A new release!
Version 0.4 brings in some of the most needed features to make PageLayer a complete production tool.
The "link creation" icon now launches a nice new window to create pages, empty or from template, link to a document or just type some url.
The "Includes" engine has been completely re-factored too:
- A included file can now be updated: changes are immediately visible on very pages that use the same include (i.e. navigation )
- Or just protect an include to make it un-editable: that's handy for forms.
Lot of things have been added, updated or fixed to make PageLayer even easier and more comfortable to use.
Check it out at www.pagelayer.com
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
PageLayer 0.3
It's live: PageLayer version 0.3, with plenty of new features and improvements:
I am really proud of this software and the way it improved in the past few months. I surprised myself having great fun using it: as a programmer I tend to prefer messing around in the code to fix my websites but it's so much easier with PageLayer! :)
PageLayer is starting its product life with some real life projects to be launched soon. The feedback from the first users will be invaluable to the future development of PageLayer.
For now PageLayer will be distributed along with web design and development services to ensure a smooth integration. But as soon as it hits the commercial requirements, the licensing program will start and PageLayer will be made available for distribution.
Stay tuned: it's happening soon.
- Integrated history: to Undo/Redo any changes
- Improved user experience (Drag & Drop, Resizing, Text Editor, Image Editor)
- Improved readability with new color scheme, new UI skin and icons
- New building blocks, more simple yet robust and useful
- User interface feedback through color codes in the Tool bar
- Improved stability, hundreds of bugs fixed
I am really proud of this software and the way it improved in the past few months. I surprised myself having great fun using it: as a programmer I tend to prefer messing around in the code to fix my websites but it's so much easier with PageLayer! :)
PageLayer is starting its product life with some real life projects to be launched soon. The feedback from the first users will be invaluable to the future development of PageLayer.
For now PageLayer will be distributed along with web design and development services to ensure a smooth integration. But as soon as it hits the commercial requirements, the licensing program will start and PageLayer will be made available for distribution.
Stay tuned: it's happening soon.
Monday, December 03, 2007
{width: 100%; float: left;} and Crash!
during the stressful process of testing and finalizing version 0.3 of PageLayer I suddenly ran into the Internet Explorer bug of death! During a block "drag and drop", the browser happened to crash violently, randomly and with no more explanation than the terrible "Internet Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close..." message and an obscure reference to MSHTML.DLL
This is probably the worst thing that can happen to a web developer and I felt rather depressed at this point.
After several hours of desperate googling, testing, code commenting and the usual swearing that comes with that sort of event, I narrowed the problem down to a CSS file. That was one of the most frustrating bug hunts I had to do for quite some time: commenting CSS declarations and testing for several minutes every time, to see if a random bug would appear, while not being sure if it was fixed or just not happening. Grrrgh!
The problem lay in a class that gave a width of 100% and a float left property to my demo site's footer. I found some people talking about this, after I found the problem myself but it does not appear to be a very well known problem. The crash occurred when dragging blocks around in PageLayer, slightly changing the width of the main DIV container. Apparently, IE could not cope with this variation and adjust the width of the floating footer.
It's fixed now but I caught myself remembering the good old time of tables.
This is probably the worst thing that can happen to a web developer and I felt rather depressed at this point.
After several hours of desperate googling, testing, code commenting and the usual swearing that comes with that sort of event, I narrowed the problem down to a CSS file. That was one of the most frustrating bug hunts I had to do for quite some time: commenting CSS declarations and testing for several minutes every time, to see if a random bug would appear, while not being sure if it was fixed or just not happening. Grrrgh!
The problem lay in a class that gave a width of 100% and a float left property to my demo site's footer. I found some people talking about this, after I found the problem myself but it does not appear to be a very well known problem. The crash occurred when dragging blocks around in PageLayer, slightly changing the width of the main DIV container. Apparently, IE could not cope with this variation and adjust the width of the floating footer.
It's fixed now but I caught myself remembering the good old time of tables.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Floats Wrapping Priority - Internet Explorer vs Firefox
I ran into this problem while trying to make the PageLayer toolbar to behave properly.
The toolbar is a collection of float left divs containers (toolsets) embedding other float left divs (buttons / links). In a way, it has an onion skin structure: floats inside floats inside ... floats.
The problem is, as you can see in the screenshot, about priority: Firefox makes the outer divs wrap first (what you expect), Internet Explorer makes the inner divs wrap first (what you execrate).
I could not find much help online as it appears not to be a very well known problem (?).
The (very bad) solution I have got so far is to "clear right" the innermost divs which has for effect to make the containers (toolsets) to wrap properly but to lock the cleared divs: they do not wrap anymore in IE.
As anyone worked out a good solution for this problem? I'd like to hear about it!
The toolbar is a collection of float left divs containers (toolsets) embedding other float left divs (buttons / links). In a way, it has an onion skin structure: floats inside floats inside ... floats.
The problem is, as you can see in the screenshot, about priority: Firefox makes the outer divs wrap first (what you expect), Internet Explorer makes the inner divs wrap first (what you execrate).
I could not find much help online as it appears not to be a very well known problem (?).
