6 ms·

Easel Acquired by GitHub

144 points by ollysb 13y ago

skrebbel 13y ago
Congrats are in order, I guess. Yet, no promises for new features, or even vague ideas about Easel's future direction: is this a talent acquisition? If so, would it not be much more honest to your users to just make that clear?
- spicyj 13y ago
  GitHub acquired https://speakerdeck.com/ https://speakerdeck.com/ and as far as I can tell, has continued to improve it. I assume that they'll do the same with Easel.
  - captn3m0 13y ago
    GitHub actually acquired Ordered List, and one of their products was SpeakerDeck. The other products were Gauges (web analytics) and Harmony (which looks like another website builder).
  - Argorak 13y ago
    Along with speakerdecks creators (Ordered List), GitHub acquired gaug.es and Harmony. Both are still running (although gaug.es has subsequently been given to Fastest Forward in November 2013). But that is really all I can say. As a gaug.es costumer, I saw no improvement or change on the service for all the time. Basically, GitHub kept it running, but didn't exactly show love (which they admitted in their email announcing the transfer to Fastest Forward). It's better then shutting it down, but thats more the better of two evils. This was an acquihire and the didn't buy Ordered List to continue working on their products. I expect that to be the same here. Harmony doesn't seem to be cared about as well. speakerdeck isn't really changing as well, but thats okay, because its whole reason of existence is its absence of advanced features. edit: previous version sounded like I am not a gaug.es customer anymore. I still am.
    - rhinoe 13y ago
      Why do they necessarily need to improve it after they've bought it?
      - Argorak 13y ago
        Because I expect that as a a paying customer. GitHub has no obligation to improve them, sure. I am just opposing the view that GitHub is handling all this so much better. The only difference is that they leave the product stale instead of shutting it down.
isaacjohnwesley 13y ago
So Github is getting into live online editing. Good move.
- ileitch 13y ago
  My initial reaction was acquihire. Though given their recent improvements to Pages [1], this acquisition could mean a push into the Easel market space. 1: http://pages.github.com/ http://pages.github.com/ EDIT: Just to point out why this is a big deal - What percentage of new sites are mostly static, presentational? Probably a slim minority. Whilst Github can't code your site for you (yet?), giving you the tools to develop your app layer and frontend - with some as-of-yet seen integration tools? - those are some very large slices of the pie. Don't forget Github pages is currently free too, perhaps there'll be a paid tier for dynamic sites.
state 13y ago
Yet another nice looking project that I learn about after the acquisition. This has always been a tough problem to solve. Seems like they were on the right track, hopefully it will only get better as a part of GitHub.
Shank 13y ago
I absolutely love how GitHub acquires technology and people, not one or the other. It's awesome that they keep what they bought running, like Speaker Deck, and now Easel.
- winslow 13y ago
  They previously acquired Gauges (http://get.gaug.es/ http://get.gaug.es/) but didn't do anything with it and resold it. Maybe they used parts of it in their recent repo traffic analytics?
Stal3r 13y ago
Holy crap! Congrats ben!
Ihmahr 13y ago
"Since the web is viewed in a browser, we believe it should be built in one too." Seriously?
- andybak 13y ago
  And the alternative is a tool that differs in it's quirks from a browser therefore forcing you to deal with a different set of quirks when building and when in production. So yes.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
andybak 13y ago
I've checked out a bunch of these tools and they all seem rather lacking. I admit to only giving each one five minutes but they usually fail my simple test: Can I easily create a new row and add some content to it without it doing funky things (i.e. adding stupid positioning CSS that forces me to align it manually or make it look different to the rest of the page).
- tekacs 13y ago
  I've similarly only been using the tool a few minutes, but this specific example - adding an extra row without doing any extra, manual work - seems to be eminently possible with Easel (as does automatic resizing on adding/removing rows) - the magic is Bootstrap behind the scenes, but it certainly works! Hint: try creating a page using the 'Home' template and messing with the rows/columns in the centre to get a feel for it (though it seems to work on the blank canvas, too).
- callmevlad 13y ago
  Have you checked out https://webflow.com https://webflow.com? Easily passes that simple test. (I'm one of the founders.)
