Adobe Muse

Well, I bought into it. It being Adobe's Muse application you lease for a monthly fee (year minimum, optional after that). Yes, I'm aware there are some existing good wysiwyg Web design application, including one I already have with Dreamweaver. But Dreamweaver, while being a powerful Website management and Web page design package, it's a lot to master all the details.

Anyway, I wanted an easy application to design from scratch and Muse appears to be it, but I'm not sure the results their code will transfer to what I want in the end since I prefer simple code design and most wysiwyg applications produce really large, often bloated, html files.

The goal of Muse is to build from design mode and letting the application write the code and then you upload it to Adobe's creative cloud for public presentation. They have the option to export the code to your host if it's not Adobe's. Ok, I've only just started using it, and not being familar with this workflow for Web pages, it will take awhile to learn.

But I have some initial impressions. First, you have to have the content pretty much ready to go, at least all the images, graphics, and other files to fit into the layout you define. After that you have to put in the blocks of text and other things. All these I am just learning and will find and read some tutorials and references, apparently something Adobe doesn't have and relies on third parties.

I have the images and stuff, minus a new logo I'd like to develop and I have all the text from existing Web pages. If nothing else, Muse will help me see layouts, the computer version of storyboard traditionally taught for Web designers (yes, my original one was on large blank art notebooks).

I'm not sure how the javascript I use for navigation menus and other features will fit into the final Web page, but some initial stuff show it can generate some things, like slideshows. Just stuff to explore and learn and play.

Well, that's the initial impression. A lot to learn and for the $15 per month for a year, it's a cheap design tool, once I sort out the details and workflow.