I’m currently a Express 4 user. I’m happy with it.
I’m debating on upgrading to Express 5 or Pro 5. There’s not too much of a cost difference between the two. But I’m not sure what to do. When I first downloaded the Freeway demos, Express seemed a better fit for a novice, like myself.
I don’t know what CSS is or a lot of the other options. Am I better off sticking with Express and just accepting those defaults? I fearful of upgrading to Pro, and when faced with different choices, I might end up just using what is found in Express. Any opinions?
To have access to layers when you want them and to the realm of actions is
significant and not necessarily a steep curve.
To make non CSS layouts in firewire still works - is still easy and allows
great design flexibility.
I believe you can enjoy using FreewayPro as a novice and yet still enjoy
significant benefit.
I’m saying that there is no necessity to adopt CSS layout for your sites but
you have the freedom to learn about and implement it if you want to.
I daresay SP list the benefits of Pro somewhere on their site.
Just my opinion
regards
Brian
JT said recently:
Hi all,
I’m currently a Express 4 user. I’m happy with it.
I’m debating on upgrading to Express 5 or Pro 5. There’s not too much of a
cost difference between the two. But I’m not sure what to do. When I first
downloaded the Freeway demos, Express seemed a better fit for a novice, like
myself.
I don’t know what CSS is or a lot of the other options. Am I better off
sticking with Express and just accepting those defaults? I fearful of
upgrading to Pro, and when faced with different choices, I might end up just
using what is found in Express. Any opinions?
If price is not the issue, go for Pro. It gives you more options, and room to grow as you move away from feeling like a novice. If there are features in Pro you don’t use, no harm done. It’s not like they force themselves on you.
I couldn’t agree more. I’ve been a Freeway fan from quite an early
stage of its development, yet I’m primarily a copywriter and not a
conventionally trained designer (or coder). Nevertheless, I found the
Pro version just as easy to get on with as the Express equivalent I
first used. It does take a little longer to learn the extra
capabilities, obviously, but once you have them under your belt,
sites flow together much more smoothly. Go for it, JT, using it like
Express at first, then start experimenting - you never know what you
might achieve.
I’m debating on upgrading to Express 5 or Pro 5. There’s not too
much of a cost difference between the two.
I fearful of upgrading to Pro, and when faced with different
choices, I might end up just using what is found in Express. Any
opinions?
Given that, as you say above, there’s not much difference between the
prices, then I would think it was better to go with the bigger one
and use less of it than go with the smaller one and not be able to
use more of it.
5 has so many little improvements that you really don’t notice right away. Plus a lot of new features that really make the “wow” factor in a web page much easier. I really think if FW was cross-platform, and had a code view… nobody would use anything else.
Freeway has got a code view - after you publish!
(I know that isn’t what you meant
Its object model is its strength and to die hard coders, its weakness.
There might be ways to develop Freeway that allowed preferences as to the
way of the code in various instances but I cant myself see that Freeway can
ever include code editing and yet still be the design environment that it
is.
In other wysiwyg web apps the user interface is immediately manipulating
code - (I believe) such that repeated edits make an increasing mess of that
code. But Freeway maintains it own ‘virtual’ object model of the whole site
in its own unique language and only makes a rendition of that design as a
web site when you publish. And Every time one publishes it is a fresh new
code version and not an amalgamation of historical edits.
all the best
Brian
dhrose said recently:
5 has so many little improvements that you really don’t notice right away.
Plus a lot of new features that really make the “wow” factor in a web page
much easier. I really think if FW was cross-platform, and had a code view…
nobody would use anything else.
Freeway has got a code view - after you publish!
(I know that isn’t what you meant
Its object model is its strength and to die hard coders, its weakness.
Die hard coders who are open-minded and smart actually make Freeway work for them, not against them. Let me give you an example.
Most people who write Mac OS X applications don’t do so from scratch. They use what’s called a framework, which takes care of the basics for you. So, you can focus on what’s unique about your application. For instance, you don’t worry about what the user is doing at any given moment in your app. You just write the code that responds to what the user does.
Similarly, you can let Freeway worry about the way to implement how the site looks. I then focus on the parts where I need to put the output from a database table or text from a CMS. Freeway lets me see this in the design view that’s generic but still WYSIWYG. I can ignore the rest.
