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

[Gaudin-Graphiste]

Vous avez tout dit ! Il serait bon maintenant de parler de l'avenir et d'avoir des réponses concrètes car…travailler aujourd'hui sur de nouveaux projets dans muse est risqué si Muse s'arrête, et se former sur une solution de repli au pied levé l'est tout autant…

[TommyHood]

I think we should get together and file a class action lawsuit against Adobe for luring us into this program then suddenly ending it, costing us tens of thousands (if not more) collectively.

[MTAguilar]

I totally agree. We had no warning. My current site is already not working as it should without any changes from me. I spent the weekend reworking the site. This is money I can't recoup, since it's not my client's fault.

[Robert_Kenfield]

I'd like to hear more about what an attorney has to say. Now that the shock is passing, I was just reflecting this weekend about the financial impact of Muse being discontinued will have on our company. My company is currently doing an analysis and trying to determine the overall cost it will be to convert all of our Muse websites to Wordpress or another editable form for our clients as they expect changes in the future beyond the realistic usability of the last update of Muse.

[pziecina]

TommyHood  wrote

I think we should get together and file a class action lawsuit against Adobe for luring us into this program then suddenly ending it, costing us tens of thousands (if not more) collectively.

It would interest me in knowing just what grounds a class action lawsuit would be based on?

Muse is still availible.

Its code will in all probability continue to work for years to come.

You do not have to move to a new program or rebuild any sites until the client requires a redesign.

YOU decided to use Muse, no one forced to to use it.

So what are the grounds for the lawsuit?

[TommyHood]

Muse is still availible. - It's being discontinued. (BTW, available)

Its code will in all probability continue to work for years to come. - at best 2 more years. ADOBE even said future browsers WON'T support Muse coding.

You do not have to move to a new program or rebuild any sites until the client requires a redesign.- If the browsers stop supporting the Muse code (as Adobe said) I'd rather take pre-emtive moves to protect my client's sites. (That's what a good contractor does for their clients)

YOU decided to use Muse, no one forced to to use it.- Never said forced. Don't be an ass. We were sold something that Adobe is not delivering fully on.

Buh-BYE!

[pziecina]

TommyHood  wrote

Its code will in all probability continue to work for years to come. - at best 2 more years. ADOBE even said future browsers WON'T support Muse coding.

You do not have to move to a new program or rebuild any sites until the client requires a redesign.- If the browsers stop supporting the Muse code (as Adobe said) I'd rather take pre-emtive moves to protect my client's sites. (That's what a good contractor does for their clients)

YOU decided to use Muse, no one forced to to use it.- Never said forced. Don't be an ***. We were sold something that Adobe is not delivering fully on.

Adobe did not say browsers will stop supporting Muse code, it is html, css and javascript. What browsers may do is require better standards compliance. If they do that though then was EOLing Muse not the best decission Adobe could make for its users?

If browsers stop supporting Muse code, then lots of none Muse created sites will also fail. Knowing how the web works and what is going to happen in the future is also what a good contractor should do for their clients. So should you not have also known if Muse code was going to fail years ago, and stopped using Muse then, (plus you could have informed other Muse users at the time).

The web is constantly changing, Adobe sold you a program that worked for the web at the time it was released. By EOLing Muse, Adobe has admited to everyone that they do not think it will be upto the requirements of the web in the future. The one thing that you must have known when you started to use Muse is -

'Standards always win'.

[TommyHood]

We'll see what the lawyers I've contacted have to say.

At this point I don't even care if I'm able to recoup the losses Adobe is going to cause me, just want them to feel the hit too, so that in the future maybe they'll make more ethical decisions.

[pziecina]

TommyHood  wrote

We'll see what the lawyers I've contacted have to say.

At this point I don't even care if I'm able to recoup the losses Adobe is going to cause me, just want them to feel the hit too, so that in the future maybe they'll make more ethical decisions.

If Adobe EOL'd Muse because it could not meet web requirerments in the future, then EOLing was an ethical decision.

As I said, you have no case.

