We already decided to use
Zurb Foundation, although most of the modules in X3 are independent from any frontend framework. Foundation is more style-agnostic than Bootstrap, supports SASS, and is better equipped for a website that will have its own style base without inheriting much from the framework generic styles.
honeybadger wrote:This way you would have resolved a lot of your responsive design issues; with Bootstrap, Imagevue would be responsive even if loaded as an iframe. The responsiveness would be independent of the wrapper website.
Sorry, but that is incorrect. If your website isn't responsive, it doesn't matter what is loaded into an iframe if the iframe isn't inside a responsive grid of some sort ... Furthermore, regardless of the responsiveness, we would avoid using iframes ... If anything, we would simply have html element inside your website where you would run an imagevue() javascript, and it would simply build and load everything dynamically without using an iframe. It still would out of Imagevues hands to control anything related to layout, as the best Imagevue could do, would be to fill the container it is placed within. Also, as mention in my previous post, this method is simply undesirable in terms of SEO, accessibility and sharing simply because Imagevue loses control of pages also ...
honeybadger wrote:Besides, Bootstrap is probably the most popular frontend framework out there.
Yes, and Windows is the most popular operating system ...
I don't mind Bootstrap, I just find it a bit sugar-coated and generic, and is better suited for designers who wish to skip a few steps getting a website ready. Foundation is leaner and meaner.
honeybadger wrote:I know you want to make Imagevue X3 a standalone website. But there are also a lot of us developers out there who would love to integrate Imagevue as part of our website. And I'm sure a lot of your customers belong to the second category, judging from the questions that are being asked in the forum.
Actually, I would LOVE to create a "gallery kit" that can be integrated into a website, and have wanted to do something like this for a long time. However, it gets very complicated for the reasons I posted in my previous post (and was actually WHY I posted them). This is the same reason why you simply will not find any other attractive solutions like this in the market today (which you might find strange since it is almost 2014). A bit hard to explain, but I just need to emphasize re-reading my 3 points in my previous post, which are the ONLY way to successfully embed a gallery in some way or other.
Adding an embeddable iframe-gallery is not the way in 2014 ... Even a more advanced JS solution would be inferior ... We could perhaps add galleries, thumbnails and images, but there would be several major disadvantages:
# No "pages", since your website handles this, and the module will basically be on a single page (kinda like Imagevue X2).
# Poor/no SEO, since Imagevue cant create/access pages and edit titles, and also because Google simply sees a single page.
# Imagevue flow/layout/responsiveness is left to circumstances, may easily not be responsive. At best, Imagevue could be set to flow within the container element it is added to.
# Imagevue X3 uses advanced html5/ajax dynamic loading pages, which obviously can't be used if it isn't handling the page loading.
# Menus (responsive) ... Imagevue basically stands no chance at integrating advanced responsive navigation systems when simply added into an element. For example, here is a
screenshot of the new off-canvas menu in X3, which comes in from the side of the screen and can easily be scrolled on any touch device ... in fact, it will also be an option for desktop/mouse, as it works nicely there also. Could you imagine how something like that would be integrated into an element in a website?
# Then there is stuff like swiping, fullscreen, navigation elements.
# Finally, the major headache of getting the Imagevue CSS + Javascript to work nicely with your native websites CSS + Javascript.
# The days are gone when you can cram all those elements into an element within another website and still have it act nicely across all devices.
The reasons above, are the exact same reasons why you simply can't find any good solutions for this. You might find some neat slideshows with thumbnails that can take 100% browser height, but they are not integrated with a backend or separate pages. At the other end of the tree, you can find some PHP solution that will handle the logic of listing galleries on your pages, but they will not handle the logic of how the images are viewed or navigated.
honeybadger wrote:So perhaps have one version for those who want Imagevue as a standalone website, and a stripped down version for us web developers?
This way you only need to maintain one codebase, but you'll be able to satisfy the requirements of both group.
Would love to, I'm just noting the current state of affairs, which is somewhat less fortunate ... Perhaps wait and see the early version of X3 and what its capable of, just to get some ideas? I would like to proceed with some "gallery kit" for integrating into other websites, but there are many practical hurdles ...
Appreciate your feedback!