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Macaw hits 1.0, now available(macaw.co)

9 years ago from Manik Rathee, Eng Manager @ Google

  • Kevin HaggertyKevin Haggerty, 9 years ago (edited 9 years ago )

    The problem with self-service client sites (aka business owners doing it themselves) is that those markets are thoroughly covered by online tools - see squarespace, wix, weebly, etc.

    For a small shop going after the pro market should be much more manageable - you can put together proper web comps and then use the code or not depending on your needs...

    Regarding framework integration - I think part of the philosophy of this type of tools (at least for me personally) is that they should replace the need to use something like bootstrap or off-the-shelf frameworks. You could argue this both ways, but it would be great to be able to generate SASS or other precompiler-type output from a visual design tool... (hint-hint)

    I do think this is limited in being a desktop app. Much more interesting to leverage the types of things the web can give...

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    • Colm TuiteColm Tuite, 9 years ago (edited 9 years ago )

      Check out some of the videos, particularly the one titled "Interace Design With Macaw": http://macaw.co/videos/

      I was pretty surprised to see that the app doesn't replace coding. To set up interactions, you need to write cutsom Javascript inside the app. Maybe soon they will provide preset scripts but still, this is waaayyy more difficult than it needs to be.

      I was also surprised at how much it forces you into a developer mindset. While designing, you gotta think of class names, worry about fixed positioning vs absolute positioning, wrap elements in form tags, write javascript, set up element groups etc. It can be tough to stay focused on designing when you need to worry about so many other things.

      So it seems they're wedged somewhere in between design and development. I still can't see any use case for it.

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