Best way to transition from Adobe Muse?

[Ahisa71]

Hello,

I know a lot of people have already been transitioning from Adobe Muse to something else... It's a headache..

So, what's the best way to do it? Fortunately, I only have 1 site that uses Adobe Muse for my client. I still have to move it to somewhere else.

Is there any platform where we can still use the .muse file and has similar tools as Muse? I can't code.

Or should I just convert it to .html file and learn how to use DreamWeaver?

Thanks!

[Nancy OShea · Accepted solution]

Ahisa71  wrote

Is there any platform where we can still use the .muse file and has similar tools as Muse?

NO.

Ahisa71  wrote

I can't code.

Find another way to make your client's website.

Would you hire a blind driving instructor?  You're disabled by the fact that you can't work with code.  And unlike the blind instructor who can't change his blindness, you can do something to improve your situation.  Learn to work with code. That should be your first priority.   See links below.

• W3Schools Online Web Tutorials
• Learn web development | MDN

Your 2nd priority should be to rebuild the site with something other than Muse that outputs directly to  native HTML, CSS and JavaScript files which can be managed in any decent code editor.

Dreamweaver

Brackets

Pinegrow

Wappler

Bootstrap Studio

VS Code

etc....

[Ahisa71]

Who said I make living with websites? I don't.

BUT, the whole point of Adobe Muse was to be able to make websites without coding. It was meant to be for DESIGNERS who don't have knowledge about coding but have design skills. I know there were many designers who started using Adobe Muse for their clients without using codes, who are very angry about Muse being discontinued.

From Adobe Website;

"Adobe Muse CC lets you design and publish fully responsive HTML5 websites without writing code. It’s perfect for designers who are looking to create free-form websites that work and look great on any browser, or any sized screen. With the powerful Adobe CreativeSync integration, you can start your layouts on the go with Adobe Comp CC. Use design assets like vector graphics and styles with Creative Cloud Libraries, and access stock photos from Adobe Stock."

[Nancy OShea]

That was then.  This is now.  Knowing how to use Muse is not a marketable skill because Muse is gone.

Your client(s) can switch to a DIY site builder like Wix, Webflow or WordPress.  Easy to use, no programming skills required.  Or they can hire a skilled coder. 

[alex________]

i pay each month for Adobe.
So i want a solution from Adobe.

is that really too much to ask?

[Nancy OShea · Accepted solution]

CODE TUTORIALS:
- https://www.w3schools.com/html/
- https://www.w3schools.com/css/
- https://www.w3schools.com/js/

================
CODE EDITORS:
-- Adobe Dreamweaver CC - https://www.adobe.com/products/dreamweaver.html
-- Atom (free) - https://atom.io/
-- Codespaces (free, browser-based) - https://github.com/features/codespaces
-- Nova (Mac only, formerly called Coda) - https://nova.app/
-- Pinegrow - https://pinegrow.com/
-- Sublime Text - http://www.sublimetext.com/
-- Visual Studio Code (free) - https://code.visualstudio.com/
-- Wappler ~ Visual Web App Builder - https://wappler.io/

============

ONLINE SITE BUILDING SERVICES:
-- Adobe Behance (free) - https://help.behance.net/hc/en-us/articles/204483894-Guide-Intro-to-Behance
-- Adobe Portfolio (free with a paid Creative Cloud Plan) - https://portfolio.adobe.com/
-- Squarespace - https://www.squarespace.com/
-- Webflow - https://webflow.com/
-- Wix - https://www.wix.com/
-- WordPress (open source) - https://wordpress.org/

This discussion from 2019 is locked now.  If you have more questions, please feel free to start a new topic. Thanks.

[Günter Heißenbüttel]

Ahisa71, let Nancy talk and don’t take her too serious. She doesn‘t know Muse at all, so she is not really able to understand, what you are expecting. She is a coder, that‘s it. And I think, she has a vague idea, that most of her kind are superfluous in some years. Coding web sites for end users will definitely die. And unfortunately Adobe will not be part of this journey. In a very near future, Coders will only be necessary to build tools to automatically and visually create websites, but not for directly creating sites any more.

