I almost bought it during it’s sale to support the project, but for whatever gut feeling could not seem to justify it.
I will however continue to watch it’s development, it seems like an interesting project. I also almost pulled the trigger on CoffeeCup’s responsive package when it was on sale, but again the gut feeling and the need was just not there. Darn you Black Friday and Cyber Monday it’s always so tempting even though you don’t need stuff.
Over the course of the last year I invested in 3 different web apps that I felt looked promising going forward:
1.)
Baby Bear
(Small) Blocs
2.)
Mama Bear
(Medium) Bootstrap Studio
3.)
Papa Bear
(Large) Pinegrow
4.)
I am also still keeping an eye out for Goldilocks just in case she actually someday exists.
Pinegrow was the absolute “must have” app that is without limits, as soon as I came to know of it’s existence, I bought it. The other two seemed interesting and promising enough to invest in and support even though they have various limitations and drawbacks (some major), and each are solely tied to Bootstrap.
Again, I was never a FP user. I’m just a person who is not at this point a fan of the Cloud, unless they are raining gentle showers on Pine trees making them grow.
One comment to posters such as TYCD, next time you’re looking at a blank page in Pinegrow and visualising where you want elements placed, you could design the page in Freeway or Photoshop, create a thread here and ask “how is this possible in Pinegrow”.
Someone could then create a video or write-up showing how its achieved and that is the sort of thread, that would be useful, especially for Pinegrow beginners.
My aim is next year to be a bootstrap master, and one of the reasons I exclusively use the bootstrap framework is because of smart components. One of the greatest aspects of Pinegrow (and bootstrap studio) is being able to save re-usable smart components. Plus, (as we know) Bootstrap is ideal for responsive web design.
By the end of next year I may have well over 1000 smart components, I’ll sitting on a beach in Thailand, designing websites in 5 minutes.
That sounds grand @jack, I wish you well making it to the beach and remote web development paradise. Post pics in this thread once there. Then let me know when you are hiring and need a lounge chair filled.
Yeah Bootstrap makes it easy to do responsive, Foundation actually has some nice things Bootstrap does not, but for whatever reason is not near as popular. There are so many other responsive CSS frameworks as well, many of which are lighter in size and feature wise in some cases, plus of course lesser known. The nice thing is with Pinegrow you can handle them all or you can roll your own right in the app with breakpoints, media queries, etc. Bootstrap 4 will likewise be bringing nice things, when it officially drops.
But indeed reusable sections (Blocks/Components/Snippets) are awesome. I am holding @matjazto his word and trusting that further improvements in these areas are being heard, and wont sink into the abyss.
Make sure you have your naming scheme down, you will want to search those 1000 components, I don’t want you getting frustrated and throwing your laptop into the ocean. Although the water is so clear you could easily fish it out.
that is one area I need to pay more attention to, as often I’m so focused/lost within the creative/design process, I randomly name elements/css classes etc and I have files/folders scattered everywhere on my Linux system, although I have an excellent file search friend, in “catfish” possibly the best file search tool to ever exist!
There are also some tools that may help to automate (even if partially) some of those things as well:
webbsy
exportkit ^ both of those, seem interesting
css3ps
csshat
stylizer
etc…
I am in no way vouching the credibility for any of those. You may or may not get expected and/or quality output as desired or required.
But stuff like those as well as cloud based do exist and some may find such things useful. Some of those may help people get from Photoshop and into Pinegrow. So they have something to start with without a blank page, and instead some structure and base code to work from and adjust. Similar to finding* and using quality templates ( *finding = key word) as starting points. Or with apps such as Blocs, Sparkle, etc., to flesh out a concept if you need a visual tool.
But in all those cases at some point users need to learn and understand the basics of HTML/CSS/JS and Pinegrow itself to leverage each together. So in the end that should be the focus otherwise people are just prolonging the requirement they still need.
If I had Adobe CC I would get webbsy, at that price point to try. Oddly enough it’s various third party plugins for across Adobe’s product line (PS/AI/ID/AE/PR/AN/etc.) that will compel me to one day join the cloud and not Adobe’s actual latest products by themselves.
Anyone have any experience with webbsy or exportkit, and thus first hand feedback on either, I would be curious?
@Pinegrow_User 100% agree. I think this is something that a lot of people looking to start designing websites don’t seem to grasp and seem to think that it should be as simple as drag n drop, which it can be, but that creates limits for both users and developers IMHO. In order to get the most out of any app users need to invest time into learning the app and learning the principles/methods behind it. It is why some people find Photoshop intimidating because they expect it to be like PaintShop (back in the day) but want to be able to create some of the incredible artwork that experienced and highly trained Photoshop experts are capable of doing.
An effort to learn as you go in these situations is invaluable and as Jack above if people asked questions I think we would all try and help them solve their issue and in turn make this forum a far better place and a fantastic resource for everyone. [quote=“Jack, post:13, topic:436”]
I hear about people struggling with Pinegrow but I don’t see many threads from individuals asking for help on basic problems. If people ask “how can I…”. They will get answers and realise things aren’t as complicated as they believe.
[/quote]
When I see most layouts, even those created in Photoshop, I instantly think of the bootstrap framework and visualise Containers/Rows/Columns and Div’s.
This is why I do all my work in Pinegrow, from mock-ups to complete websites and I honestly can’t see any reason to use Photoshop or any software designed for mock-ups, unless the user just prefers/enjoys working within that environment.
