Blocs

Hey Scott, hello again.

Like I mentioned last time, your review process is very hot and cold, it’s either one star or five stars. I appreciate you’re entitled to your opinion, but from reading your other reviews on various apps in this area, my personal opinion is that you are on some kind of crusade against apps that create websites for none-developers, however I could be wrong.

I’d like to give some feedback to your comments.

Inline styles: Upon export, Blocs actual checks for inline styles in the html and removes them, the only time an inline style is used is to set the height of a hero bloc so that it fits to the height of the screen. This is of course a dynamic application done with Javascript not one that’s static. The copy from our landing page will be updated to reflect this. So in general, there are no inline styles, but the hero bloc will use one dynamically along with JS simply to fill the screen.

Non-semantic Class Names: Users are able to control class names, so this is just down to my personal choice when I created the Blocs site, however, there are some that are generated for you, and they take on the same standardisation as the vanilla Bootstrap ones with the adoption of -sm -md -lg.

Understanding CSS: Yes, it’s true the more you understand about CSS and HTML the more creative you can get with Blocs. But for a lot of people, just being able to create a layout with a few clicks is very empowering.

FTP: Blocs is an app designed for creating websites, it doesn’t handle some of the other tasks that are commonly connected with web development in general, such as handling site hosting or acquiring a domain name or as you stated handling the upload of your site to a server. That’s because Blocs is a tool for creating websites, not hosting them or transferring them to servers.

Code Quality: This is a matter of opinion, in your previous review (5 stars) these are your words “ the generated code also looks well-coded and well-formatted” you actually stated the code quality was good, but now all of a sudden the code quality is bad? You also make a statement about using standard frameworks, almost everything Blocs uses to create web pages is a standard framework from the Bootstrap to animate.css.

From your most recent review, it’s this comment I find the most offensive “There is also a question about whether you should allow people with no clue about design and basic coding skills to build a website in the first place.” Your general tone here does come across condescending, ok we get it you know how to code, but why should someone without the technical knowledge not be encouraged to try?

Actually a quick follow up to the inline style comment, this actually is outdated information here at Mac Update only. Our site doesn't include this statement anymore and hasn't for over a year now.

I don’t care whether someone listens to what I have to say about each app I use and review, and I don’t care whether they end up buying the apps I think are not good, either. I do believe, though, that I have a moral obligation to inform others of all the pros and cons I have discovered so others could make a better decision than I did. I am writing stuff for my own conscience’s sake.

I appreciate you took the time to comment thoroughly, and I would like to respond to each point.

## Inline styles

It’s great to hear that the direction Blocs.app is taking is right. However, the dynamic JS height trick you talk about is still not how a web developer with semantic coding skills would code a website. I wouldn’t blame you for that, though. It simply shows that it’s hard to get a piece of software to handle something like this.

## Non-semantic class names

Users can control *some* class names but not all, especially when you use one of the built-in components. It is not unique to Blocks.app. I’ve seen the same limitation with practically every visual builder I’ve tried. Pinegrow, for example, is able to whip up a landing page with its pre-fabricated components, but it gives me class names like “section-1” “section-2”, etc. The only way to change that is to go through every class name and manually change them in CSS.

## Understanding CSS

Should we empower amateurs by tricking them into thinking that web design is as easy as creating a document in MS Word and none of the code quality stuff matters because it looks fine on the surface? You call this stance condescending, but I call your comment dishonesty. There is nothing new about any of this. Dreamweaver has already tried back in 1990’s. Graphic designers thought they no longer needed to code, they disrespected coders and called them HTML monkeys, and they spewed billions of lines of generated spaghetti codes all over the Internet. We ended up with so many gazillions of websites that were slow to load, difficult to maintain, and nightmarish for coders to add backend features. Macaw is a more recent reincarnation of the same old garbage. The whole industry hyped Macaw so much to the point that Jeffery Zeldman would spend an hour interviewing the lead developer on his show. They claimed that it was the beginning of the end of handcoding, people will “code visually” and so on. It took them only about a couple of years before they completely abandoned it and sold themselves to InVision.

All these sagas are a sign of people trying in vain to find a technological solution for the wrong high-level approach.

