Adobe Muse EOL announcement - Alternatives to Adobe Muse?

[Preran]

Hi all,

For those of you that haven't received the email around the Adobe Muse EOL, see the FAQ Product Announcement that tries to answer some the common questions around the announcement including the reasons behind the decision.

Before we proceed with discussing alternatives, the Muse application will continue to open on your computer. You will be able to continue to edit existing or create new websites with the application. Adobe Muse will continue to be supported until May 20, 2019 and will deliver compatibility updates with the Mac and Windows OS or fix any bugs that might crop up when publishing Muse sites to the web. However, it is quite possible that web standards and browsers will continue to change after Adobe stops support for the application.

While there is no 1:1 replacement for Adobe Muse at this stage, the FAQ link above provides some alternatives. Also, Adobe is making our own investment in DIY website creation and welcomes all Muse customers to join our upcoming pre-release program for a new format that will be introduced this year as part of Adobe Spark. Build a beautiful website—in minutes | Adobe Spark

That being said, I would like to open up this discussion for discussing other solutions and migration paths. It would be ideal if we could focus our efforts on the topic at hand.

Thanks,

Preran

[lenat72146276]

Does this mean that since Adobe is changing the contract that we have, that we get a discount or the option to cancel our subscription without penalty? I only use Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, and Muse. Do I now get a 25% discount? You are taking away 25% of what I do with my subscription.

Had this happened last month, I would not have renewed my cc subscription.  The lack of notice on the matter is absolutely ridiculous, why was there no notice?

[GARRogers]

I just watched the short video with Danni Beaumont's comments about Adobe Stock.

If this is true, it's all over, it isn't about all of you who have worked so hard and been loyal, it is only about Corporate America's stock prices and the compensation of executives that is tied to stock prices.

Might as well pack up and go home -- if indeed this is just window dressing to see if Adobe can soften the landing a bit, but won't you be surprised if there is any help?

I look forward to reading what you decide to do, which apps you decide to use and why. I hope you will post about your decisions.

Like someone else reported, my Business Catalyst host this morning said 'no longer supported'. I'm not sure what this means, I thought it would be good for another year.

What a mess, how typical. Crummy company, crummy way they have treated their loyal followers.

Too bad so sad.

[Red Point]

https://www.change.org/p/adobe-systems-adobe-do-not-discontinue-muse

[RayOP]

Is there a possibility that someone will buy Muse?

So you can continue with your development seen as a business, surely many interested in paying for the software that we already know and work professionally.

[GARRogers]

RayOP 'Is there a possibility that someone will buy Muse?'

That's what I have been hoping will happen.

Problem is, they probably won't want to sell it.

Can always hope though.

[印刷所栄60748863]

I am Japanese. Muse is also spreading in Japan. Please also listen to our opinion. Many users are very troubled when muse is terminated. I will destroy my life. Time spent, the time spent from this, your trust relationship, Adobe can take responsibility? It is too irresponsible for us to advertise that much and sudden end. I'm angry. I will regret Adobe for life. You should review the end of muse.

[Red Point]

Look people, Muse isn't going anywhere! Especially if this fantastic crowd on this forum keeps sticking together. We are only at stage 1 of this fight. We are giving Adobe a chance to revert a decision which will potentially threaten the livelihood of thousands of web designers. We are politely giving Adobe a chance to do what is right. But make no mistake, we are getting ready to shift gears...

I just read a comment by a young girl, who just migrated 5 of her first clients to Muse and just got done 2 days ago. She is devastated now, because it took her a long time to learn Muse and it took her months after to migrate her clients sites. Now she has to start all over. We will not accept that a young woman with a budget of a couple of hundred dollars will have to re-invest the little money she has left. We will not accept that a 7 billion dollar corporation bails out on a promise they made. These are real people with real problems and real livelihoods being threatened here.

If they belittle us or think they can sacrifice us on their high ride to the alter of gold, especially after we designers have supported Adobe from the beginning and made them into who they are now, let them. If they underestimate us, let them.

In the 17th century revolutions were fought by hungry farmers with pitchforks. Today we fight with information. Adobe hast just awoken a giant by upsetting many thousand web designers for whom information technology is second nature! Adobe has taken away our house and offers cake in return. We will not accept.

