Xway b1

Hi Alistair - I saw that you got an answer from Gordon. But anyway: The
manual that comes with Xway states:

«In future, we intend that Xway will also be able to import existing
Freeway documents.»

You mention «Freeway actions, responsiveness and other capabilities».
The manual states:

«Our intention is for Xway to become a complete replacement for
Freeway. We haven’t reached that point yet, but Xway can be used to
create modern and professional web sites without the need to write
code.»

In Xway, responsiveness is already taken care of by default - so no
Action is needed for that. And several Freeway Actions will not be
necessary in Xway, one should think, because Xway takes care of things
without actions. For Freeway, then a quite large subset of Actions
performed functions of giving Freeway features that it really should
have had by default. Most of that subset of Actions, won’t be
necessary in Xway, I guess. Again, responsiveness is a good example - I
think.

As for Actions in general, then, according to the manual, Actions are on
the «incomplete list of features that have not yet been implemented».
Perhaps we can guess that Xway Actions will be similar to Freeway
Actions. If so, then it should be simple for Action authors to make
Actions Xway-compatible.

It sounds from the manual as if import of Freeway documents will be
built directly into Xway at some point.

Since you need to move to a new product (which you need, since you have
upgrade to MacOS 10.15), and since Xway does not support import of
Freeway documents yet, it is understandable that you want to consider
competitive products.

But we could also turn your point of view around and ask: What is the
advantage of using Xway - over competitive products - right now? And
then I would say that it has at least the advantage that the “logic” and
design of Xway seems familiar - it is easy to feel that it is the
inheritor of Freeway.

Leif Halvard Silli

On 18 Nov 2019, at 10:35, Alistair Johnston wrote:

I’ve been a Freeway Pro user for many, many years. I appreciate all
the reasons for moving to Xway, but not being able to export my
Freeway Pro websites is really frustrating. My websites made extensive
use of Freeway actions, responsiveness and other capabilities - it’s
not simply a matter of copying over text and graphics.

Can you confirm if you will be developing a tool to export Freeway Pro
to Xway? Otherwise I am reluctant to start from scratch with Xway and
will investigate competitive products that are more resilient to Mac
OS updates.


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I agree with everything else you mentioned, Leif, but this. It could be because I haven’t taken the time to play with this. I also have been using Freeway for many years, b ut for me the interface and appearance of Xway don’t seem familiar or makes me feel it’s the inheritor of Freeway (yet)…

I will do the best I can to learn it though.

Marcus

On Nov 18, 2019, at 12:45 PM, Leif Halvard Silli email@hidden wrote:

And then I would say that it has at least the advantage that the “logic” and design of Xway seems familiar - it is easy to feel that it is the inheritor of Freeway.


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If so, then perhaps it has to do not only with the interface and
appearance but perhaps more with deeper things … Because - as we know,
and as the Xway manual makes clear - Freeway is in reality a DTP tool
that publish Web sites instead of paper publications. I myself used
Freeway often for its typographical and graphical features.

One cannot do the same with Xway. Xway does not allow you to switch
between “graphical paragraph” and normal Web paragraph. The degree to
which graphics and typography was part of Freeway, can be illustrated by
the fact that the Xway manual contains a section called “Graphic boxes”
which only contains the following two sentences:

  • Xway does not have separate graphic boxes or graphic text. Graphics
    can be added to a page, but there is no such thing as an empty graphic
    box.

(By the way: When one consider this big difference between the two apps,
it is no wonder that the import function had to wait.)

Even if one can also regret this, on the whole, this is a good thing. It
means that, finally, Web logics is more readily available for the user.
For one thing, it probably means that Xway produces far less “items”
over which one as user has no control.

Speaking of “items”: one thing that makes me see Xway as inheritor of
Freeway is the Site panel with its many sub “items”. And the fact that
that panel is called “Site” and not “page” or whatever, is also
important: This is one unique thing of Freeway - and now also for Xway -
that you work with sites.

For me, Freeway broke down as a tool for teams, where some were able to
design and some where able to write: There were simply too many gotchas.
The translation from graphics (read: Freeway’s DTP model) to text
(read: Web) constantly broke down. Text that looked green in Freeway
came out as blue in a browser. And “graphic paragraphs” had
unpredictable effects in browser. There were too much nitty gritty
without logic. Yes, Freeway had Tables and Lists - something which is
still on Xway’s todo list - but in order to use Freeway’s Tables and
Lists, you had to be a very good mooded person, willing to do Sisyphos
work again and again.

