Pinegrow 4 Beta

Pinegrow 4 BETA is available for download here:

http://download.pinegrow.com.s3.amazonaws.com/PinegrowLinux64.4.beta2.zip
http://download.pinegrow.com.s3.amazonaws.com/PinegrowWinSetup.4.beta2.exe
http://download.pinegrow.com.s3.amazonaws.com/PinegrowMac.4.beta2.dmg

There are many big and small new features, including:

  • Bootstrap 4. PG inspects bootstrap CSS files to detect the Bootstrap version used on the page.
  • For BS3 and BS4, the Library panel shows tabs with Page libraries with various components.
  • BS3 and BS4 have grid and column overlay helpers. Toggle them above every page view or globally with View helpers icon in the top bar. Columns and modals have some new helpers as well.
  • Use + icon to load custom Page libraries.
  • You’ll notice a new default grey theme. Use “Workspaces” to switch to the PG3 High contrast theme if you like it more.
  • Press TAB to toggle UI. Toggle eye icon in panel headers to make that panel always visible. Make panels float.
  • Press P to display quick window Properties for the selected element.
  • Press + to display quick Library win, with page libs if you have them loaded.
  • Right click on any element to change it into a different tag. For example P to DIV.
  • Use color pickers to pick colors from anywhere in the PG UI, including pages. Great for getting colors from photos that are used on the page.
  • And more…

The latest BETA 2 also adds the ability to save your custom workspace layouts.

Are start screen thumbnails images working for you? Beta 1 had problems on Windows that should be fixed in this release. On Windows we’re using a helper window positioned off-screen to take page screenshots. If you can see that window, or if anything strange happens, tell us here.

Please use this thread or beta-4 channel on our Slack to report any issues. To avoid confusion, don’t the public report-bugs channel.

A note about version number jump from 3 to 4:

Version numbers are just labels for different incremental states of Pinegrow. We don’t decide what we do based on them. Rather, we just follow our general to-do list and when we feel that we made a significant jump in quality / features we do +1 to the version number. Also, version numbers have no effect whatsoever on our update policy. You get 1 year of free updates regardless of how much the version number was increased.

So, in this case, we followed the above quoted “Still on the to-do list” image (btw. Atom is already working since 3.1) and worked on BS4 support. But not just hacking the existing BS3 code to work with BS4, instead improving the old BS tools and added a couple new ones - all with better usability in mind. Alongside that we also polished the UI, fixed bugs and added a bunch of small missing features that were slowing down the Pinegrow workflow.

We’re happy with the result and think it deserves a +1 version jump recognition. Also, for the future, we’re considering following Chrome, Sketch and others example and just using big version numbers. N.XX numbering made sense when upgrades were tied to major version increases, but we never did that.

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For anyone whom is not presently on the Pinegrow Slack Channel <-- join up.

This was also shared there:



Regardless of version #, Pinegrow is really advancing nicely. I’m excited to see it get a proper full launch after all the hard work that was put into it, it truly deserves the lavish fanfare to showcase all these updates.

:heart::evergreen_tree: Keep up the good work Pinegrow Team. @matjaz , @Emmanuel, @MhdAljuboori

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BUT – V3.1 is still full of bugs – here are some:

  1. Link with Atom isn’t stable – quite often I have to restart both (PG and Atom)
  2. Undo doesn’t work properly – it might show the previous change steps but
    doesn’t actually revert back to them (I tried using both Ctrl+Z, the Edit/Undo and the undo at the top left)
  3. When amending table properties by ticking table-responsive, sometimes a div with
    table-responsive is added as a wrapper instead of changing the table’s class
    itself
  4. Already moaned about these ones many times:
    a. When switching to Action pane and trying to use the master page options,
    the pointer should automatically move to the top of the tree!!!
    (rather than alerting for an error)
    b. Save, Save As and Save All are a must on the tool bar

@ganr8790, PG4 is full of bug fixes.

