Once you’ve understood how to develop for Blocs, it’s not that difficult. Yes, there are differences, and that’s good.
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Yes, would agree with you, I’m learning CSS grid, although flex is available on any container, and I already partially use that. Just not fully up to speed on CSS grid.
Pinegrow’s implementation is excellent when you choose an image there’s a button for the different standard resolutions so you don’t get large images. My Pinegrow sites are much faster than their a RW equivalent was.
The licensing is also not an issue as the images are obtained through the api; if an image is removed it will disappear from your site, which is preferable to licensing claims, plus changing the photo takes seconds.
But this lands you back into needing to purchase the equivalent of stacks in brics. I’ve had no issues with Pinegrow and not needed to create a Wordpress site. I find the framework blocks gives me all I need apart from forms for which I use Machforms, which I also used with RW.
I’m no coder, but do understand html and css. Pinegrow has opened my eyes to the fact that many features I relied on stacks for are now easily implementable with html5 and css3.
I am interested in the Stacks 5 app (not at all in RW, their attitude has moved me to a position if not wanting to support them at all), but I don’t really want to go back to the way stacks worked with RW. The integration and maintenance was a major headache. Also RW pages where too fragile and adding too many (30+) caused major slow downs and crashes.
Even though Pinegrow is non native it is much faster at loading and more responsive, plus creating sites with hundreds of pages is no different than creating a site with ten.
For me the forced change from RW has led me to something that works better for me and renewed my enjoyment of creating websites.
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That is exactly the same as Blocs. There is NO requirement for Blocs users to use Javascript. That requirement is just for Blocs developers and the benefit is that Blocs devs need a higher level of skill to create Brics that RW devs do to create stacks.
Brics are effectively the same as stacks, except the main UI for every Bric is the same as every other Bric.
Don’t forget that Blocs has pretty much all the Blocs, Brics and Templates you need, built into the app. There are also additional free Brics created by Norm (and others) that are available to add if you want them. For example, if you are looking for an SVG bric, you search for SVG and a free Inline SVG Bric is found in the Blocs Store. To install it you just click it from within the app, and carry on using that new Bric, without leaving the app. RW has no such facility.
Also, many stacks that provide a function have to be provided by adding a stack inside another stack. Blocs has all of the main CSS effects and styling built into every Bric or Bloc. In RW you can buy a $20 stack to add basic effects such as blur, or $20 for a positioning stack, whereas in Blocs, this functionality is all built in, and there is no need for an additional bric purchase.
No wonder us stacks users have so many stacks.
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Yes, very nice, RW and stacks still have at least 80 % more functions they can do than the Blocs app. But I agree that it is a lovely app, very nicely done. But still, the possibilities with Stacks and RW are lightyears ahead.
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80%? I’m genuinely fascinated as to what RW+Stacks can do that Blocs can’t. This is a genuine question and not a challenge :-)
The best thing to do is download the demo. Nearly all the main features are enabled. It is best to come to your own conclusions.
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It’s not really a question of what Blocs or RW+Stacks can or can’t do — in principle everything that can be done on the web should be possible in some way for a web-building application. The question is, really, in what way. For instance, Blocs has the ability to build modals, there appear to be a couple of slider brics (one from Archetypon which is also available for Stacks) etc. RW+Stacks offers numerous kinds of modals, from different providers, each with a different twist. Likewise with sliders. That’s because RW+Stacks is a more mature environment — developers have had years to produce all this stuff — but it’s also because Stacks is simple and straightforward to develop for. If I look at some of the stuff I‘ve built demos of, particularly replicating some of the 1LD and Weavium stacks using Source Grid and Splider, I doubt I could have done that in Blocs (I’m happy to be proved wrong). RW+Stacks is a great environment for making things the way you want them. That’s not everyone’s thing. But for those of us who want to be able to do it, it‘s pretty amazing.
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I have Blocs 4. Someone made a statement claiming that RW/Stacks could do 80% more than Blocs. That’s a pretty bold claim and I wanted to see what I was missing. Lots of people on here are cleverer than I am, so I like to see what their views are.
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I tried Blocs 4 because I was interested, unfortunately the GDPR is very strict here and with Blocs you have to rely on third party payment plans, so I haven’t even tested it.
With Stacks there are excellent, truly effective solutions.
When in Blocs 5 or 6 there will be solutions for the GDPR I will try it seriously.
As probably Source’s biggest fan, and actually the only reason I continue to use Stacks, I would say that Blocs5 will not only allow you to build those layouts, but it will allow you to see those grids and flex positioning take shape as they are being built, within the Blocs edit mode. True WYSIWYG grid and flexbox building is quite a revelation and makes designing and debugging a visual experience without having to preview to see the effects of any setting change.
I say this based on various layouts I have buit with Blocs5. BTW none of this is a critisism of Source, but it is just how Stacks works.
Blocs5 is just weeks old and still being fine tuned, but you should really try it soon.
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That statement is nonsense and probably a statement of hope and expectation from another RW developer unwilling to be honest about what Blocs can do. Blocs4 is very capable and full featured and the recent release of Blocs5 has moved the game much further on.
Put it this way, if you went out and bought RW Classic + Stacks + the most expensive framework with all addons and all stacks, then you will still not be able to build what Blocs5 can do, such as create a complex layout CSS Grid 2023 web site that also achieves a high GooglePage Speed score. Checkout the PageSpeed scores you get if you run the RealMac or the other main Stacks Devs sites through PageSpeed and then compare with the Blocs site built with just Blocs5. It’s always good way to assess how good a web builder is by checking out real sites built with those web builders. These are real world metrics to see how good a web builder can build a site.
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But, Gary, weren’t you saying just a little while back that Source could do exactly that? I’m also not exactly clear what Blocs5 can do with CSS Grid that Source Grid can’t.
And currently:
Blocs 5 + Blocs Plus = US $179.99
RW Classic + Stacks 5 + Source + Source Addon Pack = US $166.85
I have not explored Blocs at all yet. But I am wondering if it, or any Brics, can do a nice blog such as the excellent Poster stack? Or is there any photo gallery options that are comparable to what is available in stacks?
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Thanks for the nice feedback 😄
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Both of those Blocs addons appear to be great possibilities Jannis.
Looks like the blog posts URLs generated by Volt are the same format as the Poster stack, is that correct? That would be very important for anyone who decides to re-create a Poster blog in Blocs/Volt.
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Exactly 👍
My observation would be that Blocs is developing at a much greater pace than RW.
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At the moment it appears that way. StacksPro may be developing extremely fast. We just don’t see it because it isn’t public yet. Third party can’t develop yet because there isn’t a release to develop for. YET…