Amateurs can “empower” themselves by learning to code HTML/CSS/Bootstrap. The industry has made HTML/CSS into a rubber dragon at this point. It’s not that hard to learn. Nobody is saying they shouldn’t. Why do we keep telling them the lie that they can make a “professional website” without coding?

## FTP

Copout. What’s the point of building a website if they can’t even upload it to somewhere on the Internet?

## Code quality

Yes, I changed my stance on this matter. That’s why I added this to my previous review: “Hence, I rate my five-star review 1/2 star, and I hereby denounce the positive review.” I rate my own review 1/2 star because it turned out that it was largely based on ignorance on my part and therefore I wrote an incorrect, bad review.

## Encouraged to try?

They should not be encouraged to try doing it the wrong way. Instead, the industry should encourage them to try the right way, and it is to learn to code and handle it directly. Dreamweaver encouraged them to do it the wrong way, and guess where it led them? It kept them from learning to code, it kept them believe that they were not at fault, and real coders suffered. Who said they couldn’t try learning to code? It’s not that hard.

Not exactly changing my mind regarding overall principles, but in light of Norm-1’s respectful and thorough response, I felt like it deserved yet another look.

I admit that I missed one fact about the software: Norm-1 is right, you can indeed change most of the class names that says “bloc,” even the ones assigned by default, right in the Class Manager. That's cool.

I also admit that it is indeed kind of fun to be able to quickly whip up a nice looking landing page in a matter of a few minutes. Mentally, it is much less taxing than manually coding or even editing a template manually in code. No denying on that for sure. Although I advocate working with code, I am struggling to determine whether it matters as much as I think it does. Clean code, sure, but to what extent? Coding everything by hand is tedious and, I confess, it is prone to typos and unclosed tags. The approach Blocs.app seems to suggest is indeed tempting.

I guess I will take back some of my previous comments and keep an eye on this app. I can be very critical, but I am also for supporting developers. I was probably a bit harsher than I had to be.

Scott this is crazy, I simply can't believe you have come back again and in some respects, changed your mind again, to some degree.

Let me offer some advice. Your comments come from a place were you want to encourage people to code websites by hand, learn the craft you have because you see that as the only way to do a truly great job. Not everyone has the time or the capacity / general interest to do this. Technology is here to make things easier, which ever way you look at it, the future of web design is to simplify the process of getting from A to B but still allow for creativity. I'll be honest, your comments at times insinuate developers like myself (who have deadicated years of work to try and make this breakthrough) out to be liars and in some respect fraudsters. Honestly I can't tell you how much that hurts to hear, when it's not our intentions at all, we want to make building websites more accessible so anyone can try, you just never know we're that path may lead that person who otherwise would never have tried.

My idea for Blocs came when playing MindCraft with my 6 yr old nephew. I thought this game (MindCraft) is just a 3D modelling app made so simple kids can use it, I'd love a web design tool that does this. So I made it. To some degree a child could build a basic site in Blocs (zero coding), why is that a bad thing? If anything, it opens new doors at an even younger age.

I know it's important for you to be honest, but try to consider, someone, somewhere made this app, lost hours of sleep trying to make it the best they could.

Be honest but also be fair and try to look at how effective the app (you're cutting down) is to a broader audience, rather than just yourself. I know that's hard, but it's what makes a good review.

Just looked at a few of your reviews for other apps in this area and I see you just copy and paste the same paragraphs. 2.5/5 wow looks like I got off lightly :) $80 is cheap when you consider how much it costs to use a hosted solution for a single year. And it's peanuts to a dev, most devs I know charge more than $80 an hour.

Actually, I changed my mind later and tried to delete my reviews, but MU doesn't give me the option to do that. I think you are absolutely right, and I was utterly wrong in a few of my recent reviews.

I fiddled with it some more after writing my first impression and found it to be pretty good. Sure you could hand code your static site, but this is FAR easier, FAR quicker and, once exported, the overall code quality is not bad at all. You could host a Blocs-generated site anywhere. So, you could host it on a cheap hosting and skip paying for a SaaS.

Developers who can code could still use this as a springboard to kick-start a project or even use it as a prototyping tool.

So, yes, I stand corrected. I will post a revised review since I can't delete this one.

Correction: MU won't even let me post a revised review, so I guess I will have to just regard my reply as a correction. Sorry about all this. :(