
Google Web Designer (2013) - chenster
https://www.google.com/webdesigner/
======
themodelplumber
I just checked out the included templates. At least the first 20-30 are all ad
templates, one of which is a full-screen mobile interstitial! That's the same
element that just got an SEO finger wag from the Google Webmaster Central
Blog[0].

_Just_ as the list of templates started getting