[osxisfun]

loren, be sure to check out the firefox plugin i mentioned above. it does not create but in the mean time you could use it to "show" the outlines of divs etc...

[shortcipher]

Originally posted by loren s:
I am trying to figure out a way to get developers to build apps for people instead of developers bulding for themselves then the user.

this has to be the daftest thing in your original post, software companies spend plenty of time listening to their users, if they didnt people wouldnt buy their software! (yes, I know, not all of them...) - probably best not to start your thread by bashing developers for not listening to users, they spend a lot of time doing just that.

anyway, back to your idea, it strikes me that it probably would be possible - in a limited way of course, serious web developers are usually faster in a text editor than they are with a GUI, but thats a pretty specialized skill. What you are describing is TextEdit for CSS based web pages, If you could also persuade it to generate semantically correct CSS that would be good. Of course the computer cannot deduce the semantics, so the interface will have to allow the user to specify them, and then apply the CSS in a number of predetermined ways. This would make creating a layout more like selecting semantic elements with preset behaviours (like reflow, stretching etc) and then customising certain elements of them. Basically all the tricks from http://www.alistapart.com packaged up.

This would result in an editor that created sites within a certain number of styles, but then there really arent all that many varieties of basic web design/navigation anyway. A certain sacrifice of total freedom over simplicity would be desirable I think.

But, as several people have said, the idea is th easy part, solving all of the problems along the way is much, much harder than you imagine and takes real skill, your cries of "why hasnt this been done?" irritate developers because it is somewhat naive.

anyway, good luck to you, if you get funding give me a call!

[loren s]

Originally posted by shortcipher:
this has to be the daftest thing in your original post, software companies spend plenty of time listening to their users, if they didnt people wouldnt buy their software! (yes, I know, not all of them...) - probably best not to start your thread by bashing developers for not listening to users, they spend a lot of time doing just that.

YA please forgive my brashness I mean no harm. I just get a little excited when I get an idea that I think could really work and see it countess times fail. This is not the first or even second time I have tried this idea with'n a year.

I could easily name a few big companies that just dont get it though when it comes to customer support requests....

Originally posted by shortcipher:
anyway, back to your idea, it strikes me that it probably would be possible - in a limited way of course, serious web developers are usually faster in a text editor than they are with a GUI, but thats a pretty specialized skill. What you are describing is TextEdit for CSS based web pages, If you could also persuade it to generate semantically correct CSS that would be good. Of course the computer cannot deduce the semantics, so the interface will have to allow the user to specify them, and then apply the CSS in a number of predetermined ways. This would make creating a layout more like selecting semantic elements with preset behaviours (like reflow, stretching etc) and then customising certain elements of them. Basically all the tricks from http://www.alistapart.com packaged up.

This would result in an editor that created sites within a certain number of styles, but then there really arent all that many varieties of basic web design/navigation anyway. A certain sacrifice of total freedom over simplicity would be desirable I think.
[/B]

YEs pre slotting the number fields to change with the adjustment of the handles would be something to give the computer a little smarts. When I was being taught code I was told countless times that a computer is a dumb rock and that everything you do is just telling it how to do something so it moves. Removing some control for the basic 'easy' user mode would try it's best to just use the most standard css compliant code.

So I just thought using most if not all of apples prebuilt libraries of colors and fonts and gui handles selections and other items would be best. That way things are fast and ideas could be created very quickly. Heck while I was trying to code it I was going to go as far as try and make it with ObjCPY Objective-C Python. But again I just dont know enough or even have enough time.

Originally posted by shortcipher:
anyway, good luck to you, if you get funding give me a call! [/B]

Heh, it looks like I will have to open up a subversion account to try and start this. Getting past the first reaction of just use Dreamweaver is not an easy task. And I have not the funds to front this. I do understand 150$ on that code site is an insult to most, it was just a post and was testing the waters to see if anything would happen.