  - faceyspacey 13y ago
    Hey there do you know any open source tools that come close to what you are doing with in-browser editing? There must be something on GitHub that makes it so you can easily style elements on a page and absorb the CSS you added.
- laquotaq 13y ago
  Another tool: rukzuk (https://rukzuk.com/en/ https://rukzuk.com/en/)
jqueryin 13y ago
I ran through the guided demo/walk-through and was sad to see that the export to HTML/CSS contained a crap ton of ID selectors. I only played with it for 5 or 10 minutes, but I found this: Say you remove the id tag of #signup-form and change it to some arbitrary classname. The styling immediately goes away on the element! Somewhere there's a hard-coded style on the ID selector for the purposes of a pretty demo. This doesn't sit well with me.. You can see this is true when you click on the "Edit Project CSS" from the top menu item. I should've been able to change that ID to a class or combination of classes and not affect the styling on the fly. Likewise, I'm a bit concerned what would happen by adding several classes. It doesn't appear as though they're each uniquely and independently tied to their own styles via the right adjusted area. If you want to do anything non-trivial, I believe you're stuck with manually entering the CSS in the "Edit Project CSS" pane on your own, which is worse than using your own IDE with automated updates in the browser via LESS, SCSS, SASS, HAML, Stylus, etc. All I'm trying to say is better handling of classes would be much appreciated for those of us who prefer to try and widgetize and create reusable components. Beyond that, it looks nice :)
- ryanSrich 13y ago
  That's really the issue with most new wysiwyg editors. FWIW Macaw seems to attack this problem head on (http://macaw.co/ http://macaw.co/)
  - callmevlad 13y ago
    Relevant discussion on Macaw's use of absolute positioning: http://forum.macaw.co/discussion/64/absolute-positioning-and-margins http://forum.macaw.co/discussion/64/absolute-positioning-and...
paulftw 13y ago
Time will tell why they bought Easel, for now it seems Github decided to go after Dribble (or geocities?)
- sim0n 13y ago
  Maybe so that they can offer in-browser designing similar to how they offer in-browser code editing via Ace Editor?
GrinningFool 13y ago
Showing my age. My first thought upon reading this was "holy crap, Easel[1] is still around?!" [1] http://www.thefreelibrary.com/VMARK+SOFTWARE,+INC.+AND+EASEL+CORP.+TO+MERGE%3B+Easel+Posts...-a016333164 http://www.thefreelibrary.com/VMARK+SOFTWARE,+INC.+AND+EASEL... - I can't find a better link. Easel was a '4gl' in the early-mid 90s (and maybe late 80s), one of the earlier event-driven UI programming languages. It was kludgy and annoying to code for, but ahead of its time in a lot of ways.
rwebb 13y ago
congrats ben and matt!
hangonhn 13y ago
Are there other services out there like Easel?
- callmevlad 13y ago
  Yes, plenty: https://webflow.com https://webflow.com (I work here), https://jetstrap.com https://jetstrap.com, http://froont.com/ http://froont.com/, http://www.divshot.com/ http://www.divshot.com/
  - faceyspacey 13y ago
    Do you know any that are open source that come close to the capabilities of these? Perhaps the open source tools these guys are using??
  - hangonhn 13y ago
    Hm... Not exactly what I was looking for. I care more about being able to quickly mock-up the UI and the interactions and being able to give and get comments on the different elements of the mock up. I don't need someone to generate the CSS and HTML for me.
loceng 13y ago
This is a logical extension to supporting the Github ecosystem. The relatively massive amount of investment money they received was a signal that this would happen. I also can see a few other plays possible, and if they do them well, they could become a $10B company. They will have some stiff competition - whoever has a better vision will win though. Execution and the time it takes doesn't really matter in this instance, as it's such a broad play. If I end up having the time, maybe I'll jump into the game. Congrats to Easel. Checking out the product. Hopefully they include it in Github's monthly fee. :)
saool 13y ago
It might be a naive question, but having read on how GitHub works (holacracy, no management and all that), how a decision like this is made and sanctioned.
loceng 13y ago
Does anyone know what they're using for the Tour steps?
- callmevlad 13y ago
  It's a library they built in-house: https://github.com/easelinc/tourist https://github.com/easelinc/tourist
  - loceng 13y ago
    Awesome. Thank you. :)
adrianlmm 13y ago
Well, it doesn't work on IE11.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