The (very bad) solution I have got so far is to "clear right" the innermost divs which has for effect to make the containers (toolsets) to wrap properly but to lock the cleared divs: they do not wrap anymore in IE.
As anyone worked out a good solution for this problem? I'd like to hear about it!
Friday, October 05, 2007
PageLayer's Inline Image Editor
Here is a short video demonstration of the image crop/resize feature in PageLayer. That sort of manipulation usually requires an extra software as Photoshop to get the image right before integrating to the webpage. In PageLayer all of this is done inline, directly in the web page. Have a look at the video and go have a try with the demo at http://www.pagelayer.com
Note: sorry for the french accent, I am working on that.
Note: sorry for the french accent, I am working on that.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Web Editing and Content Management
I have been working in the web industry for the last 10 years and ran into the same problems, over and over with poorly served solutions. So last year, when the opportunity arose, I decided to try and harness one of the major issue in web development, the holly grail of the web designer and developer: the ultimate WYSIWYG editor.
The Web started static, with editing tools like FrontPage or Dreamweaver to help a minority of HTML savvy people to build their personal homepage. With the introduction of high-level server scripting languages (PHP/ASP/Coldfusion), Websites were built with a "back-office", often custom-made, to enable content administration by the end-users. Today, open source Content Management Systems like Joomla give some more freedom, at low cost, to edit and custom build a website with minimal skills. But these tools still require a training course for the average user and can be tricky. They do not offer an instant result: you still have to go through the back-office and fill in forms that do not match the final layout.
Whatever the tool, it still look like this when you come to edit web pages:
- Update/Add content from the back-office
- Check the output on the website
- Go back to the back-office to fix the glitches
- Repeat from step one until you get the wanted result
If you want to add an image, you have to go through a extra software to resize/crop and re-sample before to upload. In many cases you end-up with a poorly resized/compressed image that does not fit your layout.
How come that you can easily edit and style a text document with your word processor but you can't do the same with your website?
We now have enough maturity with technologies like Ajax, powerful CPUs to run heavy Javascript and big broadband connections to do such a thing. The Web standards have become a priority in web development and we all use stable and mature web browsers. We just lack the right piece of software ... I am trying to build it: it is called PageLayer.
PageLayer provides all the basic styling feature you need on a web page. You can move things around to re-organize your content. It includes an image editor with the features you need for you website and keep an original version of your pictures for you to be able to change your mind and crop/resize again without quality loss. All of this happens in your browser, directly on your website, using your layout.
Check-out the PageLayer demo to understand how easy web editing can be. Just imagine how fast you can update a website with such a tool.
The Web started static, with editing tools like FrontPage or Dreamweaver to help a minority of HTML savvy people to build their personal homepage. With the introduction of high-level server scripting languages (PHP/ASP/Coldfusion), Websites were built with a "back-office", often custom-made, to enable content administration by the end-users. Today, open source Content Management Systems like Joomla give some more freedom, at low cost, to edit and custom build a website with minimal skills. But these tools still require a training course for the average user and can be tricky. They do not offer an instant result: you still have to go through the back-office and fill in forms that do not match the final layout.
Whatever the tool, it still look like this when you come to edit web pages:
- Update/Add content from the back-office
- Check the output on the website
- Go back to the back-office to fix the glitches
- Repeat from step one until you get the wanted result
If you want to add an image, you have to go through a extra software to resize/crop and re-sample before to upload. In many cases you end-up with a poorly resized/compressed image that does not fit your layout.
How come that you can easily edit and style a text document with your word processor but you can't do the same with your website?
We now have enough maturity with technologies like Ajax, powerful CPUs to run heavy Javascript and big broadband connections to do such a thing. The Web standards have become a priority in web development and we all use stable and mature web browsers. We just lack the right piece of software ... I am trying to build it: it is called PageLayer.
PageLayer provides all the basic styling feature you need on a web page. You can move things around to re-organize your content. It includes an image editor with the features you need for you website and keep an original version of your pictures for you to be able to change your mind and crop/resize again without quality loss. All of this happens in your browser, directly on your website, using your layout.
Check-out the PageLayer demo to understand how easy web editing can be. Just imagine how fast you can update a website with such a tool.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Sadcamp
It's been a busy week for me. Very tense too, waiting for the Seedcamp judges answer. Sadly I did not make it to the short list.
I expected failure for a few reasons:
- the lack of a team: I am currently working alone.
- a business plan that does not match the 2.0 social trend?
- revenues expectations a little low, maybe, for venture capitalists
- strong competitors (Google?)
- a too old founder: I am over 30 now :(
Finally, my project is still in the very (too) early stage and will involve a lot of development to get ready for a public use. I have a good prototype running but it is not yet a complete software.
The only regret I have so far, is that Seedcamp did not provide any feedback on the unsuccessful applications. I realize they are very busy, but the idea has been discussed on their forum and I am sure they could answer that need quite easily. We'll see.
So it is time for me to go the next step on my own and try to spread the word about my work. For those who are interested into web development and Javascript, have a look at www.pagelayer.com. I would be more than happy to get some feedback about PageLayer: I am seeking some cheering up to keep working.