Please advise me on if subversion http://subversion.tigris.org/ is a path I should take ? I mean the only code i have to put there is the sketch tool from developer tools. I wish they would update it some like it says in the read me. I checked with others and it is the same in 10.4 still Lastly " ( and this is what kicks me in the mouth) I am told that WAY WAY WAY back in 10.0 pre release there WAS a WYSI.... tool from apple in the developer tools. But I have yet to find anyone that has it , could anyone here look for that ??



At the bottom of this page is a little 'mostwanted' list and one includes the type of tool I am after but they saw it a bit differently but still the same goal


----------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.cocoadev.com/index.pl?AppleToolsMostWanted

A WYSIWYG HTML editor based on InterfaceBuilder. I only dream of one written in Cocoa for stability. IB has the ability to layout UI objects for applications, and I'm sure the talented engineers at Apple could rewrite the engine so that it parses and produces HTML, XML, etc.. Plus they could use WebKit for a perfect preview. I think that Apple would find something like this to be wildly successful, and even if it wasn't free, I would definitely pay for it. (yea:2 nay:1) Apple would then have to write a Photoshop-level image editor and a page layout program, since this would surely be the last straw for Adobe. The public beta did include a wysiwyg html editor, but it was pulled after that. <-- You see I dont think that Adobe would drop it's Macintosh product line. I would say that easily 50% of Adobe's desktop publishing (i.e. Illustrator and Photoshop) customers are using Macintosh. Macintoshes running Adobe apps are used heavily in marketing/advertisement. I simply dont think that Adobe could afford to take a hit like that. ""<-- Adobe should not be the answer to what we can and can not use. It has been several years now for OSX, why has no one at all developed this app? "" Because it's a big, commerically-oriented project, and most big commercially-oriented developers are using Carbon. A small independent developer (most likely to be using Cocoa) probably isn't going to write a WYSIWYG HTML editor for his/her own use. If you want one, get started on it - you could be the next Adobe Why the hell not? Why not create a SourceForge project for this idea? "I (the original poster of this item), have actually as of late been working on starting to clean up the code for Grom (the GnuStep project's open source version of InterfaceBuilder) to maybe use as a bases for a Cocoa HTML WYSIWYG editor."

[shortcipher]

loren, if I were you I wouldn't get to hung up on the code angle, as people have rightly pointed out that whole Carbon/Cocoa thing is a bit of a silly distinction to make, people should use whatever they are most familiar with, both routes can lead to a superb result, all it takes is talent.

I would concentrate on the idea, you can prototype out the interface without coding anything, but it needs to go beyond just producing a screenshot and saying "it would look like this", you need to think about behaviour, how the user interacts and what they interact with, and about how your interface tools map to CSS generation, which means you need to know a lot about CSS/semantic markup. You need to become what we call the "domain expert", ie: the man who knows what the app needs to do (in interface terms), and what it outputs (in CSS terms). If you can crack this then someone else can do the actual coding for you.

I guess the hardest part is budget, you cant just commission software like this, any more than someone could commission Adobe to make Photoshop. Sure we can buy Photoshop for a few hundred pounds, but remember that it cost millions to develop and Adobe had to foot that bill on the assumption that they could sell to lots of people. Apple gives iTunes away for free and I bet that cost a dollar or two to develop!

I would suggest that people would not pay very much for the app you are describing, DW only costs a few hundred pounds and serious developers will get by on a £40 text editor (check out TextMate), so you are aiming at the non-professional non-coder market, £40 is about right for that market, but the development costs are up to you.

[osxisfun]

http://westciv.typepad.com/

Look around for a link to become part of the stylemaster beta 4 program.

Wizard like and visual creation of page layout and nav bars and toolbars.

its has most of the stuff of csedit but so much more.

NIceee.......


Its close to what i wanted. enough so that i am switching and will puurchase.

(i just made a 3 column layout (liquid) with a header then i adjust the widths of each color (changed color ) added dash line borders AND the code looks great as I pasted a TON of text in the furthest right column and it stayed correctly (the run off past the other two columns) in the third column.

[iOliverC]

Originally posted by osxisfun:
http://westciv.typepad.com/

Look around for a link to become part of the stylemaster beta 4 program.

Wizard like and visual creation of page layout and nav bars and toolbars.

its has most of the stuff of csedit but so much more.

