Now that Blocs 3 is out, I have some questions about the status of Blocs 2 going forward.
- Is there any way to download Blocs 2 anymore? I can’t find a link to it anywhere.
- I bought a license for Blocs 3, but do not have a license for Blocs 2.
If I wanted to use Blocs for working on a Bootstrap 3 site, how would I go about doing that? Rephrased for clarity: If I want to use Blocs 2 alongside Blocs 3 (for the purposes of outputting Bootstrap 3 code), how would I go about getting a license for Blocs 2?
- (This one isn’t important for me, but just to cover all the bases): will Blocs 2 be maintained at all with bug fixes? I only wonder because with the changeover to Bootstrap 4, Blocs 3 is more than an incremental update to the app, and Blocs 3 may still have some use for people apart from the current version. I’m assuming that Blocs 2 has been end-of-lifed.
1 - You can download it here Blocs - Release Notes
2 - You can only work on websites created by Blocs. If the previous site was done on Blocs 2 it can be migrated to Blocs 3.
3 - That is something that only Norm can answer.
Thanks for the response!
In regards to #2, I should rephrase my question—I am actually wondering about licensing. Does a non-upgrade Blocs 3 license cover the use of Blocs 2 as well?
I realize that Blocs can only be used with sites created in Blocs—my particular use case is kind of non-standard though. I have a Shopify store built on Bootstrap 3, and I would like to use Blocs 2 as a quicker way of prototyping new page templates for the site. To actually use Blocs’ output on my site will require manual code integration, which I am fine with doing. It will be a long time before the site gets ported over to Bootstrap 4, so that is why I am looking at this option.
You could ask Norm about the licence question and using Blocs 2. My guess would be no but that is his call, since Blocs 2 is no longer on sale as far as I am aware.
I purchased Blocs 2 a couple years ago and it sat gathering dust for a good year. Over time it improved and about 8 months ago I decided to throw myself in the deep end with the main objective of being ready for Blocs 3.
If you only do an occasional bit of maintenance on a single site you can probably stick with Blocs 2, but if you use it regularly then I would jump to Blocs 3 and not even think of looking back, because it’s a huge difference in terms of workflow and generally more stable.
Obviously I haven’t seen your website, so I wouldn’t want to make any sweeping generalisations, but is it something that couldn’t be reproduced and likely improved using Bootstrap 4? If you are using Blocs to design and maintain a site, then simply adding some shopify code I’d go for Blocs 3 in a heartbeat.
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Oh, I don’t doubt that Blocs 3 is better, I really love it! I don’t really have any desire to go back to an older version except for this particular use case.
I maintain a number of websites built on diverse platforms (Shopify, Squarespace, custom Ruby and PHP servers, etc) and with the exception of Squarespace they’re pretty much all hand-coded. I’ve tried all sorts of visual editors over the years, but until Blocs I’ve never found anything that I liked using. For a couple of my more static websites, there is a definite possibility that I will rebuild them in Blocs—for other bootstrap sites which are more complex, I see Blocs as a tool that will help me prototype and generate code more quickly which I can then manually integrate into those projects.
The particular Shopify website that is using Bootstrap 3, I would like to get moved over to Bootstrap 4 eventually, but it will be a sizeable project to migrate so I don’t see that happening any time soon. And because of the complexity of Shopify templates, it wouldn’t be feasible to build and maintain the whole thing in Blocs anyways.
Anyhow, this is a fairly niche use case, but I thought I might as well ask in case anyone else finds themselves wanting to do the same thing!
You are obviously dealing with a wider range of site types and platforms than I am, so there must be more questions to juggle. You can no doubt obtain more useful and definitive information from @Norm and you can message him direct from the forum if he misses this. He’s very helpful, but I just don’t know what the situation is on licensing with Blocs 2 now it appears to have been discontinued.
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