Stacks Pro Update

I don’t get how the situation nowadays is better then in March.

Same

I’m not arguing for things being like this, though. I neither wanted what happened nor encouraged it. But where we are, there is an opportunity to find a more sustainable niche for RW/Stacks than there was before, when it was trying to be all things to all people, and not really achieving any of them. I go back to the example of Stuart’s LMS. On what other platform can you do something like that with off-the-shelf components? As far as I’m aware, none. We should capitalise on that. The stacks we have let us create those kinds of things. But if we just want slick text-image, text-image, text-image — go to Blocs, or Squarespace.

So I understand what you are saying. However, how big is this specialty niche? The developers make money on each unit sold, sometimes on updates and versions. Typically the profits for sustainability are found in volume, not really small niches. Time will tell.

Very wide I would say, potentially, because with the Stacks already available it provides a very high level of creativity driven websites for the average user with off the shelf stacks. But with there being a stack and additionally a framework available to meet virtually every outcome or requirement for bespoke embedding methods it is a double whammy. I tend to find that things I could only do in Tumult Hype prior to me joining the fold of Stacks in 2018 I can often find a stack out there that can pick up the slack. What I would have done in Hype I look at it and think “actually… that could be done with SVGs using BWD Sectons Pro and layering on Z axis using Foundation 6 animation stacks or Doobox CSS animation stacks’. Likewise Drift will provide a ‘poweruser’ stack for animations for Stacks users straight out of the tin. When you start combining stacks or nesting them you can get some pretty amazing results. Likewise stacks such as Quizer by Shaking the Habitual, that is fantastic for using for creative outcome, virtually every Stack by One Little Designer, especially when you start nesting them with other stacks, Stack 4 Stacks paid and free sticks are real workhorse stacks that you can use further than what it says on the tin, Joe Worman’s stacks simply work and do great stuff. There are so many other stacks and developers that fit this bill also, it would be a big roll call. I think if somebody with a creative mind cottons on to stacks they will find they can do so much. The back end of last week I was asked by a customer if I could ‘pretty up’ their website, it was a Wordpress website built using one of the custom builder plugins. Very limiting, although enabled the Wordpress website to do more than a conventional theme, it was still very limiting, restricting to modular layout with only text and images (and video) as the basis of construction and no nesting of features.

So I think the niche so to be speak is there for anybody already, the ‘average’ stacks setup can build better, more creative websites than the average or above average Wordpress setup. I use both systems as needed and that is what I find.

If I want to create something more in line with Flash of yesterday then yes I do use Tumult Hype or one of the other software packages I use, the output from these software packages will always embed happily in Stacks and work, sometimes they can take a little working out, but it always gets there either with help from Stacks devs or these forums.

This is just not correct. Going off topic a bit, but this is relevant to StacksApp. Blocs5 is the full deal available now, and a better comparrison would be to call it an Elementor, killer because that’s what it. You can build sophisticated web sites using Blocs5 without requiring any additional expensive purchases as it is a genuine 1 stop web builder. The Plus version even includes a Graphics Editor. FTP upload, image optimisation and webP creation are all built in. There has been lots of talk on this thread about animation, which Blocs5 includes as standard, providing the tools to animate everything, animate effects, scroll based animation and also Hype are all built in, all for the same price as a single animation stack. What’s more, is that they will all work together now and in the future, becasue they all come from the same source. Also they all use the same common UI so you don’t need to learn how to use every functionas yu do in every stack. I mention Blocs merely to illustrate how much the market has changed while not much has happened with RW Stacks.

One of Stacks greatest strength is also it’s biggest weakness. I.e. because there is no control or standards of compatibility or layout, a solution from different devs could fall to pieces with a future update. Nesting stacks inside stacks inside stacks from different developers is a recipe for tears in my experience. It’s also a recipe for slow sites with poor accessibility.

So this is actually an opportunity for StacksPro to perhaps provide a report on any new stacks added or stack updates to highlight conflicting version of JS, or mutiple versions of icons or fonts, etc… At least it will stop you from updating a site that gets problem because 1 dev uses the appropriate version of JS. Perhaps create a standard layout for all stacks? In some ways, it’s still the Wild West out in the Stacks community.

Yikes. If it can’t be done with F6 alone, then you really should use something else.

This is another issue with Stacks in that it is very easy to choose the wrong framework solution and then introduce stacks from other developers, when either you have not chosen the best framework in the first instance, or you don’t know how to build your layout without using other devs stacks. The financial investment in expensive frameworks coupled with the learning investment, effectively restricts users from using multiple frameworks.

There is however, a potential great way around this issue though. Perhaps StacksPro should completely break compatability with RW. After all, now that RW Classic + Stacks is available to maintain 100% backward compatibility, RM have a revenue stream from essentially RW8, and the Stacks hatchet is at least partially burried in the Brighton sand. The break in compatibility means StacksPro loses all the RW shackles and effectively starts fresh, but with a path to using stacks code.