144 points by ollysb 13y ago

Congrats are in order, I guess. Yet, no promises for new features, or even vague ideas about Easel's future direction: is this a talent acquisition? If so, would it not be much more honest to your users to just make that clear?

spicyj 13y ago
GitHub acquired https://speakerdeck.com/ https://speakerdeck.com/ and as far as I can tell, has continued to improve it. I assume that they'll do the same with Easel.
- captn3m0 13y ago
  GitHub actually acquired Ordered List, and one of their products was SpeakerDeck. The other products were Gauges (web analytics) and Harmony (which looks like another website builder).
- Argorak 13y ago
  Along with speakerdecks creators (Ordered List), GitHub acquired gaug.es and Harmony. Both are still running (although gaug.es has subsequently been given to Fastest Forward in November 2013). But that is really all I can say. As a gaug.es costumer, I saw no improvement or change on the service for all the time. Basically, GitHub kept it running, but didn't exactly show love (which they admitted in their email announcing the transfer to Fastest Forward). It's better then shutting it down, but thats more the better of two evils. This was an acquihire and the didn't buy Ordered List to continue working on their products. I expect that to be the same here. Harmony doesn't seem to be cared about as well. speakerdeck isn't really changing as well, but thats okay, because its whole reason of existence is its absence of advanced features. edit: previous version sounded like I am not a gaug.es customer anymore. I still am.
  - rhinoe 13y ago
    Why do they necessarily need to improve it after they've bought it?
    - Argorak 13y ago
      Because I expect that as a a paying customer. GitHub has no obligation to improve them, sure. I am just opposing the view that GitHub is handling all this so much better. The only difference is that they leave the product stale instead of shutting it down.

isaacjohnwesley 13y ago

So Github is getting into live online editing. Good move.

ileitch 13y ago
My initial reaction was acquihire. Though given their recent improvements to Pages [1], this acquisition could mean a push into the Easel market space. 1: http://pages.github.com/ http://pages.github.com/ EDIT: Just to point out why this is a big deal - What percentage of new sites are mostly static, presentational? Probably a slim minority. Whilst Github can't code your site for you (yet?), giving you the tools to develop your app layer and frontend - with some as-of-yet seen integration tools? - those are some very large slices of the pie. Don't forget Github pages is currently free too, perhaps there'll be a paid tier for dynamic sites.

state 13y ago

Yet another nice looking project that I learn about after the acquisition. This has always been a tough problem to solve. Seems like they were on the right track, hopefully it will only get better as a part of GitHub.

Shank 13y ago

I absolutely love how GitHub acquires technology and people, not one or the other. It's awesome that they keep what they bought running, like Speaker Deck, and now Easel.

winslow 13y ago
They previously acquired Gauges (http://get.gaug.es/ http://get.gaug.es/) but didn't do anything with it and resold it. Maybe they used parts of it in their recent repo traffic analytics?

Stal3r 13y ago

Holy crap! Congrats ben!

Ihmahr 13y ago

"Since the web is viewed in a browser, we believe it should be built in one too." Seriously?

andybak 13y ago
And the alternative is a tool that differs in it's quirks from a browser therefore forcing you to deal with a different set of quirks when building and when in production. So yes.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

andybak 13y ago

I've checked out a bunch of these tools and they all seem rather lacking. I admit to only giving each one five minutes but they usually fail my simple test: Can I easily create a new row and add some content to it without it doing funky things (i.e. adding stupid positioning CSS that forces me to align it manually or make it look different to the rest of the page).

tekacs 13y ago
I've similarly only been using the tool a few minutes, but this specific example - adding an extra row without doing any extra, manual work - seems to be eminently possible with Easel (as does automatic resizing on adding/removing rows) - the magic is Bootstrap behind the scenes, but it certainly works! Hint: try creating a page using the 'Home' template and messing with the rows/columns in the centre to get a feel for it (though it seems to work on the blank canvas, too).
callmevlad 13y ago
Have you checked out https://webflow.com https://webflow.com? Easily passes that simple test. (I'm one of the founders.)
- faceyspacey 13y ago
  Hey there do you know any open source tools that come close to what you are doing with in-browser editing? There must be something on GitHub that makes it so you can easily style elements on a page and absorb the CSS you added.
laquotaq 13y ago
Another tool: rukzuk (https://rukzuk.com/en/ https://rukzuk.com/en/)

