Around half a year ago I spent several weeks making multiple attempts to build sites with the relative layout tools.
I found this to be terribly unstable, requiring constant saves and such. Things would work to a point and then it would blow up and I’d have to start over. In essence, it was totally unusable.
I’ve tried other approaches, including building sites directly with Hype (which worked great but, as Hype does not have have preloader control, this resulted in long download times).
I’m wondering if there have been any developments with Freeway over recent months that make it stable enough to place all my eggs in this basket.
I have to build six fairly substantial relative sites (two by the end of this month) and I need to know that if I commit to Freeway I am actually going to emerge from this project with deadlines met and sanity intact.
Have there been any improvements in stability?
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In my experience, FW7 has made vast improvements in the area of responsive design. However, I almost had to forget everything I knew about using FW when I made the switch from “drag n drop” to responsive and inline layouts. It was not an easy or quick transition. Now that I’ve made it, however, there is less head banging than previously in my non-inline design world where objects would just “randomly” move about the page for no apparent reason. I hope this helps. I know it’s hard to learn whilst facing a deadline. Good luck to you Trey!
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The above-mentioned experience was with FW 7. I’ve been using (and loving) FW since version 3. The issues with stability in creating relative layouts, however, was a huge turn-off.
I guess inline would be the best approach for relative sites. The constant crashes happened when I was using drag and drop with relative positioning.
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Around half a year ago I spent several weeks making multiple attempts to build sites with the relative layout tools.
Excellent!
I found this to be terribly unstable, requiring constant saves and such. Things would work to a point and then it would blow up and I’d have to start over. In essence, it was totally unusable.
I’ve tried other approaches, including building sites directly with Hype (which worked great but, as Hype does not have have preloader control, this resulted in long download times).
I’m wondering if there have been any developments with Freeway over recent months that make it stable enough to place all my eggs in this basket.
I have to build six fairly substantial relative sites (two by the end of this month) and I need to know that if I commit to Freeway I am actually going to emerge from this project with deadlines met and sanity intact.
Have there been any improvements in stability?
There is no need for making stable things “more” stable. It’s just a matter of knowing what to do (and what not). As I constantly say - and never get tired of: You can’t make relative layouts without an already existing outline (or storyboard if you want) - and it requires a lil but of practice.
Doing relative positioning since V4 (or even earlier), I can assure:
I am not talking about relative positioning. I’m talking about relative layouts - mobile-friendly layouts that swap at specific breakpoints.
What I was experiencing was that I would build the main layout, set a breakpoint for a narrower browser width, make the necessary changes, then create the next breakpoint. At some point in the process there would be a freeze and I’d have to start over. If an app frequently crashes, there is instability. Tracking down the cause is a bit tough.
I used to be a paid beta tester and am used to pounding away at something in order to track down the trigger of a crash but with this, it could be anything - pasting, importing, moving, clicking - not a simple challenge.
I experienced a couple dozen instances of this before looking elsewhere for relative layout tools.
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Trey, if you are not talking about relative positioning then I’m not certain that I understand what a “relative layout” is.
Inflow (or inline, or box-in-box) layouts produce relatively-positioned results. Used to be (I am uncertain now) you could do the same with an action on drag-n-drop layouts. That seemed fiddly to me so I have always stuck with the inflow (etc, etc) method as it seems to me to offer the greatest control.
These days, when Freeway 7 crashes for me it is usually when I am trying to power through a repetitive task (click to select, click to enter, click to place cursor…) I find this click, click, click almost invariably will cause an unexpected quit.
My solution has been to slow down and treat Freeway like the old workhorse it is. Always careful not to overdo it. I should probably put her out to pasture, but I still find value in her, and comfort from our familiar partnership. So, not just yet.
Anyway, I guess am unclear on what you mean by “relative layout”.
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Have you had a talk with the towers in this issue(s)? I can’t double your pain at all - FW works like a mule and crashes like horse, but not more or less than it did before.
BTW - CMD-S is essential and ever was (a ingrained process if you want so).
And once again my sentence above:
Keep things simple - work towards the goal (outline) and you’ll recognize (by all downs existing) an rapid increase of productivity.
Cheers
Thomas
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My approach has always been to focus first on function, then form, then finery.
While Hype doesn’t have the features to create a truly full-featured website, it’s responsive tools are smooth, easy and very stable. It would be a nice thing for vendors such as SoftPress to take a look and see if there is anything they can borrow.
That is something I wish Adobe had done with FreeHand, as FH had some really great capabilities that AI couldn’t touch. When Adobe bough Macromedia back in 2005, they simply killed FH and that was it. Even ten years later, the decade-old final release of FH still beats AI in some area.
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