict yourself. The same with MUSE. Stop paying that monthly fee and your beloved app is transformed into little more than a content viewer. That remains true regardless of the thousands upon thousands of dollars you may have paid in rent for that software through the years. Thankful when it comes to a home, we have not only the option to rent but also the option to buy. Imagine if you could never own your own home.
When you buy an app like Freeway or Blocs or Sparkle, or the Affinity apps from Serif, you get to use that “version” for as long as you like, which could be forever if you hold off on upgrading your computer and OS. Here in Japan, companies prioritize finances above trends. As such, there are a surprising number of companies who still use Adobe CS2 apps. They stick with what works for them, and only upgrade when they know they absolutely must have a given set of features.
There is much more than can be said for and against the Adobe subscription model, but suffice it to say subscriptions are not for everyone. If you love subscriptions, as a Freeway user, you are obligated to take a very close look at MUSE. But for the rest of us who dislike subscriptions with such a passion we dream about it at night, it doesn’t matter how great MUSE is – we won’t embrace it. It’s kind of like reading a review of an amazing Android phone or Windows 10 notebook. We Apple product lovers drool over the hardware but in the end we don’t defect because of the OS. It’s the same with MUSE. We may drool over it being the right product for us, but we refuse to enter that world of the everlasting monthly payment.
Food for thought.
James Wages
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Nothing “new” has happened insofar as we’ve read no new announcements from SoftPress. My guess is that SoftPress is hard at work rebuilding Freeway from the ground up in Apple’s Swift. I doubt they are spending any time on bug fixes for Freeway Pro 7. As such, in consideration of just how limited their engineer staff surely is, I would not be holding my breath to see that “great new thing” anytime soon. But if SoftPress can hold on until that new baby is brought into this world, I have little doubt it would be something great. At least, I am optimistically trying to tell myself so.
I remain unamused by MUSE and its subscription model. Long live “pay once, use it as long as you like” (until YOU decide to upgrade) software!
–James Wages
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The more I do with it, the more I like it. It has it’s limits - different ones to Freeway - but overall, thoroughly enjoying the experience of being able to have multiple undos and not having an out of place click send things crashing around my ears.
As for the subscription model, I’d rather it wasn’t in that direction, but as I’m a heavy Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign user, it’s all part of the pot, so may as well use it.
Trev
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