[Nancy OShea]

Assuming for a moment you even find a lawyer to take this EOL thing on,  be prepared for a very long & expensive fight.    Your time & money could be put to more productive endeavors like learning how to work with code .  Just saying....

[work_at_it]

TommyHood... you are one of many people with the same view... and when someone mentions this subject Nancy O'Shea and pziecina keep riding to Adobe's defence... interesting that...

[Nancy OShea]

work_at_it  wrote

TommyHood... you are one of many people with the same view... and when someone mentions this subject Nancy O'Shea and pziecina keep riding to Adobe's defence... interesting that...

I'm not riding to anybody's defense.  I'm simply saying you have no case in this r matter.   EOL is not in and  of itself grounds for legal action.  If it were, the courts would be filled with actions against all software developers -- big & small.

If you want to discuss MU alternatives (the topic of this thread), then let's get back on track and stop whining  about unwinable lawsuits.

[TommyHood]

How about you get back to work instead of trolling me.

BYE!

[Illostraight]

Good Grief! How old are you?!!! I tried to give you alternatives. No one here is trolling anyone, we're all trying to help each other.

[pziecina]

work_at_it  wrote

TommyHood... you are one of many people with the same view... and when someone mentions this subject Nancy O'Shea and pziecina keep riding to Adobe's defence... interesting that...

Interesting that you mention me.

If you ask Nancy, Preran or any other contributor to the Dreamweaver forum, they will all tell you how much I rubbish All Adobe programs that are used for anything web related, so to use your own words... interesting that...

I do think it is possible to have a program that can be used by none coders. What i do not think is possible, is for anyone building web sites/apps to ignore what is happening when it comes to web standards and future requirerments regarding the web.

If you want to think that anyone can ignore future requirements, go and talk to Mark Zuckerberg, (facebook).

[rayek.elfin]

TommyHood  wrote

We'll see what the lawyers I've contacted have to say.

At this point I don't even care if I'm able to recoup the losses Adobe is going to cause me, just want them to feel the hit too, so that in the future maybe they'll make more ethical decisions.

When Adobe discontinued Freehand, a group of disgruntled Freehand users started legal proceedings against Adobe. It didn't pan out for obvious reasons, and they had a stronger case than you do with Muse.

In my computing lifetime (since the 80ties) many a software package was discontinued, and I was forced to reconsider my options. Autodesk betrayed my trust a number of times, and I switched to open source software - at least that gives me relative control over the software. Same with Adobe: when Adobe switched to rental-only, I decided to switch to alternatives for my professional and personal work. I only use Adobe in class now.

The only thing certain is that things change.

I understand your anger and disappointment: Adobe pulled the rug from under your feet. It feels you've been betrayed by the company you trusted your business on. WELCOME TO THE CLUB. It's harsh, it's painful, it's nerve-wracking, and many other negative emotions.

But revenge is a two-edged sword: you are only going to make your own life miserable, as well as your family's. It's not worth it. Muse is only a piece of software, and alternatives exist. You have options. Don't rely on a single software app to base a business on - keep your options open.

Convince others to leave the Adobe ecosystem, if that makes you feel better. If enough users leave Adobe, at some point it is going to hurt their business. But a lawsuit based on an empty case like this one? No, even IF you had a case, Adobe would bury you in legal proceedings, and that would only result in a years-long legal battle, with whomever has the longest breath victorious. You'd be playing their game in their home town.

This is how (most) corporations function: driven by a pathological pursuit of profit and power. Adobe doesn't care about you. You may care about Adobe and their software, but Adobe is incapable of loving you back. It doesn't even love its shareholders. That is just the way it is. It is the bed human society made for itself, and now we have to lie in it.

Your choice, human kind's choice. If you don't like it: well, stop supporting Adobe. Stop supporting large corporations. Simple as that. But the simple things often turn out to be the hardest, don't they?

[work_at_it]

Comparing this EOL to Freehand's EOL.... really.... completely different situations.

[Illostraight]

Tommy, if u look back in this huge, and helpful forum, you can see where we already went thru this. Yes, we were angry, hurt and frustrated, but it isn't a legal case.