We know these kinds of historical development. We simply have to look at the way print layout was developing – from coding related applications and prepress hardware to finally print a newspaper (crTronic, Linosetting) to actual versions of, let‘s say, InDesign. Web design will definitely follow the same road. So coding web sites „the Dreamweaver way“ will finally be a dead end street.

I‘d recommend, to have a close look at Webflow, which – with a completely different „mind set“ than Muse – provides a visual way of building web sites. It is not so „streamlined“ and flexible as you may be used from Muse, but yet (or better: because of that) much more powerful: https://webflow.com/

[Ahisa71]

Thanks for sharing the info! I'll take a look at webflow.

[Nancy OShea]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/G%C3%BCnter+Hei%C3%9Fenb%C3%BCttel  wrote

So coding web sites „ the Dreamweaver way“ will finally be a dead end street.

That remark is so ridiculous I don't quite know whether to laugh or cry.

1)  Dreamweaver is a tool, not a method   A hammer is a tool, too.  But it won't build a house for you.   What matters most is the skill of the person using the tools.  That goes for Pinegrow, Wappler, Wix, Webflow, WordPress or whatever..   The software doesn't exist yet that can create a great Progressive Web App without some coding skills.  Sorry, but truth is truth.

2)  Apart from fonts, a printed page has nothing in common with the web.  They are two entirely different mediums.   A printed page is static ink on static paper.  It will never change.  And it hasn't changed much in almost 600 years since Gutenberg created the press. 

Meanwhile a web page is dynamic.  It has moving parts.  The layout adjusts to content, device size and user interaction such that two people viewing the same URL at the same time may not see the same things.  This is by design.  So it's very important to understand the medium and it's underlying technologies.

3) Finally, people who have technology skills are typically in a much better place than their unskilled counterparts.  By and large skilled people earn more money,  have a nicer living situation,  higher self-esteem and greater job satisfaction.  Unskilled people work a lot harder for less pay.   On which side of the fence would you rather be?

[Günter Heißenbüttel]

Nancy, you didn‘t understand …

Did you really try to answer to my post? Doesn‘t seem so.

[Nancy OShea]

I understood it perfectly.  But that doesn't change it's ridiculousness .

[iamoverit]

That is simply a back door way of protecting one's turn. quite evident.

[alex________]

u r so rude. try at least to be nice.

[fotoroeder]

Ahisa71  schrieb

I still have to move it to somewhere else.

Don`t panic, at least until May 2020 Muse keeps working. It will work maybe some more time after 2020, depending on OS and Browser Support, though.

Ahisa71

Or should I just convert it to .html file and learn how to use DreamWeaver?

You could also give it a try with pinegrow. Depending on what you have to edit in future, this might be an alternative non-subscription way to keep the site alive. Exported html files lead to "looking mainly like the site", you did in muse. 3rdparty widgets do not always work as expected, maybe. You could give it a "7 day try for free" by exporting your site as html and load this in pinegrow to see, if it´s the same appearance (in my case all breakpoints and all parallax stuff works perfect with almost all sites I did). Try to change some image and some text to see, if it fits to your needs. Pinegrow also let´s you use Master pages but it has nothing to do with Muse master pages, unfortunately. It´s only the exported html, that is interesting for Pinegrow.

Another non-subscription model could be found with blocs, but only when using a Mac. But this could not do anything with your muse nor the exported html. It´s just for building a new website without code.

Kind Regards,

Uwe

[Ahisa71]

Oh that is a good point, the 3rd party widgets might not work in DreamWeaver... Pinegrow sounds more like what I am looking for. So they use html and let us build websites without coding.

One question. What happens if I just leave the site online? Take it out from Business Catalyst and transfer it through FTP to another hosting, and leave it there? The .muse file will live without problem if I don't have to update? Or should I just make it .html and upload it to another hosting? Can I upload .html file to another host through Muse?

Thanks.

[Nancy OShea]

What happens if I just leave the site online? Take it out from Business Catalyst and transfer it through FTP to another hosting, and leave it there?

It all depends on which Business Catalyst services you are using right now.  BC modules for e-commerce, blog, content management, etc... won't work on any other hosting except Business Catalyst.