jqueryin 13y ago

I ran through the guided demo/walk-through and was sad to see that the export to HTML/CSS contained a crap ton of ID selectors. I only played with it for 5 or 10 minutes, but I found this: Say you remove the id tag of #signup-form and change it to some arbitrary classname. The styling immediately goes away on the element! Somewhere there's a hard-coded style on the ID selector for the purposes of a pretty demo. This doesn't sit well with me.. You can see this is true when you click on the "Edit Project CSS" from the top menu item. I should've been able to change that ID to a class or combination of classes and not affect the styling on the fly. Likewise, I'm a bit concerned what would happen by adding several classes. It doesn't appear as though they're each uniquely and independently tied to their own styles via the right adjusted area. If you want to do anything non-trivial, I believe you're stuck with manually entering the CSS in the "Edit Project CSS" pane on your own, which is worse than using your own IDE with automated updates in the browser via LESS, SCSS, SASS, HAML, Stylus, etc. All I'm trying to say is better handling of classes would be much appreciated for those of us who prefer to try and widgetize and create reusable components. Beyond that, it looks nice :)

ryanSrich 13y ago
That's really the issue with most new wysiwyg editors. FWIW Macaw seems to attack this problem head on (http://macaw.co/ http://macaw.co/)
- callmevlad 13y ago
  Relevant discussion on Macaw's use of absolute positioning: http://forum.macaw.co/discussion/64/absolute-positioning-and-margins http://forum.macaw.co/discussion/64/absolute-positioning-and...

paulftw 13y ago

Time will tell why they bought Easel, for now it seems Github decided to go after Dribble (or geocities?)

sim0n 13y ago
Maybe so that they can offer in-browser designing similar to how they offer in-browser code editing via Ace Editor?

GrinningFool 13y ago

Showing my age. My first thought upon reading this was "holy crap, Easel[1] is still around?!" [1] http://www.thefreelibrary.com/VMARK+SOFTWARE,+INC.+AND+EASEL+CORP.+TO+MERGE%3B+Easel+Posts...-a016333164 http://www.thefreelibrary.com/VMARK+SOFTWARE,+INC.+AND+EASEL... - I can't find a better link. Easel was a '4gl' in the early-mid 90s (and maybe late 80s), one of the earlier event-driven UI programming languages. It was kludgy and annoying to code for, but ahead of its time in a lot of ways.

rwebb 13y ago

congrats ben and matt!

hangonhn 13y ago

Are there other services out there like Easel?

callmevlad 13y ago
Yes, plenty: https://webflow.com https://webflow.com (I work here), https://jetstrap.com https://jetstrap.com, http://froont.com/ http://froont.com/, http://www.divshot.com/ http://www.divshot.com/
- faceyspacey 13y ago
  Do you know any that are open source that come close to the capabilities of these? Perhaps the open source tools these guys are using??
- hangonhn 13y ago
  Hm... Not exactly what I was looking for. I care more about being able to quickly mock-up the UI and the interactions and being able to give and get comments on the different elements of the mock up. I don't need someone to generate the CSS and HTML for me.

loceng 13y ago

This is a logical extension to supporting the Github ecosystem. The relatively massive amount of investment money they received was a signal that this would happen. I also can see a few other plays possible, and if they do them well, they could become a $10B company. They will have some stiff competition - whoever has a better vision will win though. Execution and the time it takes doesn't really matter in this instance, as it's such a broad play. If I end up having the time, maybe I'll jump into the game. Congrats to Easel. Checking out the product. Hopefully they include it in Github's monthly fee. :)

saool 13y ago

It might be a naive question, but having read on how GitHub works (holacracy, no management and all that), how a decision like this is made and sanctioned.

loceng 13y ago

Does anyone know what they're using for the Tour steps?

callmevlad 13y ago
It's a library they built in-house: https://github.com/easelinc/tourist https://github.com/easelinc/tourist
- loceng 13y ago
  Awesome. Thank you. :)

adrianlmm 13y ago

Well, it doesn't work on IE11.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]