This forum is the beginning. Anyone of you can join and make this movement bigger then you ever thought possible!! We fight for us, but we also fight for the many small entrepreneurs and young folks like Maria who feel betrayed and powerless vis a vis this giant 7 billion dollar corporation.

One person cannot move a train, thousands of people can make the train roll like thunder. Together we will empower the powerless. We can write to newspapers, TV stations, call senators and congressman, reach out to local business representatives, post in forums, inform investors, publish to Youtube, tweet on tweeter, post on Facebook. We will be creative, because that is who we are.

Lets fight this fight to the end!

[sebrame]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Red+Point  wrote

We are giving Adobe a chance to revert a decision...

Please...

Adobe have already moved so far past this that the issue dosn't even exist in their sphere any longer. Their social media reps are merely there to absorb the hatred and do what they can to quell any real actions from the Muse user base. The upper echelon at Adobe don't even know that all of this is occurring, because it doesn't matter to them - they've moved on.

Recently, an update to Adobe Premiere Pro actually deleted all media used in a project. I repeat...all media. Some editors lost years of work in one second. Those that had maintained good backups were able to recover, although it took days to restore their projects to a workable state. Others weren't so fortunate. Clients were lost. The backlash was similar to what I'm seeing here. Eventually, in a matter of a couple of months, everything went back to normal. Adobe perhaps lost a couple of users, but basically everyone just forgot about it all, and continued to use the product that had all but destroyed many careers and/or companies. Adobe is fine, and they know that this all will fade as well. It's just 'business'.

[Mark Palmos]

sebrame  wrote

Recently, an update to Adobe Premiere Pro actually deleted all media used in a project. I repeat...all media. Some editors lost years of work in one second.

They must have done something wrong. I am on the Beta testing team for Premiere and have not heard about any such issue. It would have been heavily talked about if it was a case of Adobe software deleting media inadvertently!

[sebrame]

Known issues in Premiere Pro CC 2017 Known issues in Premiere Pro CC 2017

[sebrame]

Media files deleted after 2017.1 upgrade

[Mark Palmos]

sebrame  wrote

Media files deleted after 2017.1 upgrade 

The user admits the missing media may be unrelated to the (dire) process of cleaning unused media. But I see he was not the only one, at least 4 or 5 others had the problem, pretty nasty.

[sebrame]

"It was certainly not mentioned as a bug, so it seems the user made a mess up."

It most certainly was. If a user placed their Media Cache folder on the same drive as their media, all media was deleted. A fix was quickly released, and they provided a special contact method and mediation for any who suffered catastrophic consequences.

"Anyhow, this is not the Adobe Premiere forum."

Agreed, but I'd rather not allow you to minimize an incident that definitely occurred and definitely was the fault of Adobe. My original mention of the incident was highly pertinent to the current subject in the context that I placed it. You chose to cast doubt as to the veracity of my post, so I am more than within my rights to defend it.

https://www.newsshooter.com/2017/05/10/adobe-premiere-pro-version-2017-1-users-reporting-media-files...

Files Deleted after upgrade to premiere pro

Premiere 2017.1 MAJOR BUG - Deletion of Original Media Assets

Adobe Fixes Bugs in Premiere Pro With Their Latest Update | Fstoppers

Users of Adobe Premiere Pro 2017.1 report their media files are completely disappearing - DIY Photog...

"We're scrambling to fix this. In the meantime, do one of the following: 1 > Set you cache file location back to the default location. You can do this quickly by trashing your user preferences (hold down Alt (on Win) or Option (on Mac)) and then launch Premiere Pro. Or... 2 > Create a custom folder on whichever drive you want to use and direct your cache files to this location. Keep all files other than the Media Cache file out of this location." - Adobe Staff

If the issue was caused by an errant user, why would Adobe "scramble to fix" it?

[Troutmagnet]

Listen guys, I too have a few websites designed with Muse - my own company website is Muse-based, and I'm disappointed that Muse is being phased out. But to be honest, most serious designers need to constantly expand their repertoire, and remain flexible to stay current and valid in this industry. Not caring to understand code and just wanting to spit out your designs as quickly as possible isn't the greatest of ideas. It's fundamentally flawed thinking and it's going to come back and bite you at some point when a Muse add-on doesn't function the way it was meant to, or there's a web industry change, etc.

Everyone needs to calm down, stay flexible, and keep an eye and your heart open to viable alternatives.