NIceee.......


Its close to what i wanted. enough so that i am switching and will puurchase.

(i just made a 3 column layout (liquid) with a header then i adjust the widths of each color (changed color ) added dash line borders AND the code looks great as I pasted a TON of text in the furthest right column and it stayed correctly (the run off past the other two columns) in the third column.

hmm, can you link me to beta page? I can't find it.

Thanks,
Oliver

[osxisfun]

http://www.westciv.com/style_master/beta/

this is the page that i read that got me interested.

http://support.westciv.com/article.p...41226010814123

read the comments...

[loren s]

hmmm NDA.... Well I hope they contact me.. It may just be what I am after... You know what sucks though... Someone saw the idea despite all of this hear say about how it cant be done someone DID do it (guesses) and it took a company to do it. What happened to the adventurous developer ?

eh whatever,,, cant wait to test itout.. .

[iOliverC]

Originally posted by loren s:
hmmm NDA.... Well I hope they contact me.. It may just be what I am after... You know what sucks though... Someone saw the idea despite all of this hear say about how it cant be done someone DID do it (guesses) and it took a company to do it. What happened to the adventurous developer ?

eh whatever,,, cant wait to test itout.. .

What's to say this feature hasn't been in development for a year or so?

And why are you complaining about adventurous developers, or the lack thereof? When you never even tried to make some sort of effort to learn a programming language, instead just bugging others to do it for you.

[loren s]

Originally posted by iOliverC:
What's to say this feature hasn't been in development for a year or so?

And why are you complaining about adventurous developers, or the lack thereof? When you never even tried to make some sort of effort to learn a programming language, instead just bugging others to do it for you.

He he .. I did, I tried it all sortsfor months on end.. First it was C as my fellows at Blender IRctold me that C is easy enough, then they said try python it is even easier and just common language. Then they said buy books so I did, big ones smallones.

Then cocoa coders told me hey cocoa is easier and super nice in that it has all of these prebuilt libraries that save you from having to start from scratch over and over . Then they said objectC and cocoa is so much better, so I tried then they said well go buy some books they will be a boon. And I did, and for a minute there I was following the tutorials nice and well making calculators and stuff.. but then it just skipped a beat and up and jumped from me ,,,,

So they said uh ok try PyObjC that uses all of cocoa and the goodness of python.. ugh my spacing is bad enough but having to depend on how to space my code just so the stupid thing can compile ick .... plus I still had no clue what the hell this if statement was trying to do with this other piece of crap code.

So then they said "screw you we cant help you anymore" and so here i am...

[osxisfun]

the more i use it, the stylemaster main tool for what we want is the wizard that i spoke of that let me do all of the above with coding. just a series of screens. it was nice. it was not "visual" in the truest sense but between this and the templates he will be supplying i think it gets you in the ballpark if not the infield.

i mean all the CSS sites look the same anyway...3 columns and a header so a wizard that does this is good enough for me.)

(oh and please don't say go to zen garden. yes they do, but the sites on zen garden have a nice background along with their 3 columns and a header)

[osxisfun]

and to add, i do like the interface of cssedit much more but i think i read that macrabbit was not interested in going the page layout route so for me i see its future as limiting for my needs.

[loren s]

hmmm I can not get the developer to respond for the beta Anything else I can do to get on that beta list ??

[osxisfun]

add your email again, maybe he had a bad day and forgot. it took me a couple of days to get it.


I've been using it more but really just for the wizards. it more than cssedit but still not exactly what we want.

[loren s]

Originally posted by osxisfun:
add your email again, maybe he had a bad day and forgot. it took me a couple of days to get it.


I've been using it more but really just for the wizards. it more than cssedit but still not exactly what we want.

Aw that did the trick. Hmm I hope to catch the developer in a real email.. This app is nice to have wizards but the entire idea of design is not to be stuck in wizards..

As a whole though web design is just making a box look pretty be navagationable and get content into your eyes as soon as possible... This tool will help alot.. I like the way the author talks about the current WYSIWYG tools are HTML editors and not style editors..

still testing ..

