Thanks for your reply, Grant.
I actually just downloaded the latest version of RapidWeaver and Stacks a couple hours ago. This is my 5th look at RapidWeaver over the years, and my first look at Stacks. I must say, I am somewhat impressed with Stacks, because without it, RapidWeaver is rather useless (in my humble opinion). HOWEVER, man alive! You certainly have to have a LOT of stacks to gain even a small amount of flexibility that Freeway affords you. And many of those stacks are going to nickel-and-dime you. Plus, you need to manage all those stacks, which is somewhat of a mess if you’ve got 25 or more, which is likely in my case seeing all the tweaking I prefer to do on my sites.
If Stacks were at the heart of RapidWeaver from the beginning, it probably would be much easier to manage and use, and that’s really what I’d love to see Freeway become with regard to Responsive design. No, not a RapidWeaver clone. Just a better app that takes competitors like RapidWeaver into consideration while creating a UI that is vastly superior to this competitors and to what we have in Freeway 7 Pro right now.
I really do think that the closer SoftPress can get to true WYSIWYG in PAGE VIEW, the closer they will come to design perfection. Those who love the existing way of doing things in Freeway may disagree with me, especially if they are left-brain coders to begin with; but FOR THE REST OF US, such is essential to Responsive Web design that is right-brain “intuitive.” Make it so easy that the user doesn’t really need to resort to looking at the Freeway manual. That’s pretty much how Freeway 2 was to me back in 1999 when I first tried it out. It was almost like a flashback to MacPaint on my Mac 128k. Who needed to consult a manual to use MacPaint?! So perhaps now you can understand my way of thinking.
At this point I need to mention that I love the good folks in Oxford, and I have for years. I don’t want anyone from SoftPress to feel I’m picking on them or being overly negative. I am just passionate about being constructive with my criticism because I still love Freeway. That’s why we all need to take a look at this page, and please read it slowly so it sinks in…
That page pitches Freeway as a product that does 2 things:
- Handles Responsive Web Design.
- Does it “Code free.”
Of course, if any of you can show me how to design a fully Responsive web site in Freeway without resorting to the Extended dialog (which is defined as “code”) or the HTML Markup dialog (which too is “code”), then I am all ears. In other words, can any of you consider how to redesign all the content in both my big websites in Freeway WITHOUT resorting to code of any kind? My guess is “no.” And therein lies my problem. Again, I became a believer in Freeway back in 1999 because at that time it was pitched as “For those who don’t see the world as code.” That’s me. Man, that’s still me! And that’s still how SoftPress pitches Freeway today. But Freeway really cannot honestly say that about Responsive Web Design (unless the page is stupidly simple). It can only (perhaps) say that about traditional table-based design.
When I can design a large Responsive website in Freeway without being forced to dive into code via Extended dialogs or HTML Markup or using a dozen Actions here and there, AND when I have a WYSIWYG view of the design in PAGE VIEW, that will be the day I enter paradise and never turn back to the old way of doing things. And that will probably be the day those RapidWeaver users start ditching that app for Freeway.
–James Wages
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