Adobe Muse

[john beardsworth]

Perhaps cyclical rather than revolutionary, Peter. There's always a market for "web design without coding" and in Dreamweaver's early days (I can hardly believe I was using it back in 1997) that's what Macromedia claimed it offered. The trouble is, a lot of web sites need to be maintained more efficiently by being database-driven, and plenty of those who create web sites demand "off piste" features and can code. Adding such capabilities eventually frightens the "web design without coding" survivalists and you have to develop a new product to reassure them. Of course, you can't market it as the app for people who are too stupid to use Dreamweaver, or the app we launched because Dreamweaver wasn't invented here. You just go back to the old web design for graphic designers not coders mantra.

If it suits you, go with it - but just don't try to design a WordPress theme with it. I agree SEO is not relevant to your decision - add enough text content to your pages and ensure you have links from other sites which allow search engines to find you.

[Isaac]

…where boys can get all stroppy with each other over just how they clever they are…

Is that what you were doing?

Mark Twain was clever --

"What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know, it's what we know for sure that just ain't so."

[Justinr]

Is that what you were doing?

Mark Twain was clever --

"What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know, it's what we know for sure that just ain't so."

The answer is there in the last line of my post.

[Isaac]

I kind-of welcome the opportunity to discover and correct my misunderstandings, there are plenty of them.

[Peter McLennan]

I've spent quite a few hours with WordPress and Drupal and I know just enough HTML to be a danger to others, but allow me this tiny example of Muse's capability:

Like most sites, I have a nav menu across the top.  Seven menu elements, three states per element. WordPress and Drupal of course allow you to create these, but at great cost of time and hair and only within the limited constraints of the whatever theme you're using. Muse made one exactly to my specifications in about five minutes.  Four and a half to learn how, and thirty seconds to actually implement and style it.

A week or so later, I decided that I'd like the same menu across the footer, too.  Having no idea how to do this other than repeat the previous process (which I'd forgotten and would have to review) I said to myself "WTH, I'll just try alt-dragging the existing menu to the footer."  

It worked.  Links intact.

"Holy Crap!", I exclaimed aloud.