[loren s]

DUDE ! Pages the new iWork app is almost exactly what I am after in this visual css app. But remeber I said almost. I am at least glad Apple has seen the idea of all of this. Now the question waits, will Pages export to HTML, and if so how well will it do it...

Anyway pages in lightyears ahead in realtime feedabck for design than Dreamweaver will ever be. This is what I had been saying for the longest.

[Chuckit]

Originally posted by loren s:
DUDE ! Pages the new iWork app is almost exactly what I am after in this visual css app. But remeber I said almost. I am at least glad Apple has seen the idea of all of this.

"The idea"? It's a page layout app. They've been around for two decades now. It's not as though it's an idea that people are just now grasping.

Originally posted by loren s:
Anyway pages in lightyears ahead in realtime feedabck for design than Dreamweaver will ever be. This is what I had been saying for the longest.

And I explained way back when why this is the case. Dreamweaver is a full-featured HTML editor. Pages (or OmniGraffle, or any other graphic design app) is not an HTML editor. Apples and oranges here.

[loren s]

Originally posted by Chuckit:
"The idea"? It's a page layout app. They've been around for two decades now. It's not as though it's an idea that people are just now grasping.


And I explained way back when why this is the case. Dreamweaver is a full-featured HTML editor. Pages (or OmniGraffle, or any other graphic design app) is not an HTML editor. Apples and oranges here.

Yes but this is real time feedabck. Not a drag and wait for mouse click to let go to see update kind of thing. And the text is clean and crisp.. A nice well built Apple app.

9 days in counting to see..

[Jan Van Boghout]

Originally posted by loren s:
Yes but this is real time feedabck. Not a drag and wait for mouse click to let go to see update kind of thing. And the text is clean and crisp.. A nice well built Apple app.

9 days in counting to see..

Do you still not realize that a browser on 35 possible computer configurations requires a different approach than a universal A4 page?

[loren s]

Originally posted by Jan Van Boghout:
Do you still not realize that a browser on 35 possible computer configurations requires a different approach than a universal A4 page?

Yes that is why I said that the app is 'almost' what I have dreamed. It is only half of it, it is just a pdf creator still. YOU, could make this happen YOU could be the power that makes the designer user happy. But oh well I have tried before so I will try no more. Anyone else ?? Apple?? Anyone?? It is almost done right there, just needs a sloted system for css cords, not an intellegent system just a slotted thing.. Dont care if it is Cocoa or Carbon just make it use that really fast realtime interactivty stuff..

[Chuckit]

Originally posted by loren s:
Yes but this is real time feedabck. Not a drag and wait for mouse click to let go to see update kind of thing. And the text is clean and crisp..

Both of these are pretty much standard components of a page-layout app these days. Quark and InDesign both have live updating and antialiased text. The point is that Quark, InDesign and Pages all do something completely different from Dreamweaver, so I don't see why you're comparing them. We never said it was impossible to have a snappy interface on any app.

By the way, if all you want is HTML export, Stone Create is a layout app that does that.

It is almost done right there, just needs a sloted system for css cords, not an intellegent system just a slotted thing..

What is a "slotted system for CSS cords"?

[loren s]

Originally posted by Chuckit:
Both of these are pretty much standard components of a page-layout app these days. Quark and InDesign both have live updating and antialiased text. The point is that Quark, InDesign and Pages all do something completely different from Dreamweaver, so I don't see why you're comparing them. We never said it was impossible to have a snappy interface on any app.

By the way, if all you want is HTML export, Stone Create is a layout app that does that.


What is a "slotted system for CSS cords"?

No I want a good html export that uses standard s of CSS for it's layout and such. That is what I am waiting to see if iWork has a nice clean standards export and not hog wash.

I already have freeway, it does not follow standards yet.

Slotted as in the slots in the code are just placeholder code for when the user moves a slider or edits in the interface the handels. EG:

Code:
(.IDclass) { 
border: (style)(number)(measurement)(color);
}

each () would just have waaiting code in itfor when the user changes something only that bit or bits would change. That way the computer would not have to figure out aton of stuff just those bits. Seems solid to me. I have seen it in 3d design and photoshop.

