Softpress Freeway 5 Public Beta with CSS menu support

Freeway
1

Softpress on Monday announced its Freeway 5 Public Beta Program, to publicly share its next-generation web design product. Version 5 features the ability to create CSS menus, personalized blogger templates, the ability to easily add Google content, a range of dynamic effects (fade, blind, pulsate), and accessibility provisions such as reports and views to ensure your target audience gets exactly what they need. The company said that update includes other features and improvements, such as sliced background images, background effects, new graphic effects, nested HTML lists, Save Archive, iPhoto import, color labeling, etc. The Beta will be available from the Softpress website as a thirty-day fully-working Preview. A web form will be available for feedback and problem reporting. Customers who purchase Freeway 4 after January 1, 2008 will receive a free downloadable upgrade to the new version when it is finalized.

“We are delighted to give web designers an early peek at our Freeway 5 web creation tools,” commented Softpress Managing Director Richard Logan. “Scheduled to coincide with Macworld Expo, we want existing and new users to download this beta and let us know what they think about the exciting new features.”

As an introductory offer, the price of full download copies of Freeway 4 (including a free upgrade to Freeway 5) will be reduced to $200 (Freeway 4 Pro) and $70 (Freeway 4 Express)–until Freeway 5 is released. All licenses include a free upgrade to v5.0. In addition, the company said that there will also be a further special discount for Expo attendees (booth S-1338-8, South Hall Developer Pavilion).

Gasp

I just saw the news item on MacNN and it’s all over the http://softpress.com home page!

Exciting news, Softpress! I’m sure I’m not the only one who is excited to give this a whirl!

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2

WooHoo
On 14 Jan 2008, at 17:29, Joe Muscara wrote:

Softpress on Monday announced its Freeway 5 Public Beta Program,
to publicly share its next-generation web design product. Version
5 features the ability to create CSS menus, personalized blogger
templates, the ability to easily add Google content, a range of
dynamic effects (fade, blind, pulsate), and accessibility
provisions such as reports and views to ensure your target
audience gets exactly what they need. The company said that update
includes other features and improvements, such as sliced
background images, background effects, new graphic effects, nested
HTML lists, Save Archive, iPhoto import, color labeling, etc. The
Beta will be available from the Softpress website as a thirty-day
fully-working Preview. A web form will be available for feedback
and problem reporting. Customers who purchase Freeway 4 after
January 1, 2008 will receive a free downloadable upgrade to the
new version when it is finalized.

“We are delighted to give web designers an early peek at our
Freeway 5 web creation tools,” commented Softpress Managing
Director Richard Logan. “Scheduled to coincide with Macworld Expo,
we want existing and new users to download this beta and let us
know what they think about the exciting new features.”

As an introductory offer, the price of full download copies of
Freeway 4 (including a free upgrade to Freeway 5) will be reduced
to $200 (Freeway 4 Pro) and $70 (Freeway 4 Express)–until Freeway
5 is released. All licenses include a free upgrade to v5.0. In
addition, the company said that there will also be a further
special discount for Expo attendees (booth S-1338-8, South Hall
Developer Pavilion).

Gasp

I just saw the news item on MacNN and it’s all over the http://
softpress.com home page!

Exciting news, Softpress! I’m sure I’m not the only one who is
excited to give this a whirl!

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3

Sounds good :slight_smile:

On 14 Jan 2008, at 17:29, Joe Muscara wrote:

Softpress on Monday announced its Freeway 5 Public Beta Program,

David Owen
Freeway Friendly Web hosting and Domains ::

http://www.printlineadvertising.co.uk/freeway

4

And I’m only just getting to grips with all the whistles & bells of Freeway 4! Wow! & welcome to some more of the good stuff.

Colin

On 14 Jan 2008, at 17:49, David Owen wrote:

Sounds good :slight_smile:

On 14 Jan 2008, at 17:29, Joe Muscara wrote:

Softpress on Monday announced its Freeway 5 Public Beta Program,

David Owen
Freeway Friendly Web hosting and Domains ::

http://www.printlineadvertising.co.uk/freeway

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5

I like the feature that removes the height from divs with content automatically - and displays them with a dashed sided box

On 14 Jan 2008, at 17:29, Joe Muscara wrote:

Softpress on Monday announced its Freeway 5 Public Beta Program,

David Owen
Freeway Friendly Web hosting and Domains ::

http://www.printlineadvertising.co.uk/freeway
http://www.ineedwebhosting.co.uk

6

Page margins and grids - just keeps getting better. :slight_smile:

On 14 Jan 2008, at 17:29, Joe Muscara wrote:

Softpress on Monday announced its Freeway 5 Public Beta Program,

David Owen
Freeway Friendly Web hosting and Domains ::

http://www.printlineadvertising.co.uk/freeway
http://www.ineedwebhosting.co.uk

7

At last a sensible central method of working with alt text

On 14 Jan 2008, at 17:29, Joe Muscara wrote:

Softpress on Monday announced its Freeway 5 Public Beta Program,

David Owen
Freeway Friendly Web hosting and Domains ::

http://www.printlineadvertising.co.uk/freeway
http://www.ineedwebhosting.co.uk

8

Is just me, but are the blog actions not functioning yet?

