HAPPY 2022! What Muse replacement are you using now?

[Nancy OShea]

It's now 2022.  And Muse has been End of Life for almost 4 years, since 2018.

I'm curious to which software Musers finally decided to switch.

[EuanWilliamson]

Hi Nancy,

Happy New Year to you also 🙂

Still maintaing some simple Muse sites currently, but moving to Sparkle

as they had a sale recently for $60 for a perm licence. Sparkle 4 about to drop.

The site import from a published site works reasonably well. No direct Muse import of course.

[Nancy OShea]

Sparkle app is for Mac only, right?

[EuanWilliamson]

Correct. Mac only.

Importantly, it seems to generate clean, fast, html.

[curtiss69395394]

Gonna give the Sparkle a try.. I just lost about 3 sites as a result of this dreaded 500 webfonts error. Changed all of the fonts in the sites and still cant do anything with them.. Cant event export as HTML files ;( . If anybody comes up with a fix that works... Help!!! Are we confident in this Sparkle App?

[fotoroeder]

What does this mean: I lost 3 sites? What kind of font do you try to use? Do you have a webfontkit for this? Do you know how to do a webfont kit from any font (you have a license for, of course)?

Sparkle is quite ok but not as versatile as Muse and it is not really easier in handling - it also has some culprits to be worked with/on. It has some advantages, though.

Kind Regards,

Uwe

[curtiss69395394]

Hi Fotoroeder,

I am unable to export my site and they will not upload either... I keep getting this error.

[fotoroeder]

So again, which font(s) do you use? Is this/Are these font(s) from typekit or selfhosted?

Also watch this, please:  https://community.adobe.com/t5/muse-discussions/typekit-fonts-missing-in-muse/m-p/13443171#M51788

Kind Regards and Happy Christmas,

Uwe

[TonyJ]

Try Xara Web Designer. In some ways a fair substitute. For me it offers all the versatility without any need for coding as did Muse. I'm suprised this Xara software doesn't get the accliam it so deserves.

[Nancy OShea]

I tested Xara ages ago and the code it generated was garbage.  Maybe they improved it, let's hope so.  In any case,  I think Xara is Windows only.

[yardgirl-gb]

Sparkle, now I'm getting the hang of it finding it really good, still an issue with clients as lots of sites to change over. The personal technical help is brilliant.

[EuanWilliamson]

Yes, Duncan is very reponsive to support questions

[Nancy OShea]

Yes, Duncan is very reponsive to support questions

By @EuanWilliamson

========

Who's Duncan??  😱  

I'm guessing you posted this to the wrong board. 

[EuanWilliamson]

Hi @Nancy OShea It was a reply to @yardgirl-gb 

Duncan is one of the developers behind Sparkle. He's always monitoring their forums (a bit like us!) to give support

[Nancy OShea]

Oh.  I see.

[BJN3]

Using the Elementor builder for Wordpress. It's a good visual interface for responsive page design, and I'm anticipating improved page layout workflow with Elementor's flexbox containers (in beta). Wordpress is a vast and powerful ecosystem Adobe never even tried to match. The only thing I miss about Muse is its heirarchical thumbnail site map, but there's probably a plug-in for WP that offers something like that — if I bothered to look. 

[Barbara Mills]

It's Now 2023 and I think maybe I have hit the Muse wall because I just got a new computer. For some sites I have been using WO/code. https://www.wocode.com/ A couple of others are still running on Muse. I came her to find the download link for the old software, but the installer does not work on my new system Ventura 13.0. I am debating weather the Protools link (recommended elsewhere on this site is worth trying) I have enjoyed WithoutCode. I like the people running the latform. It is a bit blocky but has been working for the small sites I do. I really miss Muse.

[Nancy OShea]

Depending on what you need the site to do, many former Muse users have switched to WordPress with Elementor's click & drag designer plugin.  

https://elementor.com/

WordPress is an open source CMS used by millions of websites worldwide.  There's no shortage of support & documentation for it -- from free and premium Themes to all manner of plugins for e-commerce, real estate, travel, restaurant reservations & take out, multi-lingual sites, etc...

https://WordPress.org

Hope that helps.

Happy 2023!

[Barbara Mills]

Thanks for trying, Nancy, but I am comitted to my current platform (loyalty good or bad?) I'm an accomplished artist, but not so interested in web programming, so Muse allowed creativity without technicality. The few sites I have remaining, I would like to keep going if possible (Client does not want to change the look, and I am not up to recreating them on another platform.) I have tried Wordpress in the past, and have been able to do some simple things, but the depth of the Wordpress ecosystem is confusing at best. Every plug-in requires its own, payment, password, updates, upgrades. And will it work with any other plug in?? So if you want to have web design be your major thing, well maybe OK. Happy New Year again. I guess I will go back to seting up my new computer and just fire up the old Trashcan (Late 2013) when I have to update a Muse site. 

[curtiss69395394]

@Barbara MillsTotal agree. I just ran into this situation. Was fully aware that Muse was dead a few years back but didnt expect that the sites I built would become compromised by other add ons such as webfonts and typekit. All I wanted to do was have the ability to update the sites created years ago. Decided to give Sparkleapp a chance and so far so good. Seems to be solid. (hopefully they dont end this app in the near future as well). I utilized Muse for all the same reasons. I understand basic code and I can get into the code language to find errors in most cases. But I'd rather focus on the creative side and avoid the technical deep dive. So far no help on the error 500 webfont issue. Try Sparkleapp its much like Muse. Not as deep with graphic controls but if you are crafty you can work around the short comings and they seem to be pushing updates that capture some of the shortcomings..