I've used Webflow and it's cool. And unlike what a lot of you are suggesting on here, you don't have to host your site with them. You can export all of the HTML, CSS and image content out to a convenient package that you can host somewhere else. Chuck it on Godaddy, or 1&1 or Hostgater, it doesn't matter where you push the code, it's going to work. And the code is pretty clean.

Another option is Wordpress and a visual editor like DIVI. It's just as easy to design in, effective and feature-rich as Muse is. In fact, the community supporting DIVI and other Wordpress visual editors are way larger and more reactive and helpful than Muse could ever be.

Many of the plug-ins you'll want to play with are available freely via the plug-in community inside the Wordpress menu structure and the functions called by most of the plug-ins can be programmed easily, not locked away where they can't be tweaked by the end user.

YES, it's going to be a painful transition. YES, I absolutely agree with all of you that this is not a great move on the part of Adobe. YES, they should have done this once Adobe Spark was at least in beta or alpha. YES, I've got hours and hours of coding and migration to do for clients of my own, because I absolutely do not want them on this platform if it's got an EOL. But I'm choosing to take this as an opportunity to delve deeper into alternatives, almost ALL of which have all of the functionality I need to still create great websites.

You honestly all need to grasp some code too. Designing any website without a knowledge of what's going on under the hood is terrifyingly naive, and asking for trouble.

[Ris11]

Troutmagnet, I do not agree with you. Of course there are web projects that cannot be done without knowledge of HTML, CSS and Javascript. But there are also a lot of project that can be done without. Muse has been the proof.

[atillahun]

I think the notion that you do not need any code knowledge at all to be a web designer may be optimistic. Having read through so many posts the overwhelming impression is that if some users had more code knowledge their options would be far greater and their position more secure. Rather than Muse proving you don't need to know code to be a web designer, it proves you are a one horse race and unable to offer much in terms of CMS or serious e-commerce. No plugin, no solution. If there is one criticism that can be pointed at Muse is that it has lured many into a false sense of security, when Muse goes in a year I will very disappointed not however threatened, I am not a code expert some HTML and CSS but enough to get my head around lots of alternatives. A few years back I took time to learn HTML and CSS and constructed some very reasonable sites, since Muse I haven't bothered, but the knowledge gained has been invaluable. Many are discussing Webflow and it may work well, but it still requires hitching your future web business to the back of a piece of software, leaving you very vulnerable.

[Zav]

No, just no. Your argument is effectively arguing against digital solutions, so not using a digital printer and instead using older typesetting methods. MUSE was a move with the times, yes it had limitations but it was a complete solution for the majority of designers who understand web design but cannot code.

[Andy scamper]

One point we have all over looked is that Adobe will carry on charging the same amount for the subs, but for

those of us that use Muse will now have to pay for another platform on top of the abode subs: as well,

being a freelancer this is another added cost I can’t afford not to mention the hours

of time I will need to put in rebuilding existing sites for free!!!!

[atillahun]

Hi, I should perhaps be clearer, I am not arguing against digital solutions, just this one is not the solution. A view I rather suspect Adobe have come to themselves. If you take a look at what is happening in web land, it is moving in two directions the cloud based solutions popular with the world at large as its easy and largely non tech and the bespoke end. The bespoke end is dominated by coders or designers using powerful solutions such as Wordpress, Drupal and Joomla. And there is Bootstrap. Muse is a great application but it is never going to take on the world and you know why? With so much super powerful development apps out there that can do pretty much everything, the majority don't need a low end solution. I am a huge fan of Muse but it is very limited, anyone with code knowledge will probably appreciate just how limited. Almost since day one of Muse users have requested CMS, it appears Adobe couldn't implement this. Third party CMS is easy enough to incorporate into a standard web format, HTML and CSS, but I can't find an instance of any one successfully doing this from within Muse, or by trying to edit the Muse code externally using Dreamweaver for instance. Its great for what it is, I will use it for another year during which time my sites will no longer depend on apps such as this.