On 14 Jan 2008, at 17:29, Joe Muscara wrote:

Softpress on Monday announced its Freeway 5 Public Beta Program,

David Owen
Freeway Friendly Web hosting and Domains ::

http://www.printlineadvertising.co.uk/freeway
http://www.ineedwebhosting.co.uk

9

On 14 Jan. 2008, 5:06 pm, ineedwebhosting wrote:

Page margins and grids - just keeps getting better. :slight_smile:

??? these are already in FP4 unless I’m mistaken

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10

Page margins and grids - just keeps getting better. :slight_smile:

??? these are already in FP4 unless I’m mistaken

These seem to be somewhat more advanced than in Freeway 4. Mmm…

k

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11

New: Customize toolbar with show/hide actions palette. YES!

Missing: The buttons at bottom right to show Master, page, preview and map. Where did it go?

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12

They are segment buttons at the top left of the design area, along
the same line as the top of the site panel.

Walter

On Jan 14, 2008, at 7:18 PM, cosjr wrote:

New: Customize toolbar with show/hide actions palette. YES!

Missing: The buttons at bottom right to show Master, page, preview
and map. Where did it go?

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13

Dear FreewayTalkers

Sorry for the delay in contacting you all… I have been without connectivity.

We have indeed launched Freeway 5 Beta this morning to coincide with our
rare visit to Macworld SF. Please do check it out and Enjoy. There will
be an ever increasing amount of info on our website, which was built
(thanks to Paul Dunning et al) in less than a week from scratch with…
Freeway 5!!!
Happy New Year to you all,

Richard

Softpress on Monday announced its Freeway 5 Public Beta Program, to
publicly share its next-generation web design product. Version 5
features the ability to create CSS menus, personalized blogger
templates, the ability to easily add Google content, a range of dynamic
effects (fade, blind, pulsate), and accessibility provisions such as
reports and views to ensure your target audience gets exactly what they
need. The company said that update includes other features and
improvements, such as sliced background images, background effects, new
graphic effects, nested HTML lists, Save Archive, iPhoto import, color
labeling, etc. The Beta will be available from the Softpress website as
a thirty-day fully-working Preview. A web form will be available for
feedback and problem reporting. Customers who purchase Freeway 4 after
January 1, 2008 will receive a free downloadable upgrade to the new
version when it is finalized.

“We are delighted to give web designers an early peek at our Freeway 5
web creation tools,” commented Softpress Managing Director Richard
Logan. “Scheduled to coincide with Macworld Expo, we want existing and
new users to download this beta and let us know what they think about
the exciting new features.”

As an introductory offer, the price of full download copies of Freeway
4 (including a free upgrade to Freeway 5) will be reduced to $200
(Freeway 4 Pro) and $70 (Freeway 4 Express)–until Freeway 5 is
released. All licenses include a free upgrade to v5.0. In addition, the
company said that there will also be a further special discount for Expo
attendees (booth S-1338-8, South Hall Developer Pavilion).

Gasp

I just saw the news item on MacNN and it’s all over the http://
softpress.com home page!

Exciting news, Softpress! I’m sure I’m not the only one who is excited
to give this a whirl!

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
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14

Now that Scriptaculous support is built in… and there has been reports of incompatibility with Mootools… is this going to be an issue still? I guess I’ll know once the beta hits my desktop

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15

Hi David,

The Blogger Actions should function. I wrote some text to go alongside
these that hasn’t yet been put on the website. Here it is:
Blogger Templates

Blogger is a free blog hosting service provided by Google. It is well
known and respected—but designing a template with your own content can
be tricky and time consuming.

With Freeway 5 you can easily design and create your own Blogger
templates. To do this you will need:

• A Google account (http://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount) and,
• A blog hosted by Blogger (http://www.blogger.com).

