Blog bric & tab/accordion brics

[DanielF]

So my wish list for blocs is the following:

• Tab/Accordion brics (i.e. like Muse widgets) that have highly customizable attributes - which you can see 3 versions of on my own website, and which came with a theme template I purchased from MuseThemes: www.danielfactor.com

• a Blog bric, like what is offered by QooQee (a 3rd party Muse widget maker) which they call Blog/CMS, which you can see here: https://www.qooqee.com/muse-blog-cms1 This Blog is placed directly in the Muse (i.e Blocs) file as a template layout, and managed via an CMS on the host server, independent from any other 3rd party services, and posts are directly done in any browser via a client log-in interface where Blog settings are managed…super cool! It’s not as powerful as other CMS premium services like Pulse, etc…but it’s great for small projects and give total independence.

These would be game changers!!

[HMM]

Daniel are you officially migrated from Muse over to Blocs yet?

[DanielF]

Hi HMM - I’m still deep in the exploration process: right now I’ve purchased Blocs/Solis and Pinegrow. I am also taking a serious look at RapidWeaver via tutorial videos on Youtube.

All 3 of these options in varying ways, have revealed to me a real need to know more about website coding, and frameworks, perhaps mostly at the conceptual level or in actuality in order to control the apps and therefore the outcome on the screen.

While in varying degrees the three apps I’m currently exploring allow for non-coding experience, and market themselves as non-coding apps in varying ways and to varying degrees, in my learning curve with each I feel knowledge of coding is invaluable to understand each one’s UI. Blocs, for example uses ‘classes’ for CSS, which is a solution to add code without coding in the strict sense, and my sense is that this can become quite cumbersome to manage over time to achieve a personal look and function, and does require understanding what ‘classes’ are; and I sense it will become a frequently needed UI tool to do things ‘outside the box’; and while I can see a correlation to ‘layer states/styles’ in Photoshop or other similar appearance control UI functions in a range of ‘design’ apps, this is not necessary in Muse in order to control appearance and functionality and location of elements on the page (though ‘styles’ can be saved and reused), and this is significantly augmented by 3rd party ‘widgets’ (such as the ones I’ve mentioned as ‘wish list’ items).

In a large way, 3rd party ‘widget’ makers for Muse, spans the gap for non-coders to give us more design power, by packing into widgets the functionality while using the primary UI approach for styling the widget. Blocs has opened it’s API and this is promising. I actually wrote to QooQee and mentioned this to them, encouraging them to explore Blocs & Pinegrow.

To address my learning curve, I’ve also gotten a hold of Brackets code editor and am wading into the book Bootstrap Quick Start guide by Jacob Lett, and several other HTML & CSS books, and will do the same with JavaScript at some point, to see how much coding I can learn and be able to make use of – the purpose of doing this is to give me deeper insight for making a final app decision to replace Muse, and be able to maintain the functionality that I currently have with my Muse site.

My end goal is to be able to replicate what my current website has, and be able to make changes down the road with the equivalent freedom, control and independence Muse currently provides me.

Since I have 2 years to cut the cord with Muse, I have plenty of time to see how all three apps, or any others that may arrive on the scene, evolve to meet my personal needs.

My guess is I am in a minority position, in that I am not a web designer/developer, but rather due to having an architectural design background and therefore comfortable with using CAD and other ‘design’ software, and un-interested in using a premium ‘template’ website service (WIX, ect.) or something like Wordpress to make my one and only website, I like learning what I need to (and having fun doing it).

[HMM]

I see. I think you are on the right track. I have Pinegrow also. I’m really liking Blocs. For this reason and probably the biggest one. The developer is very accommodating, listens, responds and is very good at what he does. Surprising an entire Adobe “team” as they liked to call it couldn’t do better. I really think they could have but had a very poor attitude. Very defensive.
I had over 23 clients using Muse. But not using the BC thing. I found it very easy to teach someone at each company how to do essential changes. I was always there to help. If I died someone would know how to carry on.

These are companies that were in the 20 million to billion dollar range. Intranet sites for testing out ideas. I saved them hundreds of thousands of dollars when they found out they could do a lot of what they wanted with a simple web app.
I’m hoping Norm has a back up developer. He seems like a great young entrepreneur. I enjoy helping when I can.

