If you’re a designer who uses Macaw on a regular basis, you already know how it can make your life easier, and hopefully, you’re already using the software to its full potential.
This blog is for those of you who are just getting started with Macaw, or those of you who aren’t sure about some of the software’s more advanced features. We’ll be covering everything from the basics to some of our favorite hacks in this blog over the coming weeks and months. And if there’s anything we’ve missed that you’d really like to know more about, please let us know by leaving a comment!
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Macaw Web Design Software
Web designing is more than just slapping visually attractive images on a page. To make those elements come to life, meticulous amounts of HTML are needed to add front end functionality.
In the past, designers have used Adobe Creative Suite to draw up their sites while programmers looked to Coda 2 to outline the protocols. But there’s no one tool out there that marries the workflow in one fell swoop.
That is, until Web design tool Macaw emerged. Estimated to arrive early next year, we sat down with software’s developers to see how Macaw aims to streamline Web production into one single app.Making your first cat video?7 video editing features you needRead article
Calling itself “the code-savvy Web design tool,” Macaw creators Tom Giannattasio and Adam Christ say the software is designed to push HTML as the “standard deliverable at every stage of the process – from conception to deployment.”
The tool was created as an experiment about a year ago to “solve the gap between design tools and the browser.” The two did so by creating an application which enables a fluid design process but also helps developers get the exact code they need. With Macaw, Giannattasio and Christ say the software can speed the production process for both Web designers and developers, easing collaborations.
In the sneak peek video, Giannattasio and Christ walk users through creating a simple blog page with Macaw. Users can design a blog page much like one would ordinarily create in Photoshop or Illustrator. During the process, users can make various design decisions, such as keeping the background image fixed or leaving a logo absolute positioned. Users can also define how things should function using the tool panel on the app.
Once the site is laid out exactly as envisioned, all the user has to do is assign names to each element, much like developers give ID’s and classes to HTML codes. Finally, the finish product can be exported the site as HTML and CSS files. Macaw does all the work of creating a clean HTML markup, consolidating CSS codes, and organization elements in a way that’s readable and identifiable.
The Macaw creators say the tool is intended to help find the balance between simplicity and speed when it comes to Web development. Macaw features a fluid canvas – an added bonus for responsive Web design – that allows for better use of typography options and increased user interactivity.
The features don’t stop there. “We have some intuitive features that have never been seen before in a design tool,” the duo teases. “We’re hopeful people will say to themselves ‘Why hasn’t anyone done it this way before?’”
While Giannattasio and Christ admit the code Macaw produces isn’t perfect for all applications (read: CMS), it is a good place to start as it does most of the work for developers so they can take the prewritten code and apply it to any system they choose.
With a high demand for Macaw, the two launched a Kickstarter campaign to expedite getting the product to market. “We’re two guys tackling a very large problem,” Giannattasio and Christ says. “We’ve been working on Macaw for well over a year now. We have a ton of Macaw already built, but it’s an extremely complex app and we could use some developer muscle to help finish things up in a timely manner.”
After launching their campaign on October 2, the duo met their goal of $75,000 in just 24 hours. A week later, Macaw raised more than twice its initial goal with more than two weeks to go. Giannattasio and Chris have even started working on stretch goals should they reach new heights with their campaign.
Although there are little details on Macaw’s suggested retail price, the two say it will be “far less” than what most designers and developers are accustomed to spending on their current tools. And while it may be initially be launched for the Mac crowd, Macaw is built with HTML and Javascript, so Macaw can be used on any computer – even in a Web browser.
From a Web designer and developer’s standpoint, Macaw has the potential to not only be the Web design tool of preference, but a major time saver. While it’s still got more development to go, it’s fair to say Macaw comes pretty close to solving the disjointed workflow most professional Web designers and developers trudge through daily.
advantages of bootstrap studio
Bootstrap and Foundation are the top 2 front end frameworks/CSS frameworks that are mainly used by front-end developers for various reasons like:
- A framework comes up with predefined terms, thus giving you the ability to use these codes instead of having to create the codes from scratch.
