Manage updates with the Download AppFreeway Pro for Mac User Reviews
Excellent
-
"Freeway 4.1 follow up.........."
Version: Freeway Pro 4.0.1
Summary
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.
Iâ??m very frustrated right now and I have given up on FW4 for the time being after spending another full 3 days trying to finalise my simple one page newsletter (no update from previous version but build from scratch in Freeway 4).
Finally I had to surrender to this buggy BETA version of Freeway which crashes far to often and simply just wonâ??t let you work. I canâ??t even imagine what people go trough who try to build a whole site with it. I also have to agree very much to the previous review that the overall usability has changed for the worse. In many instances FW4 requires many more click as in version 3.5. So Iâ??m back using Golive for my Newsletter and have to decide what I do with my other 10 existing Freeway 3.5 sites (some with around 80 pages) as a conversion to Freeway 4 would probably require the same amount of work then rebuilding the pages in Dreamweaver or Golive.
Itâ??s a shame I love the FW approach and would wish the software would work as advertised but the question is whether I/you can afford to throw all your sites away or be prepared to spend hours and hours to fix up conversion errors due to a upgrade (that is when FW4 has the bugs ironed out and actually works as it should) Softpress what have you done? Two years to get this version out and it behaves like an early beta â?¦. -
"Freeway 4.1 impressions"
Version: Freeway Pro 4.0.1
Summary
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.
Ok first the good news Softpress definitely has the best support in the software industries (thanks for all your help guyâ??s)
I just would wish I would not need it that much.
Freeway 4 is a fairly solid beta version but in no way ready for a final release and to be honest after over 24 month development time I would have expected far more.
For 3 days I try now to get a simple news letter going without success as I constantly stumble over new problems. Have discovered around 15 bugs and inconsistencies during that time and just want to mention a few:
01. Only one step UNDO (would be nice to at least have that one step but half the things you do you actually canâ??t undo at all, like pasting a HTML item in a table cell)
02. Inconsistent navigation sometimes tab confirms an entrée in the inspector pallet other times a return is necessary to achieve that.
03. click on values in the inspector pallet will highlight values for split second so you enter you new numbers just to find out that instead of 400px you have added the 400 to the original 700px to a total number of a couple of thousand pixel.
04. style pallet is now very confusing and many clicks are involved to create a new style. Still donâ??t understand 100% the principle behind how graphic and CSS styles work in Freeway
05. If you resize a table cell up or down the window does not scroll with the cell
06. Table cells do not have a middle, top or bottom alignment
07. An empty paragraph is automatically entered if you past a HTML box in to a table cell
08. Various crashes of Freeway when switching between master and sites or preview
09. Table cells sometimes automatically change itâ??s width when importing text and cant be resized back to original size (so you have to start over again)
if a HTML box is inserted in to a table cell and width and heights is set to 100% the box appears and becomes to big for cell there is no way to undo this except resizing the table to make full html box visible again but often table afterwards cant be resized to required widths.
10. Open old site (3.5) in Freeway 4 ? Forget it none of my 10 sites would publish or preview and the conversion results to Freeway 4 often look very strange.
11. Freeway is till quite slow on a G5 Imac with 2 GB of RAM
12. Freeway is always crashing when I copy and past text from one table cell in to the next
Anyway I like Freeway and would love to use it but a task which takes me a couple of hours in Golive I still have not even nearly completed in Freeway 4 after 3 full days.
I just hoped that after such a long idle time (24 month no updates) Softpress would have come up with a more solid version of Freeway but FW 4 still needs quite some refinement and bug fixing. So hold of for another couple of month and keep working with Freeway 3.5. -
"Nice!"
Version: Freeway Pro 4.0.1
Summary
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.
Version 4 seems to have fixed most of the bits of the v3 interface that used to irritate me, especially the site view no longer being a separate palette but part of the main window now. Several times I've run across something I lamented I couldn't do...until I looked a little closer and found that I could, I'd just been looking at it with v3 eyes. It takes a while to adjust to a big change like this.
As for the 4.0.1 update: Handling of Japanese text is still a bit dodgy since the upgrade from v3.5 so I can't give it 5 stars, but the 4.0.1 update seems to have eradicated a couple of bugs that I'd been bumping my head against. So it's definitely an update you want to get your hands on.
And it'd be nice if they had an official support _forum_ rather than a clumsy ol' mailing list that's a pain to search, but you can't give the app points off for a website problem.
Overall rating: sweet! -
"Absolutely awful"
Version: Freeway Pro 4.0.1
Summary
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.
I have been a Freeway user for a number of years now and really like the product. Or at least I did until version 4. What on earth have Softpress done? This latest version is just awful and full of bugs. Having made a simple text change to an existing web site (created with Freeway 3.5 Pro) it has totally trashed it. Links show up in the wrong colour and supplementary files have been renamed, so the links no longer work.
I do expect teething troubles with new releases of software but I do not expect basic problems like this. I cannot believe this software went through any quality testing before release. -
"Freeway Rocks"
Version: Freeway Pro 4.0.1
Summary
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.
Freeway is truly the best web design tool, hands down. This new version improves on an already great tool, and from here it will only get better. -
"Excellent upgrade"
Version: Freeway Pro 4.0
Summary
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.
There are a couple of things reeway won't do, by design. One is handcoding: if you need that, go for the various flavours of Adobe, or BBEdit (small pieces of code can be placed on pages with precision, though).
The other is proper import of existing HTML. It does work sortof, but I guess what gets imported is flawed by inherited errors. Rebuilding from scratch is surprisingly fast though.
