Hi, I'm just looking for a bit of feedback on which program to buy for responsive site design.

First off, I'm a very happy owner of The HTML Editor (THE). Nothing I've tried comes close to this for ease of use and quick editing, design, bug fixing HTML & CSS. I love this program, it has earned its keep 10x over.

However, I'm now looking to move into responsive site design in a serious way and I'm looking for responsive equivalent of THE. I've looked at RLM and played with the demo, but it's not what I'm looking for. I need a program where I create a responsive layout, then add design HTML, CSS & JS without having to export to another program. I suppose what I'm looking for is a program called 'The Responsive HTML Editor (TRHE)... lol.

I've read the Responsive Site Designer thread and it sounds close to what I'm looking for. But... there's no release date, & from what I can gather from the developer feedback. We're looking optimistically at early 2015 for a possible release.

So I've done a bit of research and the only program that I've found that appears close to my holy grail of 'TRHE' is a program called Pinegrow. I'd prefer to wait and see what RSD has to offer, but realistically, I think I'd be looking at a 5-6 month wait, and I need to get up to speed with responsive site design now.

My question; to users of THE & RLM how does this combination compare with using an (almost) one-stop solution like Pinegrow or similar programs for responsive site design? Any views or feedback would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Hi Norman. Thought I'd drop in and add my opinion. First off, I am not a hard coder. I know just enough to be dangerous. But I have looked at the RLM and read many many posts about it. There are a ton of example videos popping up from users who just love this program. Having to create your layout in RLM then exporting the contents is just the same as saving your layout. You then open the layout in your HTML editor (that you say you love) and finish your site. Seems like a good match!

I took a quick look at Pinegrow. I will take a harder look. But, first impression is not so good. Here's why. RLM makes a 'true' responsive layout that is fluid in design. This means that it will adapt to a viewers screen size based on the device they access your web page from. Responsive. What Pinegrow seems to do, and many others including Xara and Serif, is allow you to create 3 different versions of the same site. Yes easily and yes based on the master page, but still three sites. Then they 'flip' between sites based on the users screen size. This is not responsive, it just looks that way.

So I guess the decision is yours. But looking to the future I think those type of sites have a limited lifetime whereas a true responsive site will last you a lifetime. My opinion.

Hi Gunsmoke,

I haven't used Pinegrow or RLM to build a responsive site. But I have imported and edited a responsive site based on Bootstrap into The HTML Editor (THE) to try to get a feel for working with responsive code. I didn't find the process intuitive or easy. I'm still struggling trying to get my head around responsive HTML/CSS.

The problem I'm having with THE is that it's not built for responsive sites. Yes it gives you total access to the coding, but I need something that can guide me through the process while I'm still learning. I'm aware of 3 popular frameworks Bootstrap 3, Foundation and 360 Grid. However, what the real-world pluses and minuses of each these are I couldn't tell you. That's where a Responsive HTML editor type program would come in.

Ok for example, with a THE/RLM combination say I was halfway through a project and I wanted to change the breakpoints of a layout. Would I have to edit the code in THE? Or could I just export to RLM, amend the breakpoints in RLM, then re-import the responsive layout back into THE, and carry on from where I left off?

I do understand that in principle you can create a layout in RLM, import into THE and complete the project. Unfortunately as we all know site design is rarely that linear or straightforward. Being able to use one program just removes a number of import/re-import issues. I hope you can see what I'm trying to get at?

Actually, I do. Steve or Adam might better answer this but my impression is that if you go back to RLM and modify the layout, you then have to insert your html again. Having said that, I would think you could copy/paste your html changes back into the new RLM export. I may be wrong. Hopefully Steve or someone using RLM will jump in. Sorry I couldn't be more help.

Hey Norman,

You could do either. Personally I would edit the project in RLM and reexport as it would be faster and easier to do so. That is why you need to make sure your project is done in RLM before you export to the HTML Editor.

I think though that you are looking at this the wrong way. RLM allows you to finish 90% of your website right in the program. There is only 10% left to do when you export to the Editor.

Give it a try rather than working with a Bootstrap theme.

Yes I totally agree. The only thing you should ever need HTML Editor is for adding your menus, picture galleries and any custom iframes. Any changes that you need to make to the formatting should be done in a separate css file. I like to create a custom.css file and store it with the other css files. If i need to add some customization that RLMP doesn't allow me to do I will modify my custom.css.

There is no reason at all that you should need to modify the breakpoints outside of RLMP! That is the beauty of this application, why mess with that coding when you don't have too.

As for the Responsive HTML Editor, well HTML editor is just that, an editor. I think you may be a little confused. HTML Editor is used to modify/create code. The code you use will make a webpage responsive. As Adam mentioned you could use HTML Editor and create different breakpoints using media queries but why would you. Especially if you are more of a none coder.

I hope I haven't confused you more

Ok guys thanks for the feedback... Btw, is it possible to import a non-responsive site into RLM in order to edit the code to make it responsive?

It's becoming a lot clearer now... the feedback has been very, very useful. I believe I've underestimated the amount of design work that could be done within RLM before having to export to another program. When I installed the RLM trial I assumed you could only create a very basic responsive framework, then all the HTML/CSS design work had to be carried out in the HTML Editor or similar. Can I just download, reinstall the trial to take another look?

You can not import an existing website into RLM. You have to create it in the program so that all the responsiveness magic can happen.



There is only a 7 day trial for the program and we have no way to extend it. You can try it on another computer to see if it is something you are interested in though.

All I can say, you won't go wrong wih RLM. Soon as we know Zurb's Foundation and bootstrap 3 framework will be implemented then RLM will be 3 in 1 application plus you can import and edit with promised future application RSD.

I personally love it because event at current version makes job lots easier and saves lots of time for me.

I use RLM and THE in combo and love it. This link takes you to a post that will help you get a handle on learning to use RLM. It may be more basic than you need, but it might help.
http://www.coffeecup.com/forums/respons … out-maker/

Here is the process that I use so that the two programs work together.
1. I create everything I can in RLM. All the breakpoints should be set by the time I'm done with this step.
2. I set up my folder that will hold the web site I am creating. I create another folder in there called RLM.
3. I export into the RLM folder.
4. I copy the generated html pages to the root folder and change the links to the stylesheets and javascripts so that they link directly to the exported stylesheets and javascripts in RLM.

Now I'm free to edit the html pages. If I need to make a change in RLM, I make the change and re-export. Since my html pages link to the exported stylesheets, there's no need to change anything on the html pages. I'm sure you will find that each person has their own way of doing things, but this works great for me.

Lastly, my best advice is that it takes time to learn RLM. If you want to speed up the learning curve, begin relating the things you know to the processes in RLM. For example, to set the headings (1-6), you don't need to create a new class for them. In RLM, change the CSS for each heading type (instead of class or id). Take time to use the software; the more you do, the more you will find.

Cheers!