My issue with having these kind of robust drag and drop html editors isn't so much with the tech as it is the audience it is appealing to. As a developer, unless this thing outputs compliant XHTML/CSS, it's much less useful to me outside of anything like putting up a quick and dirty landing page. Just look at muse.
Yes, templates can look generic and such but the whole point of that is to control the design so that you end up with something that looks decent to the average person. If you want something more custom, learn to code.
More often then not, when you put "robust" tools into the hands of people who don't know what to do, what you end up with is just ugly. Giving the user more choice is sometimes detrimental if they don't know what to do with it.
I think these tools are cool, but I'd like to see more development on editors that teach core concepts like spacing/readability and selecting complimentary colors and guide people through process rather than providing every type of granular control.
"More often then not, when you put "robust" tools into the hands of people who don't know what to do, what you end up with is just ugly."
I find this to be true with a lot of developers. They know how to code so they have a "robust" tool set but have no idea how to lay out a page and end up with something functional but ugly.
I very much agree that everyone could benefit from learning more core concepts like spacing and complimentary colors.
Knowing how to code has never meant that you know how to build a good webpage.
That's true. Even knowing how to code doesn't mean the output will be nice to look at. I guess what I meant was that providing granular controls that mimic what a developer would do tend to bog down the average user.
For instance, let's say you allow someone to click on a div element and specify the padding/margin/positioning. Now multiply that by 10 elements on the screen and give them a blank slate in regards to layout/colors and that's a recipe for ugly.
We seem to want that ideal of total control in a wysiwyg editor (ie build your site from scratch and drag anything anywhere!) but I would suggest that it's something else entirely for the casual website builder. Not templates, but maybe a hybrid.
That said, scrollkit looks pretty awesome and looking forward to how it evolves.
Comments
My issue with having these kind of robust drag and drop html editors isn't so much with the tech as it is the audience it is appealing to. As a developer, unless this thing outputs compliant XHTML/CSS, it's much less useful to me outside of anything like putting up a quick and dirty landing page. Just look at muse.
Yes, templates can look generic and such but the whole point of that is to control the design so that you end up with something that looks decent to the average person. If you want something more custom, learn to code.
More often then not, when you put "robust" tools into the hands of people who don't know what to do, what you end up with is just ugly. Giving the user more choice is sometimes detrimental if they don't know what to do with it.
I think these tools are cool, but I'd like to see more development on editors that teach core concepts like spacing/readability and selecting complimentary colors and guide people through process rather than providing every type of granular control.
"More often then not, when you put "robust" tools into the hands of people who don't know what to do, what you end up with is just ugly."
I find this to be true with a lot of developers. They know how to code so they have a "robust" tool set but have no idea how to lay out a page and end up with something functional but ugly.
I very much agree that everyone could benefit from learning more core concepts like spacing and complimentary colors.
Knowing how to code has never meant that you know how to build a good webpage.
That's true. Even knowing how to code doesn't mean the output will be nice to look at. I guess what I meant was that providing granular controls that mimic what a developer would do tend to bog down the average user.
For instance, let's say you allow someone to click on a div element and specify the padding/margin/positioning. Now multiply that by 10 elements on the screen and give them a blank slate in regards to layout/colors and that's a recipe for ugly.
We seem to want that ideal of total control in a wysiwyg editor (ie build your site from scratch and drag anything anywhere!) but I would suggest that it's something else entirely for the casual website builder. Not templates, but maybe a hybrid.
That said, scrollkit looks pretty awesome and looking forward to how it evolves.