Once you have accepted the above, you will see that this product truely allows you to focus on what you want to achieve on the web, and not on how to do it.
The new version is a robust upgrade, bundled with the great FAST packs that used to be a pay for option, it does CSS, XHTML in a proper way, but it does not get in your face.
What you can achive on the pages itself (just look at the postprocessing of images!) really is great.
Highly recommended! -
"after two years developing time would have expected..."
Version: Freeway Pro 4.0p1
Summary
...more
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.
Would have expected far more after two years development time like proper integration with iPhoto like direct access to iPhoto library like in iMovie.
Speed is still pretty slow.
Windows clutter has been partially solved but could have been done much better.
Still no support for nested tables -
"Ageing imperfect frustrating tool"
Version: Freeway Pro 3.5.15
Summary
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.
I once loved this tool, but now it is a creaking, aging, imperfect and very frustrating program. It works like a non crashing beta. Undo is a complete joke - choose undo and for some operation it kinda guesses roughly sortof kinda what it was like before you did something. The failings in undo alone are enough to drive you insane. The output it produces is somewhat shady and can be known to raise errors on some modern browsers. I am ready to buy something else as this is NOT a professional tool for professionals. It is an amateur tool by amateurs. -
"What about WebMerge"
Version: Freeway Pro 3.5.15
Summary
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.
This is seriously great software allowing you to build great sites without knowing code. Very Mac.
One thing that puzzles me is how to build a Freeway site with added WebMerge content, does anyone know?
-
"Freeway Pro: Robust, Great Support, and Lacking"
Version: Freeway Pro 3.5.15
Summary
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.
I'm neither affiliated with this developer nor affiliated with any competing developer. I have no axe to grind in this review, that I'm consciously aware of.
So, I grudgingly bought Freeway Pro for the ~$300 (grudgingly, because of the high cost) plus the two expansion packs that are pretty much essential to use the app to its full ability. I realized that I needed to buid a Web site and although the price was steep, I didn't see a competitor that was cheapter. About me: I'd call myself a light-to-medium techy sort of guy. I'm an advanced OS X user, know FTP and QuickTime, but not much else. And since I couldn't hand-code, a WYSIWYG editor was essential.
ROBUST
Freeway Pro is a very stable application that has crashed once or twice on me in about forty hours of use. An incredibly helpful Knowledgebase on their Web site (on topics like QuickTime, Web colors, font usage, pop-up windows and tons of other subjects) is at your finger tips, too. This is where you'll find lots of practical tips for questions you will undoubtedly have when building your site.
This seriously feature packed software. I found the menus largely intuitive, and the features to work as advertised. I really liked the Preview function (to show your work in Safari and IE) as well as the Upload feature that lets you get your whole site uploaded without a hitch.
GREAT SUPPORT
The double-whammy of having both an incredibly well-crafted on-board Help system plus Softpress' own online Knowledgebase is powerful. I've consulted both dozens of times on dozens of different topics. I find it clear and well-written.
LACKING
This is a major nit. You can't get to the HTML code for your pages in Freeway Pro. Ever. That's right. Know a Web gal who you'd like to tweak your page or make an adjustment ot it? Well, she can without Freeway Pro...but you'l never be able to bring your page back into the program again. Of course, if she has Freeway Pro, she can mess with it as much as you want. You see, they don't let you touch your own HTML, so that creates a system that forces anyone in your production path (and involved in your Web site), to buy Freeway Pro as well. It's an unfortunate thing, of course, but it's designed to sell more copies of their software. The developer is entitled to develop anyway they want, but this makes going from HTML Code-->Freeway Pro impossible.
This is a minor nit. The templates they provide for building your site look just awful. Most uf us wouldn't be caught dead with the gross stuff that they pass of as "boilerplate" Web site fare. They could really use a graphic designer to beef up their templates. How about ones for online portfolios, ecommerce sites, doctors, students, etc.? They're just plain ugly.
Another nit is that when you upload your Web site using Freeway Pro's tool, I don't believe it's intelligent enough to do a "diff" and tell what files it needs to replace on your Web server and which ones it can leave alone. Right now, my uploads take around 20 or 30 minutes for my tiny Web site, even when I make a minor change. That's just not right and should be fixed.
I'd recommend Freeway Pro. This is quality software. I've used a lot of apps, and you can tell how much time they've put into it. A lot! I've used Dreamweaver in the past and found it more difficult to use. If you're equivocating, I'd say get Freeway Pro. Remember if you don't support the "other" developers, how will they have the resources to make better software in the future?
Add Your Review
Submit your reply
E-mail this review
Report offensive content
You must be 13 years of age or older to submit personal information to CNET Networks. In compliance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, CNET Networks does not accept name and e-mail address information from users who are under 13 years of age.
All submitted ratings and written comments become the sole property of CNET Networks, Inc. (CNET) and may be used at CNET Networks' sole discretion. Ratings and written comments are generally posted within two to four business days in batch groups, not in real time. However, CNET Networks reserves the right to remove or refuse to post any submission for any reason. You acknowledge that you, not CNET Networks, are responsible for the contents of your submission.
CNET Networks is not responsible for the content of the publisher's descriptions or user reviews on this site. We encourage you to determine whether this product or your intended use is legal. We do not encourage or condone the use of any software in violation of applicable laws. CNET Download.com does not sell, resell, or license any of the products listed on the site. We cannot be held liable for issues that arise from the download or use of these products.