[fotoroeder]

Ahisa71  schrieb

Oh that is a good point, the 3rd party widgets might not work in DreamWeaver... Pinegrow sounds more like what I am looking for. So they use html and let us build websites without coding.

Be careful, don`t mix it up: I had an issue with a 3rd Party widget, trying to rebuild it with PG (have no idea about Dw), which was/is not possible that easy. AND PG uses code of course. It let´s you do some sites with bootstrap and some others:

and you may start pretty fast with some prebuild pages but (and it is a big BUT), without some knowledge you probably won`t succeed - it is not so much that one has to code but knowing/understanding where elements are placed and how to "move" them around needs a learning curve indeed (they call it CSS ).

Ahisa71  schrieb

One question. What happens if I just leave the site online? Take it out from Business Catalyst and transfer it through FTP to another hosting, and leave it there? The .muse file will live without problem if I don't have to update? Or should I just make it .html and upload it to another hosting? Can I upload .html file to another host through Muse? 

I recommend to change hosting to a provider outside of Adobe, depending on the country you work, this may be any reliable hosting company. As the domain-owner you could do this easily with some Auth-Code I assume.

You can just publish your site with then new credentials to the new provider as before - even IBE will work of course.

Of course all settings you may have done on BC will get lost. Did you do any e-commerce or something non-static? BTW, we could get deeper, if we only have a link to your website to see, if you "need" BC for some reason.

Kind Regards,

Uwe

[iamoverit]

Or transition to Joomla and ge sp_page builder. Coders will never like it because hits the pocket book.   You can do all the custom coding with it you want to but the average site will need little, if any. At least with a Joomla or WP site you will not be facing end of life situations and be extorted to purchase other software by Adobe.

[Günter Heißenbüttel]

Logic is not everyone‘s cup of tea …

[Dutchess23]

The good news, is that you can go to Wix, WordPress, or Squarespace for nearly nothing, and since that Muse and Business Catalyst are no longer being supported by your Adobe Creative Cloud membership, you have no more need for all those applications. Simply move over to the Photography Plan and learn how to extract assets from Photoshop to customize whatever WSYWIG editor you choose.  Like you, I was attracted to the full Creative Cloud membership because of the extra features for newbies like me, such as Muse, and business catalyst.  I have since learned how to code, and can use Dreamweaver, which is an amazingly powerful program to build websites from scratch, but you need to have a grasp on HTML, CSS and Javascript (the latter not as much as the two former).  It's really not that difficult to learn, and you will be able to get away from Templates and cookie cutter designs and fully use your creative power to build a website from code.  Having said that, if you know how to code, you really don't need Dreamweaver, and can use far less expensive options to build your websites.  I am of the opinion that Muse was that one program that brought in a ton of customers to the full Creative Cloud membership that otherwise would not have been interested.  I know. I was one of them.  Good luck, and don't let anyone put you down for not knowing how to do something.  There's a reason companies (not Adobe anymore) are making a fortune helping people just like you achieve their artistic vision without having to code.  Look into Wix, I have found it very user friendly and it's quite inexpensive too.  The money you save on your CC membership will let you get several websites, domains, and help with Wix or any of the other companies, and you will still have money left over.  So, rejoice!

[martini23646994]

I build and maintain onboarding portals for new staff on our SharePoint intranet with Adobe Muse. We have portals that look awesome and nothing like a standard crappy SharePoint page. I'm trying to find an alternative, but most of the cloud services don't allow exporting the site code/html so that I can load it on our intranet. Muse did this so well and allowed us to make quick changes without any code. We have a lot of people on our team that are talented with creating training, but not coders. Muse allowed our team to create professional looking sites without hiring a coder just for that purpose. My search for an alternative continues...

[gmarrero]

I went with NicePage and so far I've been enjoying it as simple as Muse. It exports as a wordpress Theme and in individual editable pages with a nicepage plug in, inside of wordpress. Is great. Still do maintain dozens of muse pages. 

[gmarrero]

I have found Nicepage desktop software, licensed premium to be the absolute best option for me. Because it allows for html export or wordpress template and pages or others. I currently have like 10 pages running with no problem. And one very big one running an intranet.