"I would say to James, as I once counselled my students,
don’t keep looking for reasons to say something is impossible."Richard L., that is precisely what I am saying about improvements to Freeway. We don’t need to keep looking for reasons to say “improvements to Freeway are impossible.”
Thank you for your detailed post though, and for screenshots in Freeway of your sites and links to your sites. I would agree that your design approach is a very close approximation in Freeway to the final output. But most of what I’ve seen in Responsive Design in Freeway is quite different in Page view than Preview. And I would cite my earlier screenshot as an example of that:
http://f.cl.ly/items/442T1L3g163u0o3d2h2x/Image%202016-05-23%20at%209.17.25%20AM.png
I think we both can agree that the designs we have in mind must be toned down or altered to fit within the constraints of our preferred design tool, Freeway, not merely within the design constraints of the web. But I want to free my mind a bit more by expanding the capabilities of Freeway. I of course need to rely on SoftPress to do that, but to get them to do that means dialog like we’re having here.
Everyone who has come to understand the status quo of “responsive design” in Freeway has, in my observation, tried vehemently to defend that status quo. No one is peering outside the box that I can see. But I am. And that is why I mentioned Rapid Weaver and Stacks (which was actually brought up by someone else in this thread, but it was a good example so I continued with it). Rapid Weaver + Stacks is “another approach” that I think should stimulate thought on the part of SoftPress engineers on how to carry Freeway forward in terms of Responsive Design. No, not to clone RW + Stacks. But to consider well how they do it, in their modern UI, and then consider how Freeway can be improved.
"I still am not a hundred percent sure what you mean by
'it should be easier', James."Ditto what I just said about Rapid Weaver + Stacks. And no, I don’t want a clone of that. In fact, I am thinking about putting together a video of my trial version of RW + Stacks so I can show everyone where that silly software falls flat. But just because I don’t prefer that software over Freeway doesn’t mean we can’t learn a thing or two from their Responsive design approach. And I am talking about intuitiveness and usability here.
When I can sit down with an app and begin creating with it without having to have first read a manual or watch training videos, I know I’ve found a software gem. That’s what happened with MacWrite and MacPaint and all those early apps on the revolutionary Macintosh 128k that Steve Jobs brought to market. Those apps are revolutionary because they can be used by virtually anyone without deep knowledge of computing or “the status quo of things.” And although web design is much more complex than painting a pig in MacPaint, the fact remains that Freeway 2.0 back in 1999 was “the MacPaint of the web” to me back then. And it still is when I approach table-based designs. I don’t need to read manuals or ask endless questions on Freeway talk to accomplish a page editing task that I only have 15 minutes of time to implement. If I go Responsive, in the condition Freeway is in now, I take a big risk of not being able to do what I need to do within tight time constraints.
Earlier in this thread, someone said my sites look “dated.” Interestingly, no mention of the Freeway UI was included in that same sentence. If my sites are dated, what of the Freeway UI? Let’s be honest. It too is dated, and so are some of the design methods when it comes to Responsive Design. If some of you disagree, then please use the trial version of Rapid Weaver + Stacks, or other design apps. Sometimes using something else, even for a half an hour, can give a fresh perspective.
Many of you who vehemently defend the status quo of design in Freeway have said at times in the past that “Freeway was built upon a DTP model that no longer really applies to today’s web.” If you yourselves have said such, then you would agree, at least in part, with all I have been saying in this thread.
I am not condemning Freeway. I love Freeway. I love the community and the folks at SoftPress. And it is because of my 17 year long love that I am rather passionate about seeing the product have eternal life. I want Freeway to thrive. But Responsive Layout in Freeway today requires an education program. Don’t take my word for it. Look around here on FreewayTalk! Even people who have become good at Responsive Design in Freeway admit to the Learning Curve. I want to see that Learning Curve attenuated or eliminated.
