Yes, thatās really sad.
Well, it was pretty much bound to happen. The absolute chaos caused by Realmac has really messed up the market and left a lot of people feeling iffy about things. And the fact that a functional version of Stacks Pro is basically a mirage right now, with zero communication, isnāt doing anyone any favours. Itās no surprise that devs who have relied on Stacks (letās be honest, it was never really RW, was it) are having to rethink their plans.
Iām kind of lucky ā I only create websites for myself, but I really feel for those of you who do this for a living.
Iāve got Foundation 6, but Iāve never really clicked with it ā I guess thatās just my not-so-developer brain. I have a ton of respect for JW, but my brain just doesnāt work like that, so Iāve struggled to wrap my head around how it all fits together.
Foundry just makes sense to me, and Adam always broke things down in a way that clicked for me.
I suppose I should give F6 another go, so when Stacks Pro finally arrives, Iām not left hanging (I was almost tempted to check out Elements, but charging for the Beta is an outrage!).
A gloomy day for sure.
yes, Adam is a top developer and itās a loss for everyone.
Yes, very unfortunate.
Yeah, itās a bummer and a big loss. Like Adam (Jackson) above, I struggled to figure out F6 when it came out and never spent the time required. Hopefully Joe will have me back lol.
The whole RW situation has been unfortunate. The past few years Iāve tried to keep my website work a hobby vs a second job and kept to my work to sites for friends/family/non-profits vs āclient workā. But it seems if I want to keep it up Iāll need to do some re-learning and re-investing (whether F6 / Stacks Pro or Elements or Blocs or Elementor, etc.).
Low stakes relative to others but its too bad it has all come to this.
I posted this on my community and figured that I would repost it here as wellā¦
I had a short chat with Adam this morning. It was definitely a hard decision for him to make. He has been a pillar in the community since the beginning. Things would not have been the same without him and his great products. He is one of most talented designers that I know. He has a keen eye for design. He will be missed. Itās a shame that he could not hold out just a little bit longer. Who knows, maybe after Stacks Pro knocks everyoneās socks off, we can see an Elixir resurgence.
My main focus for the near future is Total CMS 3 and getting Foundation 6 ready for Stacks Pro. Once both of those things are stable, I will be shifting focus to the next version of Foundation.
Most of the time when a new version of software is developed, itās all about adding new and more powerful features. However, Foundation 6 already made for professionals. There seriously is almost nothing that cannot be built with Foundation. While I plan on making quality of life improvements for the pros, my main focus will be to make Foundation more approachable for everyone else.
So @jacksona or @jabostick, or any other Foundry user, if you are willing to help, I would love to make a product that does click for you. I have done several live streams where I have taught new users how to use Foundation. During the moment, they have all seemed to āsee the lightā as I am there teaching them. But somewhere along the way, when I am not there any longer, some seemed to have lost their path and end up lost and frustrated. I whole heartedly would love to understand that.
Part of it may be the fear to asking questions and not wanting to look stupid. Itās very easy for many of us (including myself) to take our level knowledge for granted. We donāt know everyone intimately and assume some level of knowledge, especially if we have seen you around the community for a long time. I encourage everyone that if you do not understand an answer posted, please ask for clarification or further explanation. Because if you have the question, I guarantee that someone else does.
OK, getting back on pointā¦ I have never personally used Foundry 3. However, from what I have seen of Blacksmith (I think that is the name of the style stack), I donāt think that it 's too far off from Foundation swatches. Swatches are simply broken up into many smaller stacks instead of one gigantic one.
However, like I said before, I would love to hear from you. I would be willing to give you some one-on-one help in exchange for it to be recorded so that other users can also benefit from the lessons learned. I would also benefit from learning how to improve Foundation for you in the future.
Hi Joe, I think one of the major issues is the lack of a proper documentation. From what I have seen, we would need to wade through a sea of videos to finally reach the one segment where a feature is explained, a hint given or how-to explained in detail. For every request / question you seem to add a new video. But this does not help.
