Walter, even if Freeway was rebuilt “100% as we know it” in SWIFT, it would be seriously deficient for most Freeway users in that Freeway Pro 7 right now doesn’t allow dummies to easy build fully RESPONSIVE websites. The Freeway of today and the Freeway 2.0 I fell in love with back in 1999 put all other web design tools to shame when it comes to an intuitive means of dumping my creativity on the web FOR NON-RESPONSIVE WEBSITES. That’s right, Freeway allows even dummies to get content on the web, albeit, not the Responsive kind.
I know some people have been able to use Freeway Pro 5, 6 and 7 to create some amazing Responsive websites, but the techniques required to achieve that are comparably more difficult than in other apps like Blocs. One can argue “but Freeway gives you more control!” all they like, but if I myself cannot get the end result I want in a Responsive website using Freeway, I am not going to use Freeway to create a Responsive site. And guess what? I still don’t have a fully Responsive website to this day. I do, however, have everything else, including Retina optimized graphics, using Freeway. But it’s 2018 now and I am wanting to pacify Google with a “mobile friendly” website to ensure my search rankings don’t take more of a hit than they already have.
If Blocs had an easy means to implement site search (I use Google Custom Search currently) and an easy means to implement responsive tables (for placing tabular data in a web page), I would likely jump ship. But the current version of Blocs lacks those two features, and it’s not clear when it will offer those (probably still one year away) – and yes, I’ve asked.
So I wait for the next version of Freeway and I wait for the next version of Blocs, and whoever satisfies me most fully first will likely win my heart. But it would take less for Freeway X to win my heart in that I’ve been a fan for such a long time and the new version would likely retain at least some Freeway flair that I would prefer over another app.
Any new version of Freeway needs to “wow” us with what it can do on the Responsive Design front, and that includes ease of use. While having a means to add code is a must, the product should not necessarily be a coder-centric app. The following SoftPress catch phrase is what caught me back in the day and I still feel it is applicable today (noting that I don’t need to use code to use FCPX or MS Word or Affinity Designer, etc.):
“FOR THOSE WHO DON’T SEE THE WORLD AS CODE.”
I want a web design tool that is very easy to use, yet powerful (yes, even allow one to extend it with code as they like). But it must allow me to get ALL the web content I have in my existing sites on the web again in Responsive form. If like Blocs it only offers me part of what I need, I will stick to a non-responsive site. I can add things with code to Freeway now, but I don’t like it and it slows me down considerably. Imagine how well Freeway would have faired without Actions. Sure, Actions are “code” but code in a digestible form that most people can implement in a heartbeat.
I think it will be a real challenge to “please everybody” – coders and creative designers too. But if SoftPress can pull it off, they will have a real winner with the potential to achieve things most other web design apps cannot – achieving great responsive sites with all the basics like site search and tabular data, regardless of whether you like to code or not.
–James Wages
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