Leif Halvard Silli

On 18 Nov 2019, at 18:58, email@hidden wrote:

I agree with everything else you mentioned, Leif, but this. It could
be because I haven’t taken the time to play with this. I also have
been using Freeway for many years, b ut for me the interface and
appearance of Xway don’t seem familiar or makes me feel it’s the
inheritor of Freeway (yet)…

I will do the best I can to learn it though.

Marcus

On Nov 18, 2019, at 12:45 PM, Leif Halvard Silli
email@hidden wrote:

And then I would say that it has at least the advantage that the
“logic” and design of Xway seems familiar - it is easy to feel that
it is the inheritor of Freeway.


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Any word on how much it will be?
Thanks in advance.


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Any word on how much it will be?

b1 will be free.

When we do start charging, I think the price will be similar to what we currently charge for Freeway. There will also be an upgrade price for Freeway users.

Jeremy


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“There will also be an upgrade price for Freeway users.”

Good to hear but it would also help to know, pending the eventual ability to import from Freeway Pro, will it be necessary to recreate an existing site from scratch (which I really don’t fancy doing) or will there be an easier way?


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The way I would import a site into Xway would be to paste text content into Xway pages and import graphic (and other) content.

But you don’t have to do this: as long as you keep Mojave on a separate partition, or run it within a VM, you can continue using Freeway Pro for existing sites.

Jeremy


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“The way I would import a site into Xway would be to paste text content into Xway pages and import graphic (and other) content.”

With around 700 pages to do, that isn’t a terribly attractive prospect. I think I’ll stick with 10.14 until Xway can import from Pro.


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On 4 Nov 2019, 9:43 pm, Nick Beale wrote:

“The way I would import a site into Xway would be to paste text content into Xway pages and import graphic (and other) content.”

With around 700 pages to do, that isn’t a terribly attractive prospect. I think I’ll stick with 10.14 until Xway can import from Pro.

Same here, Nick. I have just under 500 pages. The cut-and-paste is not something I want to tackle. Like you, I’ll just keep using Fwy 7 Pro and OSX 14 until a version of Xway comes out that will directly import our Freeway document.


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[Re-posting from Xway b1]

I’ve been a Freeway Pro user for many, many years. I appreciate all the reasons for moving to Xway, but not being able to export my Freeway Pro websites is really frustrating. My websites made extensive use of Freeway actions, responsiveness and other capabilities - it’s not simply a matter of copying over text and graphics.

Can you confirm if you will be developing a tool to export Freeway Pro to Xway? Otherwise I am reluctant to start from scratch with Xway and will investigate competitive products that are more resilient to Mac OS updates.

And furthermore… creating a partition for me will be a separate challenge as I installed my OS with just the one usable partition. Hmm!


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If you installed High Sierra or Mojave, then you are on APFS (Apple File System) and making partitions and such is SO MUCH SIMPLER than you may recall from the days of HFS and HFS+. Don’t let that slow you down.

Walter

On Nov 18, 2019, at 8:37 AM, Alistair Johnston email@hidden wrote:

And furthermore… creating a partition for me will be a separate challenge as I installed my OS with just the one usable partition. Hmm!


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We actually discussed making partitions on APFS in the thread linked below. It’s a pretty slick process.


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Hi Alistair,

Can you confirm if you will be developing a tool to export Freeway Pro to Xway?

We are planning to do that, but there are other things we need to do first.

Otherwise I am reluctant to start from scratch with Xway and will investigate competitive products that are more resilient to Mac OS updates.

Xway should be resilient to macOS updates.

The problem with Freeway is quite specific: Freeway is a 32-bit application and uses macOS (Carbon) APIs that Apple have abandoned. Carbon and Cocoa were two APIs that Apple introduced with macOS X. Developers whose applications ran on earlier versions of macOS were encouraged to use Carbon as a way of converting their programs to run on macOS X. Converting a Carbon program to a Cocoa program, without rewriting it from scratch, is a difficult process (the APIs are very different).

We’re not the only developer who has faced this problem. There are a number of 32-bit Carbon applications that have been abandoned, without any replacement.

And furthermore… creating a partition for me will be a separate challenge as I installed my OS with just the one usable partition. Hmm!

As other people have noted, this is actually quite easy!

It’s also worth looking at installing Mojave within a VM (that’s what I plan to do when I upgrade to Catalina). There’s a TidBITS article that explains how to do this:

Jeremy


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I understand that eventually Xway will be able to import my Freeway site. But does “eventually” have a goal of Q1 2019 or 2020 or some unnamed date in the future if/when we have time for it?

