note: I did provide a simple sloppy solution at the bottom of this novel. But what needs to happen IS going to happen. Why?
J.....D.......I.
Sorry Adobe, but you're gonna be busy next Friday. Every Friday. Forever. But we love you for it
My humble opinions
From a customer benefit point of view, a wordpress template that they can update themselves isn't possible in Muse as far as I know, but it's nice to be able to design a site to specific standards when the customer is picky and too involved.
I know better than to let this happen but it happens regardless when you're a small fry in this business.
From a dev point of view I think it's pretty good for my level of coding:
(HTML, CSS, I'm loving these widgets, barely understand Javascript, PHP, Actionscript, and Python, my SEO and hosting skills are good and up to date for small sites and local ranking.)
I haven't NOT been able to find a widget for everything I've been requested to integrate,. There are so many and more every day. But many times the look and feel of the widget is an issue for the client. And most often, the ability for them to manage content is a deal breaker with many clients.
From a design point of view, It KICKS ***. I already had years of InDesign, Dreamweaver, PS, AI, and recently Behance and Prosite under my belt and I have the full CC suite. So the first time I used Muse.......I cried a little....out of joy. Oh the webfonts....sniff sniff....and the Jquery.....it's....so beautiful....and I'm done with this entire site in 7 hours...
Now in 2015 I'm diving into Wordpress (don't ask why. It's a long story and you wouldn't care)
I'm seeing the real difference now, and someone please correct my if I'm wrong or missing something. Or anything. I want to know everything. Teach me.
1. SEO. Wordpress in combination with techniques using google analytics and adwords is GUARANTEED to give better rankings and overall has stronger tools for achieving this.
2. Wordpress (if you get a theme that comes with the editing functions) has a very intuitive interface for clients who want to manage and update their own client. I've been pleasantly surprised while simultaneously horrified at how many clients are asking for this. I guess anyone who has basic CURRENT computer skills and has worked with some kind of database or cms is pretty confident with using wordpress on their own hosting account. Im learning their is a browser based editor too so they can make changes from anywhere anytime. I love it when they make a hideous graphic to save a buck and stamp it on the home page header of their site when I'm trying to use it as portfolio content. The robots are getting stronger every day, but they have no souls.
3. Wordpress has wayyyyyy more widgets and other ways of integrating stuff. BIG stuff. Lots and lots of BIG companies using it and involving 3rd 4th and 5th party B2B SAS WYSIWYG CMS CRM ...ok I'll stop now hehe. Just sayin theirs thousands of businesses that speialize in making things and stuff for other businesses that have wordpress sites.
BUT I do see Muse-based things and stuff piling up. Maybe it'll get there soon?....Or sell out and bow down to Wordpress in some way? I'm watching but not waiting.
SOLUTION:
It's not much, but if you have a client that is already in wordpress and wants you to take over the site, clean it up, change a bunch of stuff, and manage it on your end, try this:
1. use a HTML to PDF maker and snatch each page off the web so you don't have to get every little piece of code from them. Screenshots aren't perfect enough. the pdf will be the exact same pixel size.
2.drop the pdf into a layer in muse and use it as a cheat sheet to trace and re-create the entire site from scratch! Sounds stupid at first, but if you're good at graphics and know enough front end code stuff, the process will go quickly...So quickly that you might actually cry a little if you were there in the days of HTML 1 and HotDog and Homesite.
Even if there's forms, search functions, slide shows, eCommerce, maps, a database full of images or blog entries,
Muse can either do it or work with it. The capability is there for most of the intermediate stuff other than blogs and image galleries.
So as long as the client wants YOU to manage content and make future updates, and the site's not as big as ebay or sony, it is doable. I've even found ways of pulling the wordpress code from an old site and putting it into muse and vice-versa. It's on Youtube if you look hard enough. But I don't recommend doing this. There's too many things that can go wrong, or come up later to make you have to turn back. I DO recommend using Dreamweaver and CSS Designer if you want more control out of Muse. I haven't needed to yet but I found ways of doing that on...you guessed it. Youtube.
Dear Adobe,
Thank you for making Muse.
I like it very much.
I like you very much.
I've been using much of you since the 90's and you have been wonderful. And thank you for buying Macromedia and Syntrillium. Adobe Audition is now delightfully beast when it comes to editing hip-hop vocals and cleaning up news interviews recorded outdoors during a 50mph dust storm and the talent has a sinus infection as well as 2 terrible kids on the set. (MCs ask me why I do all the tracking and editing in Audtion instead of ProTools or Ableton......one word.....Ghost Hunters.)
But....
I have one tiny little request to make. I'm sure it won't be a big deal to make happen. And little Timmy has cancer so please hurry....
1. Can you please continue to update Muse as often as possible with features to make it integrate better with wordpress sites that have been brought in? And add features that allow you to work with all the most popular 3rd and 4th party tools that are being used with Wordpress? And keep all this inside the Muse editing environment. And can you please add CSS Designer to Muse? Or something more than just downloading the code and putting it back in? Maybe just put Dreamweaver inside Muse as a little pop-up handler for when you want to mess with the code? Maybe a JQuery WYSIWYG handler too inside the Dreamweaver inside Muse? Also can you please round up all the information put out by people outside of Adobe and Lynda and all the popular Muse tutorial sites that pertains to workarounds for dealing with Wordpress in BOTH directions (wp to muse, muse to wp) then update muse to accommodate them so we don't have to? CSS 3 did it. Remember IE6 compatibility hacks? I'm sure you could do this one late Friday night easily.
And once you've fixed all the necessary integration issues between wp and muse and all 3rd and 4th party apps and services and have added editing capabilities within the Muse environment (like the widget control panel but one for every wp app, service, and workaround, could you please provide all CC members with an entire video library of your own explaining how to use all the new features and how wp works, and have Lynda do the same? And can we please have a free full membership to Lynda for being CC members? We're totally worth it. You're so rich and powerful now and it's because of people like us that convinced the company they worked for in the early 2000's to buy me InDesign 1.0 because it was better than Quark and will be the next big thing. The Director of Marketing laughed and said no so I BOUGHT MY OWN COPY. ...um...digressed....
Oh ya.
It's because of people like us that love and cherish your products that any and all competition to Adobe is pretty much considered a niche program or is gobbled up by Adobe faster than honey badger. Adobe is more powerful than many entire nations on planet earth and probably gets to write exact scripts for network news anchors to read whenever they're mentioned. A list.
And after you do all that can you just go ahead and buy wordpress? I know it would be a lot of wasted work to not just buy wp first but there's a lot of politics involved and a lot a peoples feelings would get hurt. So please make muse do all that stuff first then buy wp for us.
Love, Matt
PS, Thank you so much for putting a Recover function in this blog entry part of the site! I accidentally hit something on my stupid glide pad after the word "us" on the last paragraph. XOXOXOXOXO!!!