This earthquake likely has serious implications for RW, for Stacks, for stacks developers, for web designers, and least for casual users like myself. At this point it is obviously unknown how the different decisions will pan out in one, two, or five years.
As a casual user, I have the liberty to wait & see. Web designers will worry about long term support of their businesses, but short term everything will anyway work with e.g. RW8 and Stacks4. Stacks seems to only have a survival chance going independently forward from RW9, whereas stacks developers have both (not exclusive) options.
I cannot expect from developers to make a clear decision at this point, as their business is in jeopardy here. Of course you can have ethical or business reasons to decide one way or the other, but I would like to not impose this question on them at this time.
There is only one person, who has had no choice left but to fight for his survival, and we all root for him at this moment. But let’s don’t put undue pressure on others.
If the new API largely remained the same, what could have been changed to make Stacks so hard to integrate?
Is there some online documentation about these new minor changes & when they where put into place?
@dancounsell You know exactly what I was referring and just to be clear to anyone who was distracted by your reply, I was using term “API” in the same way that Isaiah uses when when communicating with general Stacks users.
We are all looking for good positive announcements about the future for Stacks users and whether RW will be part of that future.
If that happens, and there are genuine reasons to upgrade RW9, then we will all be smiling.
In the meantime it’s full speed ahead with RW8 + Stacks4 which has years of life left in it.
Well the waters are churning and evidence is piling up from folks who are supportive of Isaiah that we are cheering him on. My vote is to FORGET about RW and trying to keep Stacks as part of RW and let’s move forward into the new future that a Stacks 5 app can bring us. Isaiah will have enough work to do to get that out and IMHO spreading himself thin by trying to accommodate RW9 is a waste of time. The pros of doing so just don’t outweigh the cons. Fuhgeddabout as they say in Jersey.
Let RW9 move on with Elements and attract new people if it can—previous SW projects weren’t very successful, and let those of us wanting to move forward with Stacks 5 just keep on truckin’. Simple, a clear way forward with the least fuss.
This thread’s most recent posts bring new insight into what’s really going on between RW & Stacks.
The most eye opening is Tav’s comment to Dan about the ‘stack transpiler’ part of Elements. To better understand, I looked up ‘transpiler’ and read realmac’s RW9 developer SDK (and related) to comprehend.
This seems to confirm Dan is really trying to steal Isaiah’s plugin, its concept, the developers of 3rd Party stacks, his good will and the customer base of both Stacks and stacks.
Isaiah has been the most significant improvement to RW in the last couple of decades and doesn’t deserve this hijacking of his business and hard work.
One of Dan’s posts insinuates Isaiah started the new ‘Stacks App’ on his own and simply refused to continue to develop the Stacks Plugin for RW9. Based on posts here from people with the most ‘inside knowledge’, Dan’s statement is an obvious lie and cover-up for his unethical new business approach.
Let’s also be thankful for this rw4all forum, which is independent of any developer (and un-editable by Dan or other realmac staff) and a place for open discussions ‘4ALL’. I’ve seen lots of critical posts on realmac’s forum which have mysteriously vanished. Will rw4all possibly need a name change once the divorce is final? hmmm…
It’s really great to see the positive (and ethical) thoughts and views by most of the community’s top stacks developers in this thread!
Sorry @Anugyan, but I would absolutely hate that. Makes absolutely no sense in my opinion, but that depends on your individual workflow in the end.
While working on the websites I have to have access to the hundreds of megabytes of images my client did send me. Would have to work on them with Photoshop, would have to tweak/convert the client logo to SVG, would need to optimize the jpg files I’m integrating on the site with an app like JPGmini, would have to upload/install some php scripts on the clients server with an FTP app, would have to high-quality-upscale low res images delivered by the client with a tool like PhotoZoom or Topaz Gigapixel and many, many more things. All this is already set up on my desktop machine. Why in the world should I try to do all this on an iPad?!? For my taste web design is much(!) more comfortable in any way on a desktop machine (or a laptop) with a big screen attached, capable of running all OS X apps which I need for my design process. Working with an iPad this way would either be impossible or slow down work in a way that I would actually loose money.
So no, please no iPad version!
@wolf , not everyone’s needs and workflow is that complicated. I can think of about 4-5 times per day that if I had the ability to edit or add a page with an iPad I could and would. Instead I have to take notes as I think of them and then edit when I get home. Another scenario, a client calls says hey “I need this or that” or hey “I found a typo.” Whip out the iPad, make the edit, bang, instant happy client!
If YourHead Software were a big company, I would say: ‘Go for it’, make an iPad version for those whose web design is limited and/or casual. But in this case, it doesn’t look to me like a viable proposition.
Isaiah is an overworked guy who works alone (AFAIK). Whipping up an additional app for iPad would be an overachievement with a limited use.
If you build websites with Wordpress and such, iPad would be fine, but for anything more ambitious, I totally agree with Mathias. Stacks app will be appropriate for those way more ambitious applications, I am sure. Therefore, desktop and laptop with an extra monitor will work best.
Blocs is also going iOS. However we are talking about Stacks. ;-)
Regardless, I think we are in agreement, if the programming can be done without holding up the speed of getting the first version to the public, great! Isaiah doesn’t need to release an iOS version first, just don’t program in such a way that he gets into his own way when it’s time to make the move to an iOS version.
+1
the only tool that could be useful is an app (but you also do this with a simple url) to test the work. Some CSS Media Queries cannot be tested on the computer. The work on the go can be done with stacks and CMS.
An iPad for halfway serious webwork (for example an iPad Pro 12,9") is similar expensive than a small laptop, so that’s no argument for me. Why not simply integrate one of the available CMS solutions into the website(s), so that you (or your client) can make updates wherever they are and whenever they want?
I think it is far too early to be discussing an iPad version of Stacks App or to be explaining why you would or wouldn’t want such a tool. We need to focus on the Mac solution and not get distracted.
By all means start a new thread about iPad web development.
I haven’t seen if @Isaiah is asking the community for a Stacks App wishlist or suggestions, though my top request would be to eliminate the ‘Preview Edit’ step, replaced with a true WYSIWYG UI/UE like every other (I think) web-builder.
I have no idea what’s involved or how long @Isaiah needs to develop Stacks App and he should take as long as he needs. Knowing RW8 will last another year or two… or more, I’d definitely be willing to wait for a later release date if ‘Preview’ could be eliminated.
Hey guys, I had no idea my suggestion would create such a fantastic response. For sure it would be sweet to flip open my iPad and build up a page. However, Iam not a developer. I have just made a few sites for friends and myself which I tweek and maintain. However, my most creative times are when I travel (airports, trains) lying in bed too and I often develop ideas, edit photos or create logo’s in Affinity, write text etc. and the yearning to make edits on my site is very much there. One day someone will do it as Affinity have done and many others.
I understand that it would be an major undertaking, that’s why I was so light about it. But don’t dis the idea, it’s on the horizon. I have no idea what’s involved as code is not my world…. but there is certainly enough creative talent among the devs to do it.
Here’s to new beginnings 🤩