I don’t want to upgrade to Catalina, but I have a MacBook with one of the bad keyboards that has to be replaced. My AppleCare runs out in March or April, but to get the new keyboard, Apple’s going to initialize the hard drive and install the latest OS. I think it’s crazy, but that’s their policy, so I’m looking for some guidance. If I have to start over on all of my sites, I’m looking at alternatives like Sparkle, Everweb, and Blocs.

How far down the Product backlog is the import feature? How long is your typical sprint cycle?

Chuck


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On 27 Nov 2019, 7:08 pm, chuckbo wrote:

to get the new keyboard, Apple’s going to initialize the hard drive and install the latest OS. I think it’s crazy, but that’s their policy

I’ve never heard of such a thing. I know Apple tells you to back up your data before your bring in your Mac just in case, but I’ve never heard of them initializing internal drives when doing a repair. Maybe they’re replacing the entire computer so you’re getting a new empty drive and that’s going to come with the new macOS installed? That seems more likely to me.

Anyway, instead of trying to use Xway and hoping to get the import feature soon, or switching to another app, the solution for you is easier. You have two options, both of which will let you continue to use Freeway Pro 7. One, use a VM to run Mojave on that Mac, as Jeremy described above.

It’s also worth looking at installing Mojave within a VM (that’s what I plan to do when I upgrade to Catalina). There’s a TidBITS article that explains how to do this:

Moving to Catalina: Keep Your 32-Bit Mac Apps Running with Parallels - TidBITS

Or, create a bootable volume for Mojave. Note that if Apple actually does give you a new Mac that doesn’t run Mojave at all because it initially shipped after Catalina shipped, this will not work. I’m 99% sure if they give you the exact same model you have but just a new unit it should be fine.

We actually discussed making partitions on APFS in the thread linked below. It’s a pretty slick process.

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You say you’ve never heard of such a thing … until now, they’ve replaced the keyboard twice so far (and just replaced it with the same faulty model) and both times wiped the hard drive. And it was the same machine except for the keyboard. But they don’t believe me that it’s a hardware issue until they prove to themselves that it isn’t a software issue.

You deflected from the actual question, though I know that you aren’t in a position to know the real answer.


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On 30 Nov 2019, 3:17 pm, chuckbo wrote:

You deflected from the actual question, though I know that you aren’t in a position to know the real answer.

Deflected? No, I gave you options for now, trying to help you. In fact, running Freeway Pro 7 in Mojave is what Softpress themselves has been recommending to us until Xway is what we need it to be. No one, especially them, has suggested Xway is anywhere close to that, and software development is such a thing that even if Softpress had any specific date or period for the ability to import that doesn’t mean they’re close enough to know if that might be true. As Jeremy said above regarding importing older sites, there are other things they need to do first.

Sorry that Apple has been initializing your hard drive and sorry for wasting your time by answering you. Twice. I hope you had a good Thanksgiving holiday.


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Thank you.

I’m not really trying to be critical. I’m trying to add to the body of information that the Product Owner will use to rank features (if this is being run as an agile project).


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On 1 Dec 2019, 2:43 pm, chuckbo wrote:

Thank you.

I’m not really trying to be critical. I’m trying to add to the body of information that the Product Owner will use to rank features (if this is being run as an agile project).

Gotcha. I’m sure the desirability and priority of this feature is high, but the order is low. Xway will have to be able to do a bunch of things first so that when you import a FW file, you won’t lose much, if anything.

BTW, did I see you are in Fort Bend County?


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Hi Joe
thanks for adding more knowledge to this group. I’m pretty sure that Jeremy and all Softpress team are working hard to make Xway be “the new way”, however I thought Jeremy mentioned that importing FW documents would be a priority expected already for the first “paid” version of Xway.

I believe I’m not the only one who still use and need Freeway to work with on a daily basis. I am right now working in new websites with FW, but being realistic, I’m afraid that if importing FW documents will be a secondary thing for a dust or unknown future, some of us would think twice on that. I love FW and need it to work and truly hope Xway will take this place soon.

Best
Marcus

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 1, 2019, at 12:46 PM, Joe Muscara email@hidden wrote:

On 1 Dec 2019, 2:43 pm, chuckbo wrote:

Thank you.

I’m not really trying to be critical. I’m trying to add to the body of information that the Product Owner will use to rank features (if this is being run as an agile project).

Gotcha. I’m sure the desirability and priority of this feature is high, but the order is low. Xway will have to be able to do a bunch of things first so that when you import a FW file, you won’t lose much, if anything.

BTW, did I see you are in Fort Bend County?


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