Adobe MUSE vs. Blocs - Ex-Muse user looking for new home - a zillion questions

I Need Help
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Hi all you nice guys & gals :raising_hand_woman:

Yes, I’m another one of those desperate Ex-Musers who are looking for a nice cosy new home… :grinning:
I would like to ask you some questions regarding the possibilities of Blocs.
It would be great if others chime in here to ask other questions comparing Muse and Blocs.
Who knows, maybe @Norm will even be inspired by some nice features Muse had…? :wink:

THANK YOU IN ADVANCE :kissing_heart:

Let’s start with these questions:

  1. INDIVIDUAL Breakpoints ???
    In Muse one can set INDIVIDUAL breakpoints and as many as your design needs. In the Muse-Universe I was taught to define the breakpoints, when the actual design of that specific site needed it at a certain point - testing with changing the size of the browserwindow.

It seems, in Blocs I do have to stay with a fixed set of breakpoints (for the devices).
Is that correct? Can I somehow change the breakpoints?
What exactly can I do when my individual design looks horrible at a certain screen size „in between“ the given breakpoints?

@Norm
Will the update of Blocs bring INDIVIDUAL Breakpoints?
Is that update (I somewhere read about) still planned for the end of 2018?

  1. Navigation Menu:
    Is there a limitation of sub-levels?
    How many levels exactly are possible?
    Will the mobile menu automatically show those sub-levels? (For the last question, Muse was quite poor).

  2. Is Blocs a good solution for BIG sites (100+ pages) ?

  3. Is there something like a site structure view mode? (like Muse had one) and can pages be moved around within that view to change their actual position?
    Would the menu then automatically reflect the new structure of the pages?

To get an idea of what I mean, have a look at this (old !) tutorial.
Building a Site Structure in Adobe Muse CC

  1. the idea of „Master“ pages in Muse (see video above) was quite nice - is there something like that in Blocs?

  2. @Norm
    What are your - longterm - future plans with Blocs?
    Are there other geniuses next to you, who are working on Blocs, so that it wouldn’t be a catastrophe for us, when you, let’s say, decided to tour the world for 3 years?
    You know what I mean…
    These may sound like silly questions, but after the (really!) shocking experience with Adobe stopping Muse (that just had reached a good state) out of the blue, you will understand, that the traumatised Ex-Muse users need to find a new good home where they can hope to stay for a longer while. :wink:

It would be so nice, if Blocs could get us out of the „animal shelter“ :unicorn::frog::tiger::poodle::hamster: into which Adobe threw us… :disappointed_relieved:

Sorry for so many questions, but I’m sure the answers will be useful for many Muse users.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH AGAIN :heart_eyes_cat:

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Lets start by answering the specific questions you raised.

Breakpoints are pre fixed in Blocs. There is currently a desktop/laptop view, which is also suitable for landscape tablets. There is also a portrait tablet viewport and a smartphone portrait viewport. My understanding is that the next version of Blocs will have additional break points.

In many respects, these breakpoints cover the vast majority of needs. I appreciate that Muse did have the ability to create as many breakpoints as required, but personally, I think it’s all too easy to go overboard on this aspect of web design. When I was using Muse, I never had any real need to create more than 3 breakpoints, so the move to Blocs didn’t cause me any issues in that department.

In answer to the question about what to do if in-between sizes look horrible, I would respectfully suggest redesigning the page so that doesn’t happen. Simplicity of design is a wonderful thing. Complicating things by making many different device variants just makes life more difficult than it has to be.

Menus are quite flexible in Blocs. Multi-level drop-down menus are possible, but whether or not more than two levels is desirable on modern websites is questionable. It’s often better to keep multi-level menus to a minimum, particularly on smaller mobile screens where they can soon eat up the whole screen. Menus and sub menus are actually created as individual menus that are then linked together to create a sub-menu. I.e. selecting a main menu link can trigger another menu that then displays as a sub menu. In this context, you could have as many levels as you want. However, blocs does have some other options for creating effective navigation. For example, using the visibility option, a menu link can be used to make a whole bloc visible. That block could contain a mega-menu of options.

There is an option to view all the pages in a website. However, these are not linked together in the same way that Muse would show them. Essentially, muse would allow you to drag pages around so they could be made into sub pages which would then reflect in the navigation structure. Blocs doesn’t do this. All pages are shown as individual pages and whilst menus can be automated (adding menus items as new pages are created), it doesn’t deploy the concept of sub-pages. Instead, you can create manual menus (as many as you need) and link your pages manually. This isn’t as tedious as it may sound and actually makes a lot of sense. As I mentioned above, multi level menus are created as individual menus that can be strung together to make quite complex navigation structures. You can then simply point each menu item to it’s relevant page quite easily.

There isn’t a master page option as such in Blocs, but there are global areas within the page (top and bottom). Whatever is added to a global area is displayed on all pages created thereafter. The global areas can be turned on or off for individual pages .

In general, I found the move to Blocs quite refreshing after Muse. The problem with Muse it attempted to be all things to all men. By moving to Blocs, I discovered that creating websites can be simple and uncomplicated by using just the tools available to me. It did take some time to realise that I didn’t miss all the bells and whistles that muse offered, particularly those animation tools and third party widgets. But, once I got over the mourning, I found that I could churn out Blocs sites far quicker, more consistently with more predictable results than I ever could with Muse. As for my clients, they don’t care much about the tools I use or the options that a particular developments platform offers. They are only concerned about what they want from a website. To date, I’ve been able to incorporate everything my clients demand without any issues at all. And yes, you can make sites of 100+pages.

I can’t give you any information about future developments, but I’m sure @norm will be along to give you some info shortly.

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Hi @Ms_Sun

I love Blocs but for larger projects i’d personally use a good web host and a CMS like Wordpress (with Elementor) or Joomla.
The bigger the project grows in Blocs you still have to export everything each time you want to change something.
And if you don’t have copies of the project you can turn up very unhappy “if” the project gets corrupt in some way or if you actually looses the project file… just like with Muse.

But for small/medium sites Blocs really shine, quick and easy to build great sites.

Cheers / Johny

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Welcome :raised_hands:

Im hoping I can work on Blocs for as long as possible. I have no other plans right now. To be honest, Im just getting warmed up.

Im currently working on the next major version of Blocs, after that I plan on investing some time to get other devs and designers on board. There are currently 2 of us who run our little business. No plans to run away around the world.

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If you did run Norm, we would find ya :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Hi Ms Sun – I too am in the same boat with you as a Muse exPatriot looking far and wide for a new home! Can you say a little about your needs, your skill level, your coding knowledge, and what you need broadly speaking as a replacement for Muse? I’ve been doing an exhaustive research, and perhaps I can offer some useful info if I can know a bit about your end goals…