Thinking out loud here. Imagine abandoning the notion of a theme or addon framework and create a StacksPro based on something like Tailwind CSS, with a set of basic stacks, that interface the core TW utilities to a colection of core stacks. In other words, remove the need for a theme or “Framework”. Developers could rebuild their stacks around the TW utilities, if interested (and charge for them). This will not be popular with some framework devs and I suspect the commercial push back will be a significant barrier to this getting off the Blocs (pun intended). Such a solution would build a genuinely unique web builder that could build on the current user base, dev base and stacks, but also reach beyond to a wider audience. IMHO that was what Elements could have been, but RM don’t have the hunger, skills or the vital connection and trust, to the Stacks community to make this happen and be successful.

Sure. But that model is over for RW/Stacks, and I very much doubt that — whatever anyone does now — it‘s going to come back. What I’m saying is that we can either give up on this platform (which is going to have a lot of costs in outlay and time), or we can look at what it does really well, and capitalise on it. Like many users, I’ve got a big investment in stacks, and there is also the not insubstantial learning curve to consider. I’m conscious that this puts a lot of power at my fingertips — it would be foolish to let it go. (And despite Gary‘s splendid pitch for Blocs, I don‘t believe it can do half of these things). I also want to really start to explore the potential of recent web developments: custom properties (variables), container queries, variable fonts, css grid etc. Having now invested many hours learning stack development, figuring out what isn’t documented, I see plenty of potential to do what I want to do here. And if I can share some of that with others, as I started to do with ‘New Frontier‘ and ‘LockUp‘ — and it can cover some of the costs — so much the better.

Another metaphor. If RW/Stacks is Xerox in the mid 70s — going nowhere fast, living on past glories — there is still the opportunity for a PARC within it to do revolutionary things.

Hard to believe I know, but check out the Scroll FX section in the new Blocs App site, built with Blocs5.

Just a small side comment, Isiah is active on Discord. Do not know why someone said he is not.

6 posts were merged into an existing topic: Blocs Chat

Please enlighten us, which model do we have now? Just saying that nothing changed technology wise.

Not really, I just wanted to make sure other devs get a mention, in this case Doobox, so that it doesn’t look as though I am favouring or ‘selling’ just one dev in my post, in F6 I use only F6 animation stacks, but if somebody isn’t using F6 then Doobox animate stacks is a great alternative.

True… but if the intention is aesthetically interesting or a little bit different, then the top end 100% speed stats may have to take a bit of a dip, the reality is usually not noticeable, most people are on broadband, 4g/5g and decent processors, somebody that isn’t will experience slowness as standard. If speed is the main concern then anything ‘jazzy’ should be avoided. Regarding accessibility, just created a website last month for a blind and partially sighted charity. Accessibility is top notch with ARIA tags for screen readers, typeface, spacing, contrast, wrapped in a PWA for faster returning load times. They tested it thoroughly and were blown away. I have high contrast animation intros on each page to aesthetically appeal to non-partially sighted visitors and also act as a visual confirmation to partially sighted users that a new page has actually loaded for them, confirming that they did click the link ok.

Interesting, didn’t know that, thanks for the info.

I am not sure Hype is part of Blocs…

It’s not, but bringing hype designs into Blocs is pretty streamlined. Blocs can also communicate with Hype and preview what you are creating in Hype within the Blocs design environment, in real-time with both apps running simultaneously (there is an additional add-on for this functionality).

Hype Pro® is made by Tumult inc

yes, you can connect and customize animations made in hype in many ways, With hype tags, with CSS, via JS. I’ve been working on stacks with hypepro.

Jannis, there hasn’t been a model for a good while now — that’s what seems to have driven Dan to come up with the ‘Elements’ idea. RW as a ‘Themes’ platform is well over. The value of frameworks is questionable now: Foundation or Bootstrap is not going to drive a new golden age of Stacks — Grid has pretty much killed off the value of the framework. Dan was left with a glorified FTP app which served as a vessel for Stacks. Isaiah was left with a templating engine which served as a vessel for stacks (little s) — and also depended on RW. March was a disaster, but the last few years have been declining ones for this platform. It’s been kept alive by those of you bringing powerful new stacks to market: all the value of what we have is in the stacks themselves and the commitment of stacks developers. Realmac and YourHead have become sleepy affairs, trundling out incremental updates, and — at this point — I don’t sense any of us is expecting anything earth-shattering from either of them. The potentials of Source are exciting, the potentials of Poster are exciting, the potentials of Menu Lab are exciting, etc. — and those potentials can be exploited even if we’re stuck with RW Classic and Stacks 5 running on old Macs for the next ten years.

Besides, I’m noticing the same issues throughout the sector. For instance, I was looking for a replacement for Vanilla for one of my sites, since Vanilla effectively stopped developing their open-source version two years ago (and it won’t run on PHP 8.0, which means that come next May it will be completely unusable). As I looked through the once competitor products, all I could see is Rapidweaveritis — some companies abandoning the small user, others closing their doors, MyBB and its open-source siblings looking like the ghosts of Christmases past. It’s also a contracting market, as are so many other once prosperous software niches. (Fortunately a user posted a hack which let Vanilla run on PHP 8.0, breathing some life back into it — the kind of thing I think we’re going to see more of here: ‘make do and mend’).

Ok thanks for the clarification, I see your point now.

What is Menu Lab?