I remember the days of complex photoshop layouts, designed for at least 800x600 res, so you knew you could do whatever you liked within Photoshop, as-long as it worked on all browsers and 800x600 res. Now because of mobile web design, photoshop is (for me anyway) an outdated way of designing layouts.
As long as you are prepared to be locked into an annual contract with Adobe and if you cancel early you have to pay the unused portion of the contract PLUS an early cancellation fee. Otherwise you can pay monthly at a higher rate for Creative Cloud, once your subscription is canceled whether through normal subscription ending or termination on your part or theirs you instantly lose access to all the software.
If you do end up going with them I recommend using Amazon or another reseller to go through than Adobe directly. In either case if something should come up with your subscription from my experience neither Adobe or reseller support can fix it.
They just end up canceling your subscription and if you want it restarted you will need to create a new account at Adobe to set it back up again. Really REALLY bad support and setup for their services, I just got away from them due to accidental cancellation of my subscription by support. Though going through a reseller you possibly could negotiate a refund where Adobe will NOT do that at all. The funds I used to purchase Pinegrow came from refund of my Adobe Creative Cloud fees, this was not done through Adobe and I have no doubt they won’t reimburse the reseller for that either. Not my problem though.
Why does it have to be proprietary? Why not standards compliant code? Looking at output of other visual designer wyswyg editors most of the “Proprietary” is in the javascript but a lot of what these editors have in those JS files can be done just with CSS too, depends what the desired end result is though.
Adobe Muse and their abandoned projects apps had some funky output for awhile, the html was all over the place then they got it to a state that it was passing standards validation. Though a lot of the asset files I don’t think is really necessary.
I like the idea of Pinegrow generating some of the files needed for whatever I am doing, Adobe Muse generated the JS and if JS is needed it would be nice that Pinegrow would do that for me because I am not the top javascript coder by far.
@Jack I’ve gone down a similar path generally starting in Pinegrow and only using Photoshop for elements that might require its use, e.g. particular style/effect on an element that can’t be created with css. The very odd time I might start with Photoshop just to help formulate an idea for a layout but once I get any decent level of clarity on it I move to Pinegrow and generally don’t look back. Seems counter productive to be creating responsive layouts in a program that creates static visuals.
Before I used PInegrow, I was aware of Pingendo, have you tried that? software created for designing prototypes and after I explored the software (it’s fairly basic) this lead me to Pinegrow and I quickly realised Pinegrow has the power to be your all-in-one solution for prototypes/mock-ups and complete projects.
@jack, I have played with that (needs polish and improvements, pretty cool app though). But, does your Pingendo say “Version 2.1.0” in version 3 ? I find that very odd. I dont know which version I have, the download says version 3, the app info too, but the app itself says Version 2.1.0 in “About” ?
I was intrigued by your mention of these apps (Blocs and Bootstrap Studio). The Baby Bear in my toolbox would be Rapidweaver with Pinegrow as the Papa Bear but I didn’t have a Mama Bear option until now, thanks to you.
Quick question: Have you experimented with creating a web page in Bootstrap Studio and importing its code into Pinegrow? Does it work seamlessly or are there glitches?
Mine doesn’t have any version number! Looks like their team are busy working on the latest version for bootstrap 4 (whenever that actually is released!)
Yes, no glitches at all - Bootstrap Studio is on the same level as PInegrow when it comes to code and what I’ve been doing recently is designing alll my components in Pinegrow, import the components into Bootstrap Studio and save in the user library,
If you export your page/website from Bootstrap Studio you can minify css/js - which is a nice feature.
Just be careful when downloading user created components as some will cause problems, but this is the fault of the individuals who have created these components, rather than any issue with bootstrap studio.
@Beemerang, Jack pretty much covered it, also Bootstrap Studio is very strict with the code to prevent invalid code, thus it exports clean Bootstrap. No issues there with Pinegrow.
In regards to Rapidweaver I have noticed people complaining about the latest version being buggy, slow and of course the need for so many add-ons. A decent amount seem to be looking at or even migrating to Blocs. As far as Blocs, it can be limiting in areas but seems to be maturing fast. It does allow you to quickly prototype/build a site, export it, to then have a visual representation of your design based upon BootStrap to work from in Pinegrow (same with BootStrap Studio). So for those needing a more visual approach its an option.
@Jack, you are going back and forth both ways huh?
Yes, I love RW but the addons can become prohibitively expensive and since my aim is to learn to write code, I need to look at alternatives that generate clean code and allow me to easily interact with it directly.
Are you saying that sites built in Blocs can be exported to BSS and PG without hassles? In that case its a shoo in for me as my whole workflow can then be built around the Bootstrap framework and the efficiency appeals to me greatly.
Export and into Pinegrow no issues, to then have a project structure to start with. I’ve never tried to integrate it with BSS. It currently does not have all of Bootstrap integrated and has certain limitations (but seems to be advancing quickly). You can however quickly get the basics in place for later use into Pinegrow if you desire such an approach to then build upon. Download the trial and see if it would fit your needs.
that is one area I need to pay more attention to, as often I’m so focused/lost within the creative/design process, I randomly name elements/css classes etc and I have files/folders scattered everywhere on my Linux system, although I have an excellent file search friend, in “catfish” possibly the best file search tool to ever exist!
