Hey, I’m totally open to feedback, so just let me know what you think would improve your experience and I’ll do my best to explain why it’s not there right now or if it’s on the horizon.
The quality of the site you build ultimately comes down to you, images, colours and font selection go a long way before you even add a single Bloc.
When we make a website, it’s because we have some skill that the client doesn’t have. Very rarely is it the case that the client could do it but doesn’t have the time.
We add value in the design of the website and that goes way beyond just being a capable blocsapp user or HTML designer. It’s about creating a website that best serves the client’s purpose. Often that means educating the client and explaining that what they think they want is not necessarily the best idea at all.
So then we have the website built and now the client wants changes. They want to make changes themselves. Generally this is because friends tell them how easy this is to do, friends offer to help or they want to make changes to save money and the client thinks ‘how hard can this be?’.
In this case the approach I take is that I do minimal changes free of charge for a few weeks after site launch and beyond that I charge a low fee for small changes and anything else is up for discussion.
If they still want to go ahead I say that’s fine and I wish you the best of luck going forward.
If a client decides to go forward by themselves, that’s fine, but it’s not our job to teach them how to use blocsapp or anything else. If they don’t like blocsapp, then that’s fine because they are no longer my client - whatever problems they have is their issue, not mine and not Norm’s.
If they wanted me to fix their problems, then that’s fine too, but generally I’d then be charging them a premium rate for the fix so they get the message that I’m not here as a cheap option.
Recently I had a client that wanted to move to cheaper hosting and was this possible for them to do it themselves (they had a good deal for the first year then a price hike). I told them no problem and wished them well, pointing out that it was common for prices to go up after the introductory discount and I told them what they would need to do.
Then they changed their mind about it. How much would it cost to make some changes they asked. I said that when they’ve decided specifically what changes they wanted, I’d tell them. I’ve heard nothing since.
So, if your client wants to take over the website, let them. You have no obligation to help them with blocsapp or anything else after they take that step. Whether they like blocsapp or not is not your problem.
Norm is doing a fine job.
I use Blocs because it is simple to use and can put together a website that is more than acceptable for my clients needs. First I discuss with the client what they are hoping to achieve with the site, Whilst talking with the client I try to gleam of the information which will help me create what they are looking for and yes in general it appears that the client doesn’t really know what they require to promote their businesses, but that is why they come to people like us in the first place isn’t it.
Some of my clients do think they can do their own website and I am more than happy to let them, I do however remind them that there is more to a website than a website, Design plays a major part in making a website look good. I do always remind my clients of my famous saying " just because I have a brick in one hand and a trowel in the other, it doesn’t make me a builder".
I also use dreamweaver to do more sophisticated sites but a lot of my clients just want a presence on the WWW not an all singing all dancing website. They want a site that looks professional enough and costs little.
Blocs meets all of these needs and then some. There is no need to criticise it at all it is an excellent programme created by a very passionate developer. I applaud what Norm has created. Crickey we have to Beta test the whole operating systems for Apple Microsoft and they correct as they go. Norm listens to us and develops add-ons to help us. This should be appreciated and not criticised.
I say well done Norm, keep up the good work.
If the client want to do it themselves with a little help from their friends then let them. I have spent many years perfecting my art and skills. If some one thinks they an do better in a few months then they are not the type of clients I would want anyway.
I appreciate that skilled people have mastered their skills and you want clients who appreciate that as well.
Whilst not wishing to be discourteous, your post is indicative of the sort of complaints made by those who do not really understand the very basics of website marketing (yes, that’s what web design is really about - marketing). A good web development application is one that allows for the construction of a functional website that has a purpose. Furthermore, if the application can make responsive/adaptive sites that suit a wide variety of devices, it’s really starting to do its job.
Blocsapp provides all the tools needed by most competent web designers to meet all these basic objectives. Beyond that, it’s down to you as the designer to make it look and feel attractive without it getting out of control.
Essentially, a good website developer/designer only really needs three bits of essential information to create a functional website. These are:
Getting answers to these three simple questions will allow you to establish a very clear structure for the site the client requires. It’s now up to you as the designer/developer to make it happen with whatever tools you are comfortable using.
In an organisation where the design and development function are undertaken by different people, the designer will be the one who designs the user interface and mandates the journey site visitors will make in order to reach the desired objective of the site. The developer will be the techie that makes it function the way the designer visualises it. Where these two functions are undertaken by the same person, a good web development application, such as Blocsapp, can fulfil the role of the developer, leaving the designer to do fairly much anything that may be required in fulfilling the client brief.
That is what determines a good development application and differentiates it from a bad one. However, in between, there are web designers who too easily succumb to the demands of clients who are driven by vanity. They see certain bells, whistles, gadgets and gizmos on other people’s sites and start demanding that their site has the same and more. Furthermore, in making these demands, they lose complete sight of what their website is supposed to do - they focus on gadgets and effects rather than purpose. A good web designer will not allow this to happen.
When looking at Blocs as a development tool, it contains all the essential ingredients needed to make a fully functional and attractive website. It has elements for creating text, images, image galleries, video content and classes to enable the designer to size and position elements on the page in any way he/she desires. It has responsiveness built-in which can be further modified to suit different device screens. It also has visibility options that can be user invoked or automatically invoked through device detection. That is all a good website really needs. If you have a situation where a client has a real need for a particular gadget or gizmo, then it’s a simply question of adding some third-party code to make it happen. But, in any event, the requirement should be questioned to ensure that it’s not being added just for the sake of adding a feature that someone else may have on their website - a feature that may make life difficult for a user or eat up user resources unnecessarily.