ā A written documentation in form of a website instead of videos would be heaven. You can still embed some short videos for reference. But these are then in the proper place and can be easily referenced.
Like this?
Hi @joeworkman You see, even this is hard to find because we donāt know where to search š
Yes, this is exactly what I mean - in a negative way. (Sorry to be blunt, I am German after all :-) )
Where is the written documentation going from first steps to building a sample site and then moving forward to more complex builds? The explanation of every stack/feature including examples?
If you look at the documentation from Elixir or Source you will see the difference and why these do click for so many people. You add a lot of resources and videos but are lacking structure and text (in my humble opinion).
I feel that I may have derailed this conversation with my post. If you would like to continue to discuss learning Foundation 6, maybe head over to my community and we can talk all we want. Here is one post that I created a while ago about learning Foundation 6.
Letās take the rest of this thread to thank Adam for the great work that he has done over the years. š
+1
It is not easy to find people who have all the skills needed to offer truly quality products. It is a huge loss.
If Realmac have any sense, theyāll buy Foundry and Alloy.
Am I right in thinking this leaves Stacks Pro with only one active framework? That would be bad for everyone, especially Yourhead and Weaverspace.
@Esteban, Source framework is very much active as well ā free and with a dev support second to none.
I believe that UIKit is also still actively supported.
Sad, but no surprise. Iāve hardly bought any stacks since the RW split. The uncertain nature of Stacks Pro, and the long wait time have caused me to move on to other solutions. For Adam to say the Stack Pro beta version is not in a useable state, it not encouraging about its release.
I also find Foundation didnāt click like Foundry. Making a library of short videos like Foundry did of how to do certain things would be helpful. I havenāt found the 1h+ videos helpful as I donāt have that time. I just need short videos that will tell me how to use swatches or site styles or a navigation menu. This would allow site builders to dip in and learn just what they need to know to get the next job done.
Itās really sad to hear about Elixir closing down, but given the circumstances, itās understandable and not entirely surprising. Itās clear that Adam put lot of passion and effort into building his products, and itās unfortunate to see it undermined by such external factors. Iām sure most folks in this community will appreciate how though it was for him to make this decision. I wish Adam nothing but success, joy and fulfillment on his new path.
Sad news. One canāt help but think that the issue here is a lack of communications from Yourhead. There were an aweful lot of people holding out for F3 in Stacks Pro. Many of these will simply leave the Stacks community now for other options. So for the sake of a few emails, Yourhead has lost a large potential user base.
Very strange.
Itās true that the Stacks Pro project hasnāt exactly maintained the confidence of this community. I think we all understand that it is a big and complex undertaking to replace Rapidweaver, even if we think RW is basically a FTP upload application with a few bells and whistles. And it must be a huge thing for a small company to bring off. But in the absence of news, there is only a sinking feeling. (Dan gets this ā RW send out new āelementsā announcements every few days, even if there doesnāt seem to be much to say.)
However there are bigger issues here than just Stacks Pro. Tech generally is in trouble ā positivity towards digital technology has collapsed, there is no longer an inspiring route-map to the future (even todayās AI, which is actually incredible, has proved a big disappointment to the market) and sales of devices and software are slumping. Add to this that it has never been easier for people to create a half-decent website using online tools, while at the same time interest in websites has waned. And that potential usersā disposable income has been slashed by a global cost-of-living crisis. Itās a perfect storm.
Nonetheless, as long as we can maintain compatible and functioning hardware/software combos, what we have already with RW/Stacks ā along with the products that are still being built for it ā should last us for the better part of the next decade. Iām not expecting to see huge developments in web technologies, not least because most of the big things that needed to be achieved have now been done, but have yet to be absorbed. And can be integrated into what we have. And there is little appetite any more for software updates that deprecate older apps: in any case, most people I know are replacing their Macs and phones with āpre-ownedā. Next time around, Iāll be one of them.