Yes, but not sure it’s needed, at least at this point. Might change if I wind up doing sites for anyone else, but right now, I’m the content author as well - and am already doing 60-80 hour weeks as the norm in the day job, so it’s about making the content easy to create and publish, versus building another community contributed or someone-else-producing-content type site.
Perfect. You will then love Volt CMS blogging feature. No need to start Blocs and FTP upload your new content. Just add new posts with any device.
Of course that can be added later on.
Good luck 
Welcome to the forum @rtp , I just want to express great post !
A few years ago in a thread I posted about Mobirise and feel much if not all of that still applies (aside from perhaps pricing fluctuations). Out of curiosity did you also look at Bootstrap Studio? Why do you feel Pinegrow locks you into hosting and online editing, I’ve never encountered either? Pinegrow is also making a no-code app to be released at some point, it was confirmed by their developers.
Trying to sort how to properly quote and unsure I’m doing it (used to UBB, SMF forums, etc…) but…
Yeah - apologies on the insanely long post, but writing it helped me to actually focus on what I’m really looking for the most… and have read and trialed about as much as I can at this point.
Read your linked to comments on Mobirise, and we’re definitely on the same page - seems like it has some good capabilities but the model such as it is today, and possibly management of it - is turning me off from real consideration by me right now.
I have not looked at Bootstrap Studio - just scanned right now and found their reproduction of Apple’s iPhone X era website on Youtube . The tool itself is very cool, and reminds me of my ‘day job’ as one of the teams I manage handles cross-company design and component frameworks. I likely combined Pinegrow’s comments with some others I’d stumbled across - I may give Pinegrow + Tailwind a trial download, but I think they and Bootstrap Studio, while being great in their own right - are a level below what I’d like to do for initial setup and then focusing on content creation.
I think that’s the crux of the issue I’m having. There are times when ‘out of the box’ of some tool isn’t enough and you want or need to override the behavior… or add your own, but for my personal use I want to focus more on the content creation portion vs endless tweaks to layout etc. I’m sort of looking for that in-between which lets me come up with a reasonably ‘good enough’ layout or lets me adjust it (whether by inherent adjustments, CSS modification, etc.) for cranking out lots of articles, where I can make adjustments, but once done for a given site, I want to focus on cranking out content in each category…and finding both the ‘easy’ button (cranking out content + drag/drop images, galleries + auto-menu and nav updates) while also allowing me to adjust what doesn’t fit…is what’s giving me fits. 
Looks like quoting partial text from your response is not immediately obvious to me, but yes - agree fully on Sparkle, and why it’s just not for me in this case.
As far as blocs goes, it is a good option because it can do most things you are looking to do. Obviously, it isn’t going to handle blog posts in the same way as a dedicated blogging platform, but it can be used to create blog sites as long as you don’t mind creating your posts in the blocs environment.
I don’t need it to be a full blogging platform, and I prefer to create the articles within the tool - Blocs or whatever vs online. I see @Jannis/Jannis pushing VoltCMS, but in this case, I don’t WANT to do online articles via a web browser - I’m faster and more efficient doing it on my MBP, or in a pinch from my iPad…but haven’t looked at the specific integration as of yet. All I need here is sane section management for each grouping of articles/blog posts from a mgmt standpoint and from a nav and menu standpoint + Discus integration, really. In that context, the rest is important at the specific page/article/blog entry level, meaning once overall site layout is sorted, the ability to quickly add a new content page in a relevant section, add text, images, video from my sources, and get it published.
I don’t think blocs should be viewed as a single page preference. Many users make websites of hundreds of pages with few if any issues. However, anyone planning on such a large website would do well to utilise some website logistics at the planning stage. in many respects, creating a series of smaller sites (sections) is a far more logical approach than trying to bring hundreds of pages together in a single project. For example, I’m creating a cookery site for a client at the moment that will have in excess of 1700 pages - mainly recipes. Clearly this would be logistical nightmare to create as one single project. Therefore, I’ve broken it down into mini sites, each of which can be published to their own directory and all linked together va a common navigation structure. This is how the structure looks:
So this makes sense. It’s a mental disconnect for me, having some fairly large code projects loaded into Eclipse and other tools with large trees, but it makes sense - I suppose I could create the general site, about, contact + do a top-level menu or nav to each section, then treat each section as a mini-site. Makes sense but have to fight in my head for a bit. 