[iOliverC]

Originally posted by loren s:
No I want a good html export that uses standard s of CSS for it's layout and such. That is what I am waiting to see if iWork has a nice clean standards export and not hog wash.

I already have freeway, it does not follow standards yet.

Slotted as in the slots in the code are just placeholder code for when the user moves a slider or edits in the interface the handels. EG:

Code:
(.IDclass) { 
border: (style)(number)(measurement)(color);
}

each () would just have waaiting code in itfor when the user changes something only that bit or bits would change. That way the computer would not have to figure out aton of stuff just those bits. Seems solid to me. I have seen it in 3d design and photoshop.

Listen, Pages is NOT a HTML editor. It never will be. I doubt you can even open HTML pages, let alone edit the damn things. Designing for websites and designing for A4 paper is a very different thing, and don't say "the engine is already there" and that any app can "slot" in a CSS system, because you can't, it just doesn't work that way.

You don't seem to grasp how complex it is to make something like Pages or a rendering system similar, Apple probably had atleast 10 people working on it for months. You seem to list all these demands for how this application should be, why not just learn a damn language and make it your self, instead of begging others to do so. Just please, give up this thread, and maybe web design, because in the time you have gone on and on about this, you could have learnt how to hand code much faster.

[loren s]

Originally posted by iOliverC:
Listen, Pages is NOT a HTML editor. It never will be. I doubt you can even open HTML pages, let alone edit the damn things. Designing for websites and designing for A4 paper is a very different thing, and don't say "the engine is already there" and that any app can "slot" in a CSS system, because you can't, it just doesn't work that way.

You don't seem to grasp how complex it is to make something like Pages or a rendering system similar, Apple probably had atleast 10 people working on it for months. You seem to list all these demands for how this application should be, why not just learn a damn language and make it your self, instead of begging others to do so. Just please, give up this thread, and maybe web design, because in the time you have gone on and on about this, you could have learnt how to hand code much faster.

Yeah yeah, and then where does software come from? As this post shows only from someone that gives a dam what others are asking for. Who needs cssedit then eh? What use is it why not just go back to using text edit for web design. Screw all of the apple webkit andyears of workthey put in to give you developers thepower to leverage 50% of the work off of products you can create. Sheesh what do you do then, make everything from scratch cause you feel what they spent there hard earned money for was useless code crap. They did all of that to let coders workfaster and cleaner.

Sorry I might have been a little harsh, but I hate these kind of replies 'go learn it your self, your idea is impossible and stupid'. I hate code, I hate trying to talk to developers and get an idea accross, I hate that they hold all of the cards, and I hate that they will not work with peoples ideas more unless it involves huge sums of money. I wish there was a barter system. ughn

[Chuckit]

Originally posted by loren s:
Screw all of the apple webkit andyears of workthey put in to give you developers thepower to leverage 50% of the work off of products you can create. Sheesh what do you do then, make everything from scratch cause you feel what they spent there hard earned money for was useless code crap. They did all of that to let coders workfaster and cleaner.

WebKit does not have HTML (or CSS, for that matter) editing capabilities, nor can it be simply extended to add on HTML editing capabilities. Having an HTML rendering framework does not put you halfway to having a decent editor. Why do you keep talking about this like you think you have some idea what's involved?

Originally posted by loren s:
Sorry I might have been a little harsh, but I hate these kind of replies 'go learn it your self, your idea is impossible and stupid'. I hate code, I hate trying to talk to developers and get an idea accross, I hate that they hold all of the cards, and I hate that they will not work with peoples ideas more unless it involves huge sums of money. I wish there was a barter system. ughn

Yeah, it's a crying shame that developers won't kowtow to your every whine.

Seriously, I actually felt some sympathy for you until this little rant of self-entitlement. There is a barter system. If you have something that's worth the massive amount of time this would take (huge sums of money is one example), I'm sure a developer would be willing to do the work in exchange for it. The problem is that you're asking for a mountain in exchange for a stick of gum.

You aren't able to pay for it, and you aren't willing to work for it. Why do you think you should get it?