Stay tuned, I'll keep posting about PageLayer and the way it evolves.
I expected failure for a few reasons:
- the lack of a team: I am currently working alone.
- a business plan that does not match the 2.0 social trend?
- revenues expectations a little low, maybe, for venture capitalists
- strong competitors (Google?)
- a too old founder: I am over 30 now :(
Finally, my project is still in the very (too) early stage and will involve a lot of development to get ready for a public use. I have a good prototype running but it is not yet a complete software.
The only regret I have so far, is that Seedcamp did not provide any feedback on the unsuccessful applications. I realize they are very busy, but the idea has been discussed on their forum and I am sure they could answer that need quite easily. We'll see.
So it is time for me to go the next step on my own and try to spread the word about my work. For those who are interested into web development and Javascript, have a look at www.pagelayer.com. I would be more than happy to get some feedback about PageLayer: I am seeking some cheering up to keep working.
Stay tuned, I'll keep posting about PageLayer and the way it evolves.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
P2P Financial Loan in France
www.friendsclear.com has applied to Seedcamp. Another promising French start-up is taking the challenge to just become big. It's not that I am being patriotic, but I am so glad to see French people getting over the usual and traditional fear of success - or failure. France (and Europe to be fair and less patriotic) has a lot of very talented people with the will to succeed. It is now notorious that we just lack some momentum, daring investors and the right place to mix them all up together in order to achieve success. London, with Seedcamp, could be that place.
The Friendsclear chaps have had some fears about the "huge" contribution (10% stake for EUR50K) announced by Seedcamp, but they went over it, with reason I am sure, as it is an extraordinary chance to meet the right people, at the right time and get all the benefits from it.
In my opinion, it is just a shame that all of this happens 3 years after the first signs of the expending web 2.0 bubble in the US. Once again we are late. But wait, the bubble hasn't burst yet and something is coming along. Small companies are applying, working tremendously to polish their prototypes, building up networks and blogs just to let the world know they exist and that the future of the web has to go with them. This is just great!
I just cross all the fingers I have got for them as I believe they have all they need to succeed.
The Friendsclear chaps have had some fears about the "huge" contribution (10% stake for EUR50K) announced by Seedcamp, but they went over it, with reason I am sure, as it is an extraordinary chance to meet the right people, at the right time and get all the benefits from it.
In my opinion, it is just a shame that all of this happens 3 years after the first signs of the expending web 2.0 bubble in the US. Once again we are late. But wait, the bubble hasn't burst yet and something is coming along. Small companies are applying, working tremendously to polish their prototypes, building up networks and blogs just to let the world know they exist and that the future of the web has to go with them. This is just great!
I just cross all the fingers I have got for them as I believe they have all they need to succeed.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Go France!
The guys at Upshot are making a lot of noise about their application to Seedcamp. I am glad to see some frenchies fighting their way up to the start-ups nirvana.
The Upshot website does not tell much about the product but that's what start-ups are all about, right? Anyway, their idea looks good and as they say: "Upshot in London, it's cool"
I am expecting some more participants to have their say too, but the Seedcamp community appears to be very quiet so far. (Is this because of confidentiality?)
Well, I am a little bit jealous and would like to have such buzz about my application too: I am actually a frenchy in a sort of an outpost position, already on the right side of the English Channel.
For that, I would need to give away a link to some sort of demo, but wait, I am just keeping the logs clean to spy on the Seedcamp guys and check when they give my baby a little run ;)
The Upshot website does not tell much about the product but that's what start-ups are all about, right? Anyway, their idea looks good and as they say: "Upshot in London, it's cool"
I am expecting some more participants to have their say too, but the Seedcamp community appears to be very quiet so far. (Is this because of confidentiality?)
Well, I am a little bit jealous and would like to have such buzz about my application too: I am actually a frenchy in a sort of an outpost position, already on the right side of the English Channel.
For that, I would need to give away a link to some sort of demo, but wait, I am just keeping the logs clean to spy on the Seedcamp guys and check when they give my baby a little run ;)
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Applied
Here we go. I applied to Seedcamp and I am now fingers crossed waiting for an answer.
The rules were strict but they said "it's OK to break the rules", so I did. If ever I get selected, I will probably end up being the older guy around, and certainly the only one alone. Lacking what is expected to be a "solid core team" is my biggest disadvantage and what makes me a "not so good match" for what Seedcamp is looking for.
Anyway, I believe in my product, I am proud of my prototype and all the people who have seen it so far have been really enthusiastic (well, mainly ... some were jealous though).
If it does not work out, I will keep trying, my way.
The rules were strict but they said "it's OK to break the rules", so I did. If ever I get selected, I will probably end up being the older guy around, and certainly the only one alone. Lacking what is expected to be a "solid core team" is my biggest disadvantage and what makes me a "not so good match" for what Seedcamp is looking for.
Anyway, I believe in my product, I am proud of my prototype and all the people who have seen it so far have been really enthusiastic (well, mainly ... some were jealous though).
If it does not work out, I will keep trying, my way.
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