I appreciate the detailed response. I probably need to do some more thinking here. I did post effectively the same post over on rw4all forums to get ‘the other side’ thinking as well… as someone inevitably will point out, and I think you alluded to, there really is no ‘perfect tool for all,’ just the right set of compromises for a specific purpose in most cases. Right now I’m feeling like if Blocs would add a native blog or article object and have a baby with Bootstrap Studio + intelligent media import/resampling, I’d be set, but of course we can all dream, right? 
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Ok, finally got the quoted reply working, to see the markup is pretty much standard markup, lol.
@Jannis - I don’t care at ALL about having the content editable from a web browser, as in - that does almost nothing for me at all. For my sanity in my almost-none free time, I need a decent app that lets me walk through the following ideal workflow:
- Set up basic site theme, layout, nav/menu locations. Don’t come back and mess with this once done. (for the most part)
- Create basic intro content - don’t touch again once done. (for the most part)
- Define sections of the site, like in @hendon52 's example, this might be something like:
Outdoor Fun / Camping
Outdoor Fun / Camping / Gear
Outdoor Fun / Camping / Locations
Outdoor Fun / Camping / Trips
Outdoor Fun / Boating
Outdoor Fun / Boating / Choosing a boat
Outdoor Fun / Boating / Gear
Now, normal usage - I’m going to be added content pages to each section, and sometimes a new section. Focus is on the content to get it done and published. Let’s do a dry run.
I bought a new tent and we gave it a ‘workout’ on a trip. Lots of pics synced to my Photo Library as a result. I’m going to do two articles/posts here - 1 each under Gear and Trips.
Create a new sub-page under the section. Title appropriately, possibly modify date if I’m slack as usual… 
Use a pre-defined general template, but mostly a blank page with site heading, nav and possibly some predefined H2 sections for Overview and Confusion, and otherwise text, drag in images preferably automatically resampled from with captions, sometimes links… proofread then publish it.
Repeat the above fairly often and there’s a fair amount of content in a timespan of a year, like the hundreds of pages I’ve got to migrate currently…
So how does VoltCMS help me do this from within Blocs or on my desktop specifically?
Is there anything Blocs specifically can do to help enable/simplify that workflow - outside of the original layout + decent media tools and effects, etc. ?
Indeed, good luck finding a singular tool that can do everything you want without intervention or compromise, at least in the no/low code realm.
It can be assumed that Blocs 4 will probably have a multitude of new features and abilities. Of course further features will come after its initial release onwards to the next major version. The following has been said vaguely.
But it does not sound like Norm is quite ready to publicly reveal much.
You can however watch and search the forum to see various tidbits. I remember screen capturing the following earlier in the year, but can no longer seem to find the actual post, perhaps removed or hidden.
So its hard to say if Blocs 4 will fulfill enough of your desried requirements until its actually released. When it does you can of course trial it and make that determination yourself, fingers crossed :–). It sounds like you are looking for specific features more so than being concerned what framework an app may/not use.
Agree on all of the above, and am currently scanning the v4 thread…also have to deal weekly with internal and customer roadmap convos, so also totally get Norm’s reticence on announcing v4 ‘committed’ features in advance, as its not done until its done, as well as not wanting to pre-announce any ‘surprises’ to come.
I’m waffling all over on this one, but think the choice for me is between Blocs and RW. If the collective set were less $$(RW in particular as it seems likely RW + Stacks + Poster + ?), I’d go ahead and buy both. The trial limitations on both are driving me a bit nuts as my sites require at least 5-6 pages for a real sanity check. Will keep playing piecemeal with the trials a bit longer in suspect, and hope for good things in v4.
I’m using both, RW8 (with Stacks and Foundry - which is BS4 - mostly) and Blocs. Concerning Rapidweaver, be sure to also look at Source (needs Stacks of course) and the very active community at rw4all too. Not as feature complete as Foundry, Foundation, UI Kit or the other frameworks, but a totally different approch using css grid.
I personally prefer the way I can create websites with Blocs though. It’s more from a designers pov, and it’s much more customisable than what you get with RW and hundreds of stacks. Each has his advantages and disadvantages. So yeah, why not use both?
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I used RW in the past before switching to Blocs and still have a couple old RW sites that occasionally need to be updated until I have time to rebuild them in Blocs. I find it horrible going back because they operate very differently and I have practically forgotten how RW works after all this time. Trying to duplicate a stack can end up deleting the page…
These websites were built in the old version of Foundation and it had some good features but the page preview speed and spinning ball when editing was awful. Everything was just so slow and the interface in Blocs is less fussy.
I saw somebody has come out with a performance stack for RW to improve matters by leveraging the gpu, which says a lot.
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Yes more RW users seem to be coming to Blocs than the other way around.