  1. Please try the beta to see if Atom problems are still there. In general, PG4 beta is much more stable than PG3.
  2. We reworked the undo, to have just one undo list, not HTML, CSS separate. Also many bugs were fixed there.
  3. According to Bootstrap docs, it has to be used with a div wrapper: https://getbootstrap.com/docs/3.3/css/#tables
    4.a. Our thinking is that it is better that the user is aware of what and why happens, instead of PG doing thinking instead of the user, potentially wrong. The current way helps user to understand where the Master page action fits.
    4.b. At the moment we don’t have a command toolbar where these icons could fit. There is no space in the top menu bar, and having an extra toolbar would take away a lot of useful space. This might change if we get tools that require more options.
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@matjaz - could not the Save, Save As and Save All fit next to the fit tools on the tool bar - it would be good to have these handyTool Bar

Try resizing the window to 1280px or below. It gets very crowded, especially if WordPress menu is also there.

As it is presently:

File Menu > Save, Save As and Save All + the included corresponding Keyboard Shortcuts

Seems quite adequate and standard, IMHO. Or am I missing something here?

Maybe so but this function would be good to have - I don’t use WP so I am not familiar with what appears in the tool bar when you do

@matjaz

I hope this is not inappropriate to post this information here from the Pinegrow 4 Slack Channel. Just figured it best to get it out too as many as possible to test, in case they are not presently on Slack.


@matjaz [11/14//17 - 12:42 AM]

Hi @channel,

Pinegrow 4, beta 3 is here:

LOTS of new useful stuff and bug fixes, mainly:

  • Edit CSS code in the main code editor
  • Highlight CSS rules selected in the Style panel in the code editor
  • CSS code formatting
  • Combined UNDO history

We plan to release PG4 on the next Tuesday, 21. Nov. So, now is the best time for stress testing the beta.

Thanks for your feedback!


@matjaz [11/17/17 - 12:42 PM]

Hi @channel,

Pinegrow 4 BETA 4 is out.

We’re having a very productive time. Not only did we fix many bugs, there are also a couple of improvements:

  • Number of files in Pinegrow package was brought down from 10000+ to about 1000. This brings faster installs and faster startup.
  • Grab & drag: no need to select the element on the page before moving it. Just grab any element, hold the mouse down for half a second and then move it.
  • Many other small tweaks.

If no critical issues are found, this will be the last beta before the public release next week.

:heart::evergreen_tree: Keep up the good work Pinegrow Team. @matjaz , @Emmanuel, @MhdAljuboori

Well I guess so, since my post was edited and the Pinegrow 4 Beta 4 links were removed ? Why Beta 2 was ok to post here, but not Beta 3 or Beta 4 @Emmanuel ?

No worries about the content but our preference is just that direct download links to beta versions should be posted by Matjaz and/or the PG Team.

Hi,

Pinegrow 4 Beta 5 is here.

http://download.pinegrow.com.s3.amazonaws.com/PinegrowLinux64.4.beta5.zip
http://download.pinegrow.com.s3.amazonaws.com/PinegrowWinSetup.4.beta5.exe
http://download.pinegrow.com.s3.amazonaws.com/PinegrowMac.4.beta5.dmg

The update contains many fixes & tweaks, as well as redesigned trial -> purchase -> activation flow and appearance.

We no longer have separate trials for PRO and WP features. Everything is now included in the main trial. ACTIONS and WP panels are active even if users don’t have that editions, in order to show the user what they are about, as opposed to being just empty black holes.

If you don’t have a WP license, try doing stuff in the WP panel and using WordPress menu to export a WP theme. You should get a notice to upgrade.

Thanks for your help!

Congrats to the Pinegrow team @matjaz , @Emmanuel, @MhdAljuboori

:evergreen_tree::hearts: on Pinegrow 4 Final, initial release.


3 Likes

Hi I’m using V4 and while it works most of the time with Atom - on quite a few occasions PG still loses contact or sync with Atom
e.g. PG says file saved when I save the same file in Atom, but changes are not reflected - I have to exit both and restart them…)
Also, sometimes if I click on a tag in the PG’s document tree, Atom doesn’t highlight the associated code