Go to the link below when the dust settles for you, (like I mentioned, we all went thru your phase), and find out what you can use instead. Some of the software you can import your Muse sites with a little nudging. As has been mentioned, the Muse widgets won't work with other software.

Adobe Muse Alternativeshttps://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1O3bub1z2HWEbs6aP_-HzZPHjHL9fEuyhs8DXEQDDngc/edit#gid=0

We need to find out which has the best responsive or adaptive software, for those of us that don't code, at this point. If anyone is using any yet, please comment. I think a lot of people will be holding off to see what developers come up with later this year.

[Peter Villevoye]

Dear TommyHood, software is always delivered as-is, working as promoted and promised on supported configurations, and the developers will do their utmost best to fix any bugs for the next two years. After 2020, the software is still available to you, and still running, for as long as your operating system supports it. Your websites will probably work even much longer, since web technologies (servers and browsers) are always backwards compatible. But it's possible that newer policies of services like Google Search, In Browser Editing, privacy regulations, and forms processing, etc. are not going to work anymore...

[TommyHood]

Google Search, In Browser Editing, privacy regulations, and forms processing, etc.

All things that were used as long term selling points.

[work_at_it]

Comparing the Muse/Business Catalyst debacle to software EOLs of the past just doesn't work. We have live, existing products created by the software that Adobe customers are now forced to rebuild at their own expense.

[Abambo]

TommyHood  wrote

Its code will in all probability continue to work for years to come. - at best 2 more years. ADOBE even said future browsers WON'T support Muse coding.

No browser currently on the market supports Muse coding. Muse codes for the browsers on the market. So what will the future be:

• New standards will emerge, old standards will be deprecated. Code generated from Muse will continue to work until the Web gets deleted, however the sites will be at some time out-aged. industrie.lu - The History of Industry and Industrial Heritage of Luxembourg - industrie.lu
• Muse will continue to generate code for the web as long as the OS keeps compatibility with currently available computer code.

[Nancy OShea]

pziecina  wrote

It would interest me in knowing just what grounds a class action lawsuit would be based on?

Muse is still available.

Its code will in all probability continue to work for years to come.

You do not have to move to a new program or rebuild any sites until the client requires a redesign.

YOU decided to use Muse, no one forced to to use it.

So what are the grounds for the lawsuit?

I agree with Paula.  You have no case.  Adobe has extended tech support on Muse until end of March 2020.   You have plenty of time to plan your exit strategy if indeed you need one. 

Basing one's business model on a single app or service is professional suicide.   Muse's announced EOL is a much needed if not painful wake up call for some to re-think how they do business going forward.    WordPress is one option.  But it's not the only one out there.   So stay flexible lest you find yourself in this same situation 5 years from now.

[TommyHood]

Sheep.

You have plenty of time to plan your exit strategy if indeed you need one. - Great, we have two years to lose the thousands of dollars rebuilding sites because we were sold a product based on false information.

[atillahun]

Having read many of the posts I seem to detect a pattern. The people most affected seem to be those with no coding experience.

Nancy stated building your business on the back of one app is financial suicide. Spot on, I use Muse, that's why I am on this forum, but I also use Pinegrow, Dreamweaver, BBEdit, in fact all manner of apps. I will continue to support the sites I created in Muse, though I won't build any more in the future.

A point that seems lost to so many is that most apps of the Muse type have inherent limitations, these include a dependency on the software to develop and maintain sites, bloated code which is nigh on impossible to work on outside of the authoring app. You are also limited to the built in functionality and available plugins.

Learn some code, you don't have to be an expert, there are things out there like Bootstrap which when used with a visual editor can with comparative ease do much, if not more than Muse. Yes you need some code to make response forms work for instance, but there is plenty out there which is free to use. And, at the end you get a site built in clean code that most people can work on, and can be easily updated to be compliant with new browser requirements.

Find a new alternative to Muse and in a year or two you could be in the same position you are in now, looking for yet another alternative.