That is the perfect synopsis of RW. Rapidweaver has always seemed extremely anemic as a core app. So what you end up with is - here a plugin, there a plugin, everywhere a plugin, hey is there a plugin, I need a plugin, what plugin, etc.
Rapidweaver ends up being more like playing Jenga than web design. IMHO
Careful.
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Bolded part is easy:
RW $85 + Stacks 4 $65 + Poster 2 $60 + Source (free) = $210 + unknown/oops, need that too/$
Blocs: $99 + <not sure yet, but doesn’t handle sections/sub-directories/non-CMS type articles currently>, hopefully for v4.
You paying?
I also did some more playing around on some of the others a bit more.
Nicepage is an interesting thing - seems surprisingly full-featured, but the high $ ($200-$349) + history of the company (Extensoft) leaves me a bit…concerned. They had a product called Artisteer on Windows for web design and seems to have totally abandoned it and their customers. They use a ‘must have an auth cookie’ model even for desktop apps, so Artisteer paid licensed customers were saying they shut the license server off (seems resolved, but … )… Too bad on the relative pricing and overall sentiment I’m feeling, as it seems to be really well done in a lot of ways from overrides, HTML output, Joomla and WP integration (doesn’t matter to me, but will for some), and is a similar-to-Blocs Block/stacked type of system. Also has tons of designs, tables, tabs, HTML and PHP injection - seems like a ‘could potentially be very good’ if not for the aforementioned. Unsure on APIs and third party extensions though.
I played a bit more with Sparkle just to give it a fair shake, which still isn’t for me, but it does have some more capabilities than I initially attributed to it. Still no themes (seems like you can download some - maybe?) or banner, footers, so it really is a blank page to start with, but it’s freeform drag and drop, can handle some code injection, and while it has a reasonable number of attributes/adjustments, no direct CSS tweaks. Surprisingly, it claims to do some image optimization for resizing and targets, supports WebP images… but is still kinda of basic. I guess I can see how single to a few page site folks might be OK with it. Still not for me.
Nothing new with Everweb - it kinda works. I guess it’s kinda like Sparkle Plus. Kind of.
Still thinking it through - RW seems at least $200-$300 by the time ‘it works.’ If Blocs had sections, directories, or well - some way to handle many pages, it might work. At this rate I may wind up buying Everweb just to get it done, then rebuilding later in Blocs pending V4 release contents. This really is not where I want to go. Guess it’s back to playing a page at a time with Blocs to see if it might work with some pain.
I believe both Themler & Artisteer were rolled into NicePage as the chosen way forward. I’m not sure about legacy support of those previous products but most times in these situations it never goes well as users are always left behind in some way or many. The pricing you mentioned seems a bit high according to what is listed on their site? But yes the sentiment can be seen, maybe mostly due to the switch over.
I keep looking at your above comment along with desiring blog capabilities.
Why are you seeking to use a static approach for such a dynamic need? If you need blogging features then use a true blog approach not something that mimics a blog. As mentioned Blocs 4 will have Wordpress support, but there are other dynamic approaches as well. If this will be the typical magnitude which will be your common outcome - then I think you will be much better off in the long run by choosing the correct approach upfront. Instead of getting down the road and then realizing where you then find yourself regarding managing things statically.
I was massively into Rapidweaver and more so when Foundation came into play with it. At the time I was having huge issues with certain stacks not working as they should do and then updates…updates updates and too many conflicting with other stacks and made it painful in the end and then when Foundation update came out, i needed to update rapidweaver and then stacks and then the stacks would not work and then and update for them would work and throw something else out!!!
I will admit, at the time I loved it and I still reference back to it now and again and wish some of the things Foundation has, was built into Blocs.
Blocs is the more natural way for me to build and I actually enjoy it more than any other. As @Flashman said above and also when I go back to my rapidweaver/foundation sites and I do have a few moments having to think of how to do things again, where in Blocs it does seem more natural.
What does throw me in Blocs is the classes and custom classes, I 100% get how and why it works, I just feel as an example, to make like the tab bric work, the options should be build into the side bar for styling this - and same goes for all the brics. I pull my hair out at times how simple Blocs is for putting it on the page and then adding content and then to style it - I spend hrs at times searching forums, messaging people, hoping someone has read my message for help on the forum…and yes - its all possible ! and the group here are amazing - but the main design changes of a bloc/bric should 100% be simplified in the side bar. I do get for so many of you this is easy, but as an example - the hardest thing I find is how to set menu colours…and is their a way to change colour of hamburger? - background for the mobile menu should be so so simple - this is where Rapidweaver/foundation worked for me.