[loren s]

Originally posted by Chuckit:
WebKit does not have HTML (or CSS, for that matter) editing capabilities, nor can it be simply extended to add on HTML editing capabilities. Having an HTML rendering framework does not put you halfway to having a decent editor. Why do you keep talking about this like you think you have some idea what's involved?


Yeah, it's a crying shame that developers won't kowtow to your every whine.

Seriously, I actually felt some sympathy for you until this little rant of self-entitlement. There is a barter system. If you have something that's worth the massive amount of time this would take (huge sums of money is one example), I'm sure a developer would be willing to do the work in exchange for it. The problem is that you're asking for a mountain in exchange for a stick of gum.

You aren't able to pay for it, and you aren't willing to work for it. Why do you think you should get it?

Sigh, I dont know what happened, I never wanted to sound rude or greedy, I never wanted to make people mad, I only wanted to find at least onekind soul that would work with me at trying to build the bare bones basic test for this idea. I never wanted a full fledged anything. I have posted so many replies to this sad dead destoyed idea I dont know what to think anymore. I had a little fake gui designed I had a been going through the Tigris.org site to try and build a little area where someone could help me work on it. I only wanted one person to help me with the idea, I could plan and they could code, and I could help out as I tried to learn code again.

I never wanted a fight, but I guess I found one...two,, three and more. But never that one coder, I did not care if it could not be done I wanted to see if it could. If we flash back all I was after was the one test, can Sketch app output code in width height css syntax. From there a little foundation could be builton that idea.

But I give in, I am defeated, the idea is shot and never to leave the ground, I will go back to dreamweaver and never speek of it again here.

Sorry for my fighting for a dream. I will reply if it seems that it will not start a fight, but otherwise just forget it, I am well aware now that it wont happen because it cant or some sort of answer in one of these long posts.

[MacHarbor]

actually, I have found an easy way to layout pages. It's not real-time updating, but I do all my work using Interarchy to upload my changes.

I create all my DIVs, assign a different color to each one (there's plenty of preset colors in CSSEdit already), position those as needed using CSSEdit's controls, and boom, the layout is done in under 15 minutes. Add maybe 5 more to get the IE_fix.css file made, and I'm set.

I too thought that a CSS Live Layout maker would be cool, but it really isn't needed since there is already plenty of great software out there that does this stuff. Plus I find that hand coding things is far more reliable than any sort of automated system.

[Gee4orce]

Originally Posted by Jan Van Boghout

Do you still not realize that a browser on 35 possible computer configurations requires a different approach than a universal A4 page?

Hey there ! Just wondering what's up with CSSEdit these days. Are you still working on it ? I love the app.

One thing I'd like to see is if you could click on something in the live preview window and see what parts of the CSS are being applied to that element. Also, some neat-o method of building selectors would be a big help.

Keep up the good work.

[Angus_D]

Originally Posted by loren s

html import

I wouldn't expect to see HTML import in Freeway any time soon, simply because that's not how its model of a page works. There's just no realistic way of working back from a HTML model of a page to a Freeway model of a page at this time.

[Angus_D]

Originally Posted by loren s

He he .. I did, I tried it all sortsfor months on end..

Perhaps that might give you some idea that coding is not as straightforward as you seem to think it is. Perhaps the reason that people haven't solved all these problems is not that nobody has thought of them, but that they're hard problems to solve.

Lots of people with far more knowledge of the relevant disciplines have spent a lot of time thinking about these things. Several large companies have spent millions in R&D for web editor apps.

Contrary to what you seem to think, you're not the first person to think of these things. I think people just get offended when you bounce up and down and make random assertions about how developers haven't done this or that because they're lazy/incompetent/whatever.

[Chuckit]

Just so we're clear, y'all, this is a 5-month-old thread that MacHarbor resurrected. If you look at it too long, it will try to eat your flesh.

[jasong]

I'm tempted to condone piracy or something here to get a Mod to lock the thread before loren s comes back . . .

[loren s]

man I an't saying jack, you know how I feel, so I 'm leaving it at that, g.