Not a giant leap but a small step for PageLayer: version 1.0.1 has been released to help current users with a few glitches that bugged them. In the process, I have improved the support for latest browser releases (Firefox 3 and IE8).
I am going to spare more time working on the next release as Pagelayer is gaining some attention and I want to make sure it's up to the expectations.
I always feel the same pleasure to update my demo site in a split second from Firefox and I hope I will share this with more people around.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
PageLayer Version 1.0
It has been a long time since the last post and PageLayer development has been slowing down as I was busy with more work. Anyway, I found some free time to fix a few glitches and decided to release PageLayer version 1.0. Because it is now stable and in production (limited, but production none the less), I though it was the right time to reach that mark.
It was hard work for one year, and I consider this version 1.0 as an achievement: a sort of celebration. The package is complete and fully working. Distribution from a single point server works wonder and the application is updated seamlessly. Integration with other JavaScript components (i.e. LightBox; Google Analytics) is going smooth and PageLayer appears to be stable and usable on many different browsers and platforms.
From now on, I will continue to improve PageLayer but on a slower basis as I am starting in a full time position again.
One of the direction I might follow is to forget about the floating elements and go for some absolute positioning: users are confused with blocks that behave strangely to them. Floating HTML elements can be tricky and may not be the answer to an easy editing solution.
As many people around, I am having a hard time with the integration of the application's core features and the browsers native editing mode (designmode). The split between the two behaviours can be confusing and PageLayer needs more transparency on that point.
Also, users request more high level features to help during layering and editing: a single button to split a long text in two column of the same size, snaping blocks to help with drag and drop, etc.
Finally, I need to re-consider the distribution process and might give a try at "Application as a Service": PageLayer must be hosted and reachable to everyone with a simple registration process.
So I am not finished with PageLayer (I will probably never be). I am glad I got to that point and still managed to stay sane. Now, as a Front-end Architect I will continue to improve my skills hopefully for the benefit of PageLayer in a near future.
It was hard work for one year, and I consider this version 1.0 as an achievement: a sort of celebration. The package is complete and fully working. Distribution from a single point server works wonder and the application is updated seamlessly. Integration with other JavaScript components (i.e. LightBox; Google Analytics) is going smooth and PageLayer appears to be stable and usable on many different browsers and platforms.
From now on, I will continue to improve PageLayer but on a slower basis as I am starting in a full time position again.
One of the direction I might follow is to forget about the floating elements and go for some absolute positioning: users are confused with blocks that behave strangely to them. Floating HTML elements can be tricky and may not be the answer to an easy editing solution.
As many people around, I am having a hard time with the integration of the application's core features and the browsers native editing mode (designmode). The split between the two behaviours can be confusing and PageLayer needs more transparency on that point.
Also, users request more high level features to help during layering and editing: a single button to split a long text in two column of the same size, snaping blocks to help with drag and drop, etc.
Finally, I need to re-consider the distribution process and might give a try at "Application as a Service": PageLayer must be hosted and reachable to everyone with a simple registration process.
So I am not finished with PageLayer (I will probably never be). I am glad I got to that point and still managed to stay sane. Now, as a Front-end Architect I will continue to improve my skills hopefully for the benefit of PageLayer in a near future.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
PageLayer in Production
With the version 0.4, PageLayer has now reached the production stage!
It has been running nicely for a few weeks now on a first official website and feedback is really positive. To make the experience a bit more fun, the end users work on Mac: a few fixes had to be made but it now runs smoothly in Firefox 2.0 or Safari 3, in French with UTF-8 and the PHP back-end.
The second production site is to be launched this week. And more to come quickly as it is easier than ever to build websites with PageLayer.
This is the validation long awaited to officially launch the distribution: license program to start very soon now. Version 0.4 is still considered as "Beta" but will be turned into solid 1.0 as soon as usability and features are approved.
Check out the license page at www.pagelayer.com
It has been running nicely for a few weeks now on a first official website and feedback is really positive. To make the experience a bit more fun, the end users work on Mac: a few fixes had to be made but it now runs smoothly in Firefox 2.0 or Safari 3, in French with UTF-8 and the PHP back-end.
The second production site is to be launched this week. And more to come quickly as it is easier than ever to build websites with PageLayer.
This is the validation long awaited to officially launch the distribution: license program to start very soon now. Version 0.4 is still considered as "Beta" but will be turned into solid 1.0 as soon as usability and features are approved.
Check out the license page at www.pagelayer.com
PageLayer Version 0.4
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
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, 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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)