Just about done with Adobe DW - I've had it. Hello PG!

General
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I have them both. Good apps. Had them since they came out.

I’ve been an owner and user of Adobe’s Master collection for close to ten years and started with Photoshop 2.0.1. Adobe’s dropped permanent licensing on everything except Acrobat Pro. And that’s a bunch of apps. Some have surrogates, others don’t, and some surrogates have design features that undermine productivity (such as Apple’s video and motion graphics apps that no longer support pallet monitors – I used to be a huge fan of Motion but when they suddenly reduced things to nested tabbed pallets my productivity dropped by a good 80%).

Adobe is not going to restore permanent licenses. The subscription system encourages adoption, it provides for more predictable revenues without the peaks and valleys in profits associated with new releases, and most users don’t mind paying for a subscription and they do not have any concern about ownership of source documents.

As for Affinity, they have stated that their focus will not spread to include web design, motion graphics, video or audio.

For web, we all know that things are in a period of transition. Pro-level WYSIWYG web apps are in demand but do not exist. The more developer-oriented apps such as Pinegrow are slowly moving towards WYSIWYG just as WYSIWYG apps are moving towards coding with JS/JQ and insertion of HTML / HTML5, etc.

As we know, the two approaches are driven by two complementary mentalities - right-brain creatives and left-brain coders. The right-brainers want complete creative freedom with layers and objects placed anywhere on the screen where as the left-brainers like things in a much more structured, logical and manageable way. The long-range goal is the merging of the two, in such a way that both approaches get what they want. Once we get there, the power of such apps will be extremely impressive.

Of all the horses in the race, I think that Pinegrow has the most potential and it is making moves vaguely in the direction of the right-brain mindset, but it is most definitely a left-brain creation. The place where we are in web development today is centered on using left-brain tools to create a right-brain feel – using rigid rules to create the impression of free-form creativity.

Trey Yancy
Creative Director

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I feel ya on that bro!!! 100%

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I often read about this “theory” now and am about declaring it moderately “difficult” (to avoid any words like nonsense or the like). Imagine your wife telling her: “Honey, I’m sorry - I’m a left-brain husband” or your children “That’s the way it is, cause I’m a right-brain daddy”. Would they accept this 50% average attitude? I doubt.

I’m pretty convinced that everyone developing an app for achieving a goal (website) is using 50 + 1% of their brain, enclosing all the different requirements enabling us reaching our goals. Its easy declaring applications as incomplete - using the “Apologize - serve my specific 50% (left and/or right) brain and you’re done”.

Webdesign is a profession requiring a big bunch of talents. Authoring, Editing, Structuring of content are talents we learned in school. No constraints from this side. Design requires talent - sure - in fact it is a job though. Finally wrapping it up in a browser readable code-structure is the third part. Shortened this by: “It’s professional team work”.

I doubt if an application or tool will compensate all those required talents or ever will - at least not for the half-brainers.

@matjaz approach is therefor incredible cool. Cause he created something he wanted to have. His primary motivation was serving his own requirements. And then he started to think (both brain parts activated):

“It could be of help for others, too? Let’s try it out and roll the app.”

And I’m pretty happy that he and his team is keeping up the idea of serving the pro market (50+2(left and right)) = 100%+

Recently, I stumbled upon this thread in Cockatoos https://cockatoos.co/t/special-call-for-our-special-members/181

Some of the most important dev makers telling us their story, dreams and motivation why and how they built their products as they are. Great guys with great products - it’s us adopting at least one - it’s worth standing on shoulders of giants!

Cheers

Thomas

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It’s not a theory. Detailed scientific studies have been undertaken over a half a century that detect brain activity when performing certain tasks and being exposed to various experiences. When engaged in linear / cognitive thinking the left hemisphere lights up and when engaged in affective /perceptive thinking the right side lights up. Using a protractor to represent this, most of us are within a range of 15º either side of being in balance but one hemisphere tends to dominate and take charge.

There is no need to think in extremes. Just because someone is brilliant at coding, this does not translate into brilliance as a visual designer, and the reverse is also true. It is also true that right-brain dominant people don’t tend to get into programming and app development. This has an impact.

Speaking for myself, I’ve been making a living as a creative for decades. When I was asked to develop an app that combined game play, education and product promotion, I hit the books, bought a copy of Director and became very good at Lingo. It generated a half million in sales, which was pretty good for a single marketing project. I learned Lingo because I had to and I became very comfortable in thinking in code, but I am a rarity among right-brained creatives.

Using Freeway as an example, it has its shortcomings and it is definitely in need of some serious rewriting to bring it up to modern standards, but I can use it to achieve just about anything I can imagine and without the restrictions imposed by such apps as Dreamweaver, and I can do it quickly.

When looking at the code generated by Freeway (as when importing a page into Pinegrow), it is very complex, as would be the task of coding it directly. Having an app take a freeform design and generate the code to make it happen is a definite trade-off but I’ve used it to create something in the area of eighty sites.

As I said, Pinegrow is inching towards a level of intuitivity that is making it increasingly attractive to creatives but to create anything of substance with Pinegrow a good knowledge of coding is pretty much a necessity. This is not a criticisim, but a fair appraisal.

I would say that the message to developers of web design apps is that there is a truly enormous demand for tools for creating impressive, impactful and beautiful sites that would delight any creative, yet have the power that coders demand in order to create powerhouse projects. Millions of dollars are waiting to be made by whatever developer can achieve this. To put it in terms of computer platforms, DOS is still there on every PC, but the Windows shell is what people use. That was the beauty of the Mac when it came out back in 1984. It took Windows seven years before it was ready for prime time but when 3.1 came out, the platform became a juggernaut.

I admit, it is my own personal thing, but I would like to see Pinegrow break that barrier. If they are interested in doing this, the Pinegrow folks would make themselves into millionaires. But then, if it is not their cup of tea, power to them. I admire and support them with everything they do and I appreciate all the effort they are putting in to developing this valuable and powerful tool.

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