Frontend: The web visual editor
kickstarter.com
Kickstart campaign for the most advanced open-source web editor for your browser.
kickstarter.com
EDIT: And yours is not MIT licensed and has separate commercial licenses.
It's AGPL. The commercial licenses are for people or companies who may want to modify it without releasing their modifications back to the community. If they don't want to contribute their code, they will at least contribute financially.
Do the commercial license cost 299$ per year? Is it limited per install, or company-wide?
It will be per install. I just put that price as a baseline. It will be adjusted depending on the needs and use cases. If you would like to talk about it in depth, shot me an email.
Other than that, very nice.
If it's a mockup editor, then it should be easy to customize from JS to make anything useful from the mockup.
If it's a site builder, better add support for templates, so that one would then be able to drag and drop data (e.g. json) onto the canvas and bind it to a template to automatically populate a whole set of elements at once.
P.S. No matter how slick your UI is, if it's not programmable, it's not useful.
Also, you will be able to select multiple elements and parent elements and apply the same actions.
For some time, I've had in mind a service where people could easily build their websites. A bit like Squarespace (which is amazing) but with a different interface. For many clients who only need a homepage, a contact page, an about page, and some content pages, I usually end up building a custom WordPress theme because its admin interface is efficient and user-friendly, and because I have much experience in it. But still, I don't consider it the best tool for the job.
I'm not a great programmer, but I have UI, UX, and front-end skills. I'll probably try to develop a workable draft of this app I have in mind, but if anyone is interested in building an easy-to-use platform for non tech-savvy people, feel free to contact me. I have some ideas about how the workflow should be and what features it should have.
Hasn't this been beaten to death by now? There are a handful of decent "free" website editors out there already. They tend to produce generic and unprofessional websites because the target market isn't going to pay to have a decent theme.
Frontend is suppose to be an open-source general purpose web editor.
Beginners can use the visual mode, expert can access the source code to make things better. An ORM database plugin is on its way, along with other many cool features.
I am waiting to see how the project goes before I release the stretch goals on Kickstarter.
We hope you join us too.
But seriously, I'm not sure who this is for. It looks like there's quite a technical hurdle to setting it up - node.js and vagrant aren't easy to install for a novice user, and they aren't suitable for any shared hosting environment that I've come across.
I imagine (possibly incorrectly) that the market for simple point and click interfaces wouldn't necessarily overlap with that of people who are comfortable setting up complex hosting environments.
Now, as an online subscription model, I think it could be quite competitive. That's an entirely different route which definitely has a market.
Online system is definitely an option down the road.
About the setup. Basically the only thing you need to install is vagrant. The Frontend VM has all the files and tools required to run the application on your machine.
1. Install Vagrant (with our installer);
2. Run VM
3. You are ready to go.
+ why do you need 75K as a minimum ? Sounds a bit high, even for 2 people
+ They say its built with node, but what about the frontend of frontend ? Only jquery ?
+ does it support bootstrap or other layouting frameworks?
+ when will they let people contribute to it ?
Id really like something like this being open source, but in that case i feel it would need some more flexibility to be integrated into CMSes and Frameworks. Abstracted reusable components to plug it into existing systems, some kind of Content Repository integration for versioning etc. If thats the plan, ill fund in a heartbeat. If its meant just as a downloadable tool to built basic websites it wouldnt have much appeal to me though.
This is 32.5K each if we pretend Kickstarter didn't take any and there were no other expenses for the business.
Living wage for a single adult with no children in San Francisco is $26,692. For two adults with a kid its $50,186. http://livingwage.mit.edu/places/0607567000
SF is an expensive city, but so are most large cities in the world.
So yes, 75K for two people would be close to the poverty line. I'm surprised they're not asking for a lot more.
We are asking your help because we would want to give 100% focus to xchema frontend, and it is not possible by doing our daily jobs. With your support we will be able to afford renting a working space, work full-time, hire talents, and bring frontend to your hands.
The problem is stuffs like that are supposed to run in the browser, the more bloated your code base is the worst performances you'll get.
Doesnt mean everything should be tightly coupled, my point is no matter what people say web apps are not desktop apps, web apps are slow,sometimes you need to trade decoupling for performances.
I think the last time a product like that got kickstarted it "won" more that 100K , so of course people are going to seek a similar amount of money for these kind of projects, though i dont believe these tools are that usefull in reality.
1. The goal was set after carefully look other software project costs on Kickstarter. Also, 75k is the average income for a software engineer here in Silicon Valley (the living cost here is crazy);
2. The front-end of Frontend is built using AngularJS, our own JS Library, JQuery, JQuery-UI (just for the visual editor, not included on production projects), and QUnit/Jasmine.
3. It uses xtyle framework (also open-source) by default, but you can choose to use Bootstrap;
4. We will first open the Github repository for early backers. After the project is done the repository will be open for everybody else.
Integration with frameworks and CMS systems are on its way. We are planning to release a list of stretch goals for the project.
Have you seen divshot, jetstrap or easel?
You probably have, are they open source? NO!
The differences:
1. Frontend is open-source;
2. Database integration;
3. Plugins (components) create by users;
Other differences will appear on the stretch goals.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/emoriz/frontend-the-web-...
This, this is thoroughly underwhelming. Sorry.
If open source is your biggest differentiator, I think you should emphasize this. Being able to use this as a part of other environments would make it much more compelling. Maybe change up the kickstarter page?
Frontend vs Webflow:
1. Frontend is open-source (as you mention);
2. Frontend has a databased integration (ORM);
3. Frontend let users create their own components and templates and plugin on the system;
4. You can develop locally (for speed) and push projects to the web whenever you are done;
6. You can host frontend on your own server online and deploy projects from there;
Frontend vs Macaw:
1. Frontend runs on the browser, there is not "preview" process;
2. Frontend is open-source;
3. Frontend let users plug their own components and templates;
4. You can develop locally and push projects whenever you are done;
5. You can host frontend on your own server online and deploy projects from there;
6. Frontend is responsive (mobile ready), with Macaw you need to check if your project will work on mobile first (and on tablet);
More differences will appear on the stretch goals.
Thank you for the comment.
We use xtyle by default, but you can for sure use Bootstrap (its your choice).
Components are anything you can plugin on the system (including directives if you are an Angular developer). The target market are front-end developer, designers, and non-tech.
I'm sure they will have market: people who don't have the money to contract serious developers, and some novel developers who may like this idea, but in the end, I think it's a product with few possibilities.
There have been frontends long before there was HTML.