[atillahun]

There is a lot of interesting debate covering the issue of Muse. I had a design studio in the 80s and the arsenal of programs available was limited, PageMaker or Quark Xpress, Photoshop and Freehand or Illustrator. As a business we got into web fairly early and its been a changing scene ever since. One thing I have learned from hard experience is you can't hitch your waggon to one horse. You have to be flexible, whatever application you use now is not guaranteed to be there forever. Adobe were an early pioneer in the graphics industry, Photoshop is still around 30+ years on, however web has never been their strongest area, Dreamweaver, Flash and Cold Fusion were acquired from Macromedia, Adobe did not create these initially. It also acquired Freehand which it killed off in preference to its own Illustrator. In fairness to Adobe its core commitment to the graphics industry is still there, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premier etc.. I use Muse, its great for my own websites and I adore the ease with which you can allow the creative process to integrate with web, but I have always been reluctant to roll this out for many clients, it has no CMS which is a basic requirement for most customers. There is no substitute for learning a bit of HTML and CSS, otherwise its a bit like a car manufacturer not knowing what's under the bonnet.

[kato6000]

Everybody in the Muse facebook group are talking about moving over to webflow or the blocapp.

[greenskin]

Both Webflow and Bloc work to a grid allowing them to arrange your content into a tablet and mobile layout so the free-flowing Muse canvas isn't there. Both Webflow and Block will allow your to export the code so to use on your desired hosting platform, where Bloc also allows you to hook up with at least three independent CMSs (their might be 4 now) and it is a one-off license except for when they over a major upgrade insuring an upgrade fee. Bloc is a desktop application but only for macOS.

The other creative option is Musegain who have married Muse and Wordpress (musexPress CMS)... Muse acts as the DIY designer and Wordpress is your go to CMS with endless plugins and free e-commerce via WooCommerce.

But I hope it does not come to that!

[mcguirebrannon]

To add on to what @greenskin is saying, you can toggle visibility of a grid in Webflow, but you can also position elements and set element dimensions using all modern units (%, VW, VH). Still breakpoint-based layout (desktop, tablet, mobile landscape, mobile portrait), but because of this, layouts are completely fluid. This combined with flexbox means tasks like vertically centering a child in its parent container is as easy as pie, if pie was clicking three buttons in the style panel.

Some videos and tutorials we recently released on the topics:

W&H units in Webflow: https://university.webflow.com/article/width-and-height-units

Breakpoints: https://university.webflow.com/article/intro-to-breakpoints

Styling across breakpoints: https://university.webflow.com/article/styling-on-breakpoints

Furthermore, Webflow has a 100% built-in visual CMS which — if you haven't seen it — might rock your world.

Webflow CMS overview/description: The web CMS for designers | Webflow

Here's our full, 24-video course covering the ins and outs of the Webflow CMS: https://university.webflow.com/courses/cms-and-dynamic-content-course

[sstuart48]

Mcguirebrannon one major concern Musers have with Webflow is that the contact forms created in Webflow won't work on self hosted. Note I am one of the advocates for Webflow and have watched most of the tutorials already.

I spoke to Nelson at Webflow yesterday on your website chat and he said it was 'easy to change' the HTML to make it work. Turns out it isn't looking at the Webflow forums, need to mess around with the PHP, and there isn't a clear and comprehensive answer.

Clearly you work for Webflow, so...

1) The last thing we want when we all decide to dump Adobe if they do finally shaft us is another company that feeds us BS.... Are there any other 'bugs' we need to be made aware of before jumping ship?

2) Can you provide a link that has comprehensive explanation of how to solve this issue for self hosting?

3) You don't need to talk like a comedian / pitch a sale to us in this forum. We just want the facts. Your tutorials don't answer the key questions we want.... What pitfalls are we going to come across that we took for granted in Muse? I know Musegrid are working on this with Musetowebflow, but frankly they are taking too long. I and many others here run businesses and we need answers NOW please.

[BenPleysier]

Sorry people, but you have been had from the moment Muse arrived. If you go to the likes of Webflow, you are heading in the same direction.

As a solid user of Dreamweaver, I have been watching the explosion of 'look Mum, no code' applications. As a "web developer" using such apps, you will always be dependant on the existence of the app. If Adobe decide to drop Dreamweaver, it would change my workflow to some extent, but it will not halt my web development program. There are many other apps out there that would replace Dreamweaver. It's the same as breaking you favourite hammer and you have to go out and buy a new one. The carpentry will still go on in the usual manner.

Just ask yourself, what if Webflow goes belly up, just like Muse, where will you go? Let this be a lesson.

See you all in the Dreamweaver forum for assistance to move your sites across.