To create a Blogger template:

• In Freeway Pro, set the output level of your page to be XHTML (you

can skip this step if you are using Freeway Express).
• Open the Document Setup dialog from the File menu.
• Click on the Upload tab and type your web address in the Web
Address field (for example http://www.yourdomain.com). Click OK.
• Draw an HTML item on your page—don’t worry about the dimensions for
now.
• Open the Actions palette, by selecting it from the Window menu or
from the toolbar.
• Click on the plus button in the Actions palette and choose the
Blogger Header Action.
• Use the Actions palette to change the appearance of the Title and
Description items (in Blogger the description is turned off by default—
you will need to change your settings on the Blogger site to turn this
on).
• Use Freeway’s Preview to see how your blog will look (dummy text is
used at this point).
• Add any other Blogger Actions (Blogger Posts, Blogger Archive and
Blogger Profile) and other content to your page until you are happy
with it.
• Upload your site using the Upload command in the File menu. Note:
This step is important—if your blog has any images they will need to
be uploaded to the web for Blogger to see them.
• In the Actions palette click on the Generate Template button. A
dialog will appear containing your blog template code, copy this using
Copy from the Edit menu. Note: if you have applied more than one
Blogger Action, you only need click on one of the Generate Template
buttons.
• Log into your Blogger account and go to Edit HTML in the Layout
section. Paste the code into the large field in the center of the page
and click Preview. You should see the Header and the Blogger
navigation bar at the top of the page.
• When you are ready to save the template click the Save Template
button.

Hope this helps.

Joe

On 14 Jan 2008, at 10:42, David Owen wrote:

Is just me, but are the blog actions not functioning yet?

On 14 Jan 2008, at 17:29, Joe Muscara wrote:

Softpress on Monday announced its Freeway 5 Public Beta Program,

David Owen
Freeway Friendly Web hosting and Domains ::
http://www.printlineadvertising.co.uk/freeway
http://www.ineedwebhosting.co.uk

freewaytalk mailing list
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16

I’ve now a good play with the v5 beta. Here are my thoughts.

Some things are fixed or updated:

  • indented lists now work nicely;
  • styles seem smarter than before;
  • the new CSS menus are nice too;
  • the iphoto import feature is useful;
  • the blog function might be useful to some;
  • the app seems stable.

The only really significant improvement is that Freeway now has some useful new actions. These are really just extra actions, not core code changes.

It’s nice that indented lists are possible, but these should have been provided years ago.

On the downside, support for liquid layouts remains as weak as ever:

  • ems, when used for html box dimensions, still do not render correctly within Freeway, making it impossible to easily create liquid em-dimensioned pages without resorting to extended attributes;
  • ems, percentages and zero heights still can’t be applied to tables,

There are hardly any bugs, except for this: copying and pasting a run of text that includes an in-line table causes the table to disappear forever and the enclosing html box then goes haywire (just a bug I think).

As far as I can tell, Freeway 5 is really just Freeway 4 with two new actions, a couple of small improvements, and hopefully some bug-fixes, with a lot of obvious and needed improvements not done. A bit rich to call it Freeway 5 in my opinion.

I would think it reasonable to call it version 5 if there was proper support for ems and % in all dimensioning elements, so that we could easily make proper liquid layouts. Also, a decent version 5 should give access to more of the wonderful CSS underlining and other text and line attributes that currently require extended work. These could be easily implemented via the styles interface, but I don’t see much change here.

Finally there remain a number of weaknesses in table dimensioning, specifically that zero height table rows remain not permitted, table and cell widths can’t be set in percentages or ems etc, forcing a user to go to extended attributes to make a simple centred and 80% wide table. These are not really bugs per se but a failure to consistently implement very basic html functionalities.

And of course html import is so useless that I think it should be removed entirely. No new user could possibly switch to Freeway by this means.

I’m currently in a love-hate relationship with Freeway. I can’t do without it, and at the same time it seems like development is very slow indeed, and that lots of things that should be updated or fixed are being ignored. I can’t help but feel that this upgrade just doesn’t really deliver much.

Sure, the new CSS menus are nice, and I do appreciate being able to indent lists at last. But is this an upgrade worthy of being called Freeway 5? Or should it really be Freeway 4.5 and the new actions be sold separately? What do you think? Maybe I’m just too cynical…

Chris.

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17

I don’t see anywhere that current Freeway Pro 4 users get a break on price? Did I miss it? I did see this: All licenses include a free upgrade to v5.0. In addition, the company said that there will also be a further special discount for Expo attendees (booth S-1338-8, South Hall Developer Pavilion)… but it really isn’t clear as to what licenses.
Can anyone clarify this?

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18

I agree with you Chris. I think one of Freeway’s weakest links is it’s CSS support in terms of having all the options in there. I also think the CSS Menu’s are really easy, great work Softpress.

If Softpress could update the CSS options in the final build, I think they would gain an even wider user-base considering so many other programs already have this. But, I like what I see so far.

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19

On 15 Jan 2008, at 05:07, Chris Thompson wrote:

(just a bug I think)

While it’s great to see discussion about the public beta here on the
list, if anyone comes up against something they think is a genuine
bug while they are using Freeway 5, please report it using the form
on the Softpress web site.

http://www.softpress.com/freeway5beta.php

Thanks!

Heather

“Freeway - Web Design for All”

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