- No more tweaking of the base to make it look same across all the browsers. The CSS framework will do that.
- No more adjusting of pixel widths and wondering if the sidebar has standards compliant for widgets or images.
- Synergy is maintained across the website and on all web pages because the framework will remember everything that you did on each web page saving you the time and energy to try and remember specifications of each element.
Like the two sides of a coin, even frameworks have their own drawbacks.
- Since a framework has a standard set of grids and selectors and other codes, it restricts your design. So for every new kind of design idea you would want to implement, you would have to learn a new framework.
- The extra code comes up from the list of predefined codes that come with the framework. You can choose not to use them through the frameworks you use.
Now, frameworks may save you a bunch load of time that you would usually spend in coding. But it restricts your creativity, for which businesses preferrably hire a custom WordPress development company. However, if you are determined to use frameworks, you would have to come up with design ideas that fit into their requirements.
Bootstrap by Twitter and Foundation by ZURB are two of the best existing frameworks. But at the end of the day, they have their own pros and cons. And before you set out to hire Bootstrap developer or Foundation developer for a PSD to Bootstrap conversion or PSD to Foundation conversion, this is what you should be knowing.
#Bootstrap Development
What is Bootstrap? Bootstrap is an HTML, CSS, and JS framework used for developing responsive and mobile-first projects on the web. The following are the pros and cons of Bootstrap Development, have a glance at it:
The Advantages of Bootstrap Development are:
- Fewer Cross browser bugs
- A consistent framework that supports major of all browsers and CSS compatibility fixes
- Lightweight and customizable
- Responsive structures and styles
- Several JavaScript plugins using the jQuery
- Good documentation and community support
- Loads of free and professional templates, WordPress themes and plugins
- Great grid system
The Disadvantages of Bootstrap are:
- There will be requirement of lots of style overrides or rewriting files that can thus lead to a lot of time spent on designing and coding the website if the design tends to deviate from the customary design used in Bootstrap.
- You would have to go the extra mile while creating a design otherwise all the websites will look the same if you don’t do heavy customization.
- Styles are verbose and can lead to lots of output in HTML which is not needed.
- JavaScript is tied to jQuery and is one of the commonest library which thus leaves most of the plugins unused.
- Non-compliant HTML.
#Foundation Framework
Foundation is a front-end framework that is a collection of HTML, CSS and JS containing design patterns that could be built upon. Following are the pros and cons of Foundation Framework, have a look at it:
The Advantages of Foundation are:
- Foundation lets you customize your website without making it look similar to other websites that have used Foundation. The out of the box CSS design is more of a flat design and looks good right away and you don’t even have to customize heavily.
- The base CSS appearances are built in and there won’t be much CSS bloat in the HTML.
- Flexible grids
- Centered Columns.
- Adding a ‘collapse’ class will allow you to easily collapse columns and remove gutters.
- A block sized grid will allow you to create equal sized columns with minimal markup.
- Widgets
- Foundation provides you with a HTML5 form validation library.
- Website navigation can be easily placed to the side of the website to make it hidden.
- Readymade table that shows prices for products that are based on subscription.
- User experience can be customized because website loads different media for different devices/screen sizes.
- Multi-lingual website because Foundation allows you to choose languages that are written from the right to the left.
- Foundation will let you give a joyride of your website to your visitors.
- Additional services
- The Foundation team offers services and courses as a form of support.
- Various online training courses for Foundation and other web technologies are also provided.
The Disadvantages of Foundation are:
- Due to popularity of Bootstrap, the community support for Twitter Bootstrap is better than Foundation.
- It may take some time for beginners to learn and use Foundation.
- There is a lack of wider support like QA sites and forums for fixing issues.
- There is not much support for QA sites and troubleshooting issues.
Conclusion
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