I don’t want to invest the amount of time I did with Muse again let alone trying to retrain all those clients. Doesn’t reflect well at all.

The code is much better with Blocs than a lot of other apps and now with the addition of Solis (which I wish were incorporated into Blocs like Pinegrow multi page view it helps a bit. I also think Blocs let’s you sort of keep a foot in both the visual and code “camps” at the same time.

I have been doing this for 20 years now but I got comfortable (lazy) with Muse even with the code it wrote…there is and was much worse.

So far I’m in the Blocs camp as long as the forum here doesn’t turn into the mudslinging Muse defenders that happened there.

Right now Blocs, is good for me. I have shown it to a couple clients and they feel they can get the hang of it …I’ll see when we launch our first site.

Muse was very convenient with it’s SFTP, improved sitemaps, etc. It just had terrible code bloat, semantic and schema in the code. The layers concept put code for search engines and other things in all the wrong places. I just got tired of arguing about it. I was already going back to code …not that I enjoyed the idea.
There was a day when I raced cars professionally back in the seventies…I needed to know quite a bit about the Porsche mechanicals I raced but not how to build one. I think that day is coming and explains the proliferation in web “visual design” apps like Blocs…you just have to win.

[webplus]

@DanielF I am working on a CMS/Blog/Gallery system, which will be fully integrated in BlocsApp. But I will need some more 6-9 months until I will release it.

Until now there is still missing an option in the developer API to put another bric in a custom bric. When Norm will include this in the API and there will be no Tabs bric in the coming BlocsApp3 I will create one.

[HMM]

Good news on an info tab bric…very useful when space is at a premium…are you making it three tab?

[DanielF]

Awesome news…Webplus!! That timeline works for me…I look forward to seeing what you come up with. If you haven’t scoped it out, perhaps the QooQee system will provide some inspiration, as it works really well for men Muse, and I don’t even take advantage of the CMS because I don’t really have a need to…as I have no customers, so I simply use the Blog functionality.

Got it, regarding no Tabs bric in the next release, thanks for the heads up.

[DanielF]

I hear ya, HMM!

As someone who makes money as a website builder, your tool must work for you and your customers…so nice that Blocs feels right for you, and your customers, during this transition period.

One of the things that has come into sharp focus on the Adobe forms, and others like this one, is that Muse brought together a broad range of users, from pros to non-pros and in each of these categories a whole additional range of needs and competency levels, as well.

This expressed the usability of Muse, which perhaps explains in part the problems you point out, which to someone like myself is well beyond what I needed to know about Muse, or could even comprehend.

Maybe now, as I take more ownership of learning how the web works and how websites work with browsers (all new learning for me since the Adobe Muse announcement) I will understand what your Muse concerns were/are, and be a more informed consumer and user of what apps I have to select from.

Pinegrow impressed me pre-purchase, but once I started to really try to use it, the UI was way out of my familiarity, and the UI vernacular which undoubtedly is familiar to coders, was a foreign language to me. My thinking, however, is that once I truly grasp the vernacular & Bootstrap framework, Pinegrow will be very useful to me.

[HMM]

What’s nice here (at least so far) there is a genuine desire to help without the condescending attitude.

The people here have been very good and kind along with more politeness. Maybe just more mature. I don’t know.

I followed along on several forums …some were really bad. Even from the developer …very know it all…and he didn’t. The way he communicated with potential customers let alone actual customers was jaw dropping.

Norm and many of the forum members here in my short week on the forum have been very nice and helpful. So far so good. I even got a nice response from Norm about a request for an audio player. You would have thought Adobe would have had better responses than the nasty retorts from forum members.

Many entrepreneurs don’t realize no matter how good their offerings are Customers #1. Its the reason they have a business. My impression is the Norm gets it.

[DanielF]

what a lovely endorsement…spoken from the heart…which of course is what matters most!

[DanielF]

Hi Webplus – I took the liberty of making 2 screen-captures of the muse ‘composition’ widget (aka: Tab panels) to show you the full scope of customization, in support of your venture to some day offer the same ‘power’ to Bloc users as brics.

I simply zoomed into both the Tab widget’s controls (image ‘…_01’), and then Muse’s main tool panel (image ‘…_02’) to explain all the separate CSS bits of control available for both the widget and Muse.

Hopefully this communicates the available options cogently enough…let me know if you have any questions. Cheers!