Now, Thomas, I did read all of your post. And yes, I comprehended it too. Thank you for taking time to write those words. Thank you truly. And I see you did mention Rapid Weaver + Stacks and their grid, and you mentioned the “static DTP model” too. But you are still overlooking what I personally seek, perhaps because you have learned how to manipulate Freeway to do what you personally want, and you are, by and large, satisfied with that. And when someone is truly satisfied, what compels them to look for greater satisfaction? But I myself am not satisfied. I think things could be made a little better for all of us.
Paul Dunning has long spoken about the old “Relative Page Layout” action. Both he and I are fans of that Action because you can design your page as you always have when using tables, and then apply that action, and boom, you get a fairly Responsive end result. In other words, you can allow your brain to design without so many rules and constraints, and that magic Freeway Action will put your “droppings on the page” in the proper web form you wanted all along. It works almost like magic. Yet it isn’t magic. It’s real software.
SoftPress stopped supporting that Action for their own reasons. But the fact remains that such a level of sheer EASE is what most people seek. I am not asking for a set of templates either. I want to quickly dump what’s in my brain onto a page in Page View, then I want Freeway to crunch that into a nice modern form fit for the web. My explanation is overly simplistic, perhaps. But I think you follow what I am saying. No learning curve. Just fast and easy design, yet with flexibility not inherent to stupid templates.
Look, Thomas, you are an expert on Responsive Design in Freeway 7 Pro. No question. You rank among the best Responsive Designers here. And what has made you an expert is your knowledge of how to manipulate Freeway’s existing design tools. What I beg of you is to think beyond that box. Think beyond the status quo in Freeway today. Imagine if you could ask for nearly any new tool in Freeway and get it, what would it be? What new tools or techniques would help newbies immediately identify what needs to be done to get a certain shape or form or text or button on the page, exactly how they imagine it in their minds, but with minimal time and effort?
Think again about how Ernie kindly redesigned by table-based example into a Responsive object, and consider how many more clicks and Extended hacks and deep knowledge of Freeway were required to make that happen. With a table based approach, even a newbie can implement that little box quickly. But the Responsive approach takes much more study and many more clicks to produce a box that looks (on the surface) exactly the same as my table-based box.
If we’re honest, we all browse the web and spot something that looks really fabulous and ask ourselves, “I wonder how I could implement that or something similar in Freeway.” The day I can launch Freeway and do that in minutes, without having to consult a manual or ask questions for days on FreewayTalk, is the day we’ve made really progress. I can’t help it if I want Freeway to do more of the work. By asking more of Freeway, my brain is freed to think more deeply on the needs of my site and the way I want things to look.
Go back to Rapid Weaver + Stacks again. I am not trying to advertise that flawed approach to web design. I just mention it as an example because I recently downloaded the newest trial versions and gave them a go. Freeway allows me to Retina optimize my website, which I have done. But Freeway does not make that job easy to do correctly. Rapid Weaver + Stacks allows you to download a stack that makes the job easy. It will not only Retina optimize your graphics, but it will also detect when the 72ppi versions should be used instead of the 144ppi versions. I have my site 144ppi Retina Optimized, but I don’t have any checking. I sent 144ppi pics to everyone, simply because to do it the right way is too time consuming and hard in Freeway. I want to just tell Freeway, “Retina optimize my graphics and send low-rez or high-rez to the client intelligently.” That should be drop dead simple to do in Freeway (I’m talking, TWO CLICKS) but it isn’t. Freeway can be frustratingly difficult at times, and that’s a big reason we all come here to find answers and workarounds.
Freeway needs to be a design tool that frees my way. It needs to get out of my way and let my creative juices flow. Those juices don’t flow so well when they are told they must fit within the confines of a large number of draconian rules. Think about the RPL action and how it works its magic. You may be able to design something better than it does, but the fact remains that it brings remarkable simplicity to the end user. It is that simplicity that I seek, yet with design flexibility and power. I don’t want a template-driven Freeway. Yet I want something that is almost as easy.
Impossible?
We should never say “never” when it comes to making improvements in the design tools we use. That’s the theme of every single post I’ve made in this thread.
Thanks,
James Wages
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