It’s often said that a poor workman always blames his tools. In the case of web design, it happens a lot. If you want a complete web development tool that caters for every whim that a client may throw at you, check out HTML and Javascript. They are both tools that allow you to do anything. Of course, you have to learn a little bit more with these tools but, hey! if you want bells and whistles, these are the tools to go for. If you just want to create good websites out of the box with the minimum of learning, then look no further than Blocs.
Casey. To be clear - I don’t do anything which is based on Blocs app for any of clients. For now. I did some simple projects for testing purposes.
You are wrong with this. I have many apps in my computers which are extremely polished, well crafted, full of features, and bug-free. Often they are developed by small teams or the single person.
I wrote it many times. i LIKE the Blocs App very much. Is it so bad that sometimes I pay attention to what I do not like about this application and what I consider to be unfinished?
I apologize for the form of my statements, if it bothers someone. I’m 50 years old but I’m still feeling like a big child. 
Try it for yourself. It may make your life better. 
@Blocs_User, thank you for your post. It’s really full of common sense! Many times I wrote about various things to improve, even recently here: Forms creation still far from perfect
Hello, @kaldr1dge! My statements are not the criticism. I like this app very much. Thank you for your words which are very valuable. 
Hello, @hendon52! Thanks for answering my post. The matter is I see the inconsistency of developing the app. Eg we have the alerts but without their closing feature. We can create any form but this form is later rendered including some not editable tags inside, which later have to be edited manually. Why is that? Those small things are not worth of attention? The program is used by developers from around the world. They create pages in different languages. Such shortcomings interfere with the unpleasant way in creating websites using the Blocs app.
It is the main motivation to write my my initial post. This is end of story. 
In my opinion, this pseudo-discussion is just sterile and just serves as to pollute the forum (just like my 2 cents message) 
It’s not like this.
I am afraid that it is, I have held back on commenting before this but i fail to see any constructive criticism from you in the thread, just pointless and continual nit picking.
It sounds like someone paid you to write such things. 
Or maybe you are an online bot to comment on forums …?
Ok. I see that it is a waste of my time and willingness.
It’s only a waste of time if you don’t help me make Blocs better by trying to give more detail on what you think needs to be improved.
Blocs like any other app, thrives on clear, concise, feedback 
Take advantage of the fact the creator of this app cares and is directly replying to you.
Your response says it all…
Forgetting the stuff about what your ex-clients think, raise any specific issues in a separate thread.
For a new feature, post it in “Wish List”.
For a problem “I need help”.
This would probably get a more specific response from Norm since it’s hard to deal with a very general criticism of any software.
You might be surprised at how being very specific can result in future changes, or sometimes an explanation of why something isn’t implemented.
I think your posts are also suffering from a bit of a language barrier so keeping to a single subject would help that too.
Negatively commenting on a tool or website can really be helpful. Either you find there’s a better way to use the software than you thought or the developer can be alerted to an issue. Now and again you can just agree to disagree.
Have another go, but simplify.
I can only speak for myself - a potential Blocs buyer who ended up something else than Blocs after the 5 day trial, mainly for these reasons:
• 5 days is too short for an app with a much steeper learning curve than the other app.
• I strongly disliked the idea that sometimes, when the mouse is in insert mode, the mouse icon reflects that, but other times it doesn’t. I often ended up seeing behaviour I didn’t expect at all.
• From what I could find out during these 5 days, Blocs doesn’t offer a way to allow all or some pages be based on the same master page. That master page could eg. contain a header, a footer and a (extremely important:) sidebar. As far as I understood, not only were a lot of steps needed in order to create sidebar navigation, but there wasn’t a way to to create a global sidebar for all (or some) pages either; the Blocs concept seems to be based on copying one page and build the next page on that copy.
• This means that (again, if I got this right) one needs to change all these pages later, one by one, if one wants a different kind of side bar, for instance.
• Blocs looks very (visually) good, but I don’t like the idea of dealing with so many small icons based on the same colours and many similar shapes without having the option to always display each of the icons with a word that describes what that icon is about.
• And finally: like some other apps I like, Blocs seem to be built mainly for those who are going to use it regularly or all the time. That’s fair enough, but means that those of us who will use it intensively now and then will miss a more obvious user interface when we use it. I use too many different apps to be able to remember the key commands and other needed stuff to get a good workflow in all of them, so I prefer apps which are as self-explanatory as possible.
• Contextual menus everywhere, user assignable key commands, everything doable with both menus, key commands, and contextual menus, and help info around every corner is what I’m looking for.
By the same amount of time I needed in order to figure out how certain things are meant to be done, I had almost built a small website in the other.
I’m still considering buing Blocs, mainly because I have found a lot of bugs in the other app.
Thanks for the feedback 
Without getting into too much detail, I think you’ll like Blocs 3. It’s a leap forward and a lot more built out. The trial will also be unlimited but limited in various other ways so you can always fire it up and use it in a trial state.
Anyway, check back soon and try Blocs 3 