But right now as we speak, Blocs is my number 1 and I do love it, I am messing with wordpress elementor for certain future projects - and again, wish I could drag how they do things in Elementor into Blocs !!
I am excited to see what happens in the new version of Blocs.
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Hi @PeteSharp - thanks for posting, yeah I did manage to sort it in the end, but I believe this should be in the sidebar - the options should just appear when the bric is selected with full customisation of everything.
The one thing I am totally stuck on is what I have posted twice on - but had no reply, but had a message today to say this is not possible since an update
- Menu on Hero is in white font colour so stands out on a dark image or video (and logo is white)
- When scroll down - it then changes to Sticky menu and the sticky bar changes to white and the font changes to dark grey and the logo is darker.
This used to be possible…but since updates its not now from what I have been told.
I have since decided to just take the text off the video/image and just keep the the white bar at the top to save all the messaging. I can do this in around 2 minutes on another platform, but on blocs its hard to get this to work.
I get the feeling - if you have white text on hero menu - then this must be the colour of the menu throughout the site.
Hmmmmm unless I build 2 replica menus…(Dark and Light!)…nah !..my brain is not alert this time of night !
Possible on the rollup, but browsing the Artisteer and Nicepage forums didn’t leave me warm and fuzzy. I may need to re-review their pricing, but this is what they show:
That quote wasn’t mine, it was @hendon52 - I have multiple sites, but a majority of which follow a similar, but not to that extent, issue.
The majority of the content is not really blog entries but it’s close enough and probably similar enough to @hendon52 's use case. A number of categories with a lot of content under each growing over time. Allow comments. No multiple editors. I’m not a fan of Wordpress or web-based editors after some experience with the former and lots with the latter.
Certainly I’m throwing a wrench in the works somewhat combining design/layout + content from one tool, but it’s also not something insane either. I have no need for web-driven input forms via Wordpress or a full-blown CMS for my primary use case. I would like the ability to add Disqus or other comment mechanism, however.
I think this is telling - it’s not the first time hearing it either. Any regrets on the switch for your purposes?
Ah, I now see the Ultimate pricing, but only when you choose/click “need more” in the Pro colum for over 10 licenses. Then you see the ultimate option. Sorry, I didn’t suspect you needed 10+ licenses. :–)
Oh ok, I read it in your post where it was not quoted as such. But still think the same for such a situation. Given your criteria I wish you all the best with your search for an app with the features you desire/require and much success with your overall endevour.
Considering I’ve excluded RW8 at this point, I went ahead and bought both Blocs and Nicepage , Blocs because I want it to get where I can use it for my purposes, and NP for ‘crap, I need to do something soon’ and hoping I’m not burned on it. I should have spent more time with NP before the purchase (you are correct on their pricing - there’s not a whole lot of actual info there, but the $60 ver…), but was scrambling for ‘need to update and add content even if it’s a temporary tool.’
NP is nice in a single-to-couple-pages kind of way, and does have some interesting capabilities.
Some limitations immediately apparent in NP, some of which apply to Blocs for my use as well.
- Images have no options for captions, very basic slider
- File Mgmt for multi-file sites = pretty much same issue as Blocs. Different, but equally problematic if dealing with more than a couple of files.
- Their templates are all assuming single page while page types are limited…great if doing a single page or 2 page site, but not of immediate value to me for the most part.
I’ll be playing with both for a bit without the trial limitations. I can probably make something work with either, but neither have an ideal workflow for my specific purposes…will be putting some things into the Blocs v4 wish list and see how it goes.
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Welcome aboard with Blocs.
Good luck with things.
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I am a little out of touch with the latest RW developments. There has been a new version of Stacks for example, so there have no doubt been a few changes. At the time it had become quite evident over a three year period that RW largely receives cosmetic makeovers with each major release that would then be followed by 6 months of agonising bugs. Sometimes it actually seemed to be going backwards.
All the big functionality in RW comes from third party developers and the prices just seemed to be going up and up. I felt it was becoming a little absurd and when problems occurred there was often a lot of finger pointing without solutions much of the time.
Blocs 2 was a little frustrating after making the switch, however Blocs 3 was a huge jump forward and from what I know of version 4, sticking with Blocs is a no brainer, so no regrets whatsoever. The rate of development with Blocs leaves RW for dust.
To put this in perspective I build sites for a living and I pay for Blocs like every other forum member. It basically paid for itself with the first page on the first site. Every month it pays the mortgage and the other bills. I just wouldn’t use it if I thought there was a better option.
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