Hi & congratulations to the webflow team!
You guys just built something amazing. I already tested all tools out there and webflow is really the best and most intuitive application to build cool html, css and smaller javscript stuff. In this context I have some critics, improvement ideas for your product and questions to the webflow team. Here we go …
1. Local application
I know that cloud solutions are currently the big thing and easy to use (no installations, no updates etc.). But from the ux perspective I don’t think that this is the best solution to build world class web applications and sites. The problem is the performance and speed. Every change needs to be synchr… Every change must be uploaded, specially for animations you can’t see how this works in the preview section. This kind of changes must be published. And this takes too much time.
Look at Pixate - a similar tool for making prototypes and animations for mobile interfaces. They started with the cloud solution like you guys. Now they have a local/desktop studio software. And compared to the cloud solution, the local version is so much better. In general I think when it comes to content creation, cloud services are the wrong approach. Imagine photoshop, illustrator and other software programs would be in a browser. This wouldn’t be a good product and experience.
So are you guys planing a local desktop software? If yes, when can we expect a release?
2. Responsive Design on big monitors
I know that there are possibilities to change the responsive design via media queries. But let’s be honest. Is this really the idea of webflow? I thought webflow was made for designers without writing code? Please add custom breakpoints in webflow. Everything else makes no sense for a designer tool.
3. PHP
Currently there is no possibility for creating php files or adding extra functionality like mysql etc. But why? Really high professional websites need such functionalities.
4. Closed platform vs open system
Currently webflow is nothing else like SquareSpace with custom html/css + some basic javascript functionalities. This only works if you are designing a small landingpage. But if you are planning a bigger project you really need to work with other frameworks, cms etc. Currently webflow isn’t working in that way. But why? Wouldn’t be great if webflow would work with any kind of frameworks and cms?
Please built a local desktop software where designers can produce high professional html/css/javascript for any kind of projects (wordpress, magento, custom system etc.).
5. Animations
Yes with webflow you can design some kind of animations. For simple animations it’s okay. But imagine you really want to make more complicated html animations - with parallax scrolling and custom webkit transitions / cubic-bezier curves etc.
To be honest, I didn’t find one amazing site under your “discovery” section which was made with webflow. The sites are okay but I didn’t find one site in the quality of Apple Music - Apple or http://aquatilis.tv/ … The reason is that this is’t possible with webflow.
The animation with webflow looks not so professional. I think that the problem is a) that there are no possibilities to create parallax scrolling (directly in webflow without writing code) and b) you can’t define custom cubice-bezier curves. Look at sites like Apple - they are not using basic cubice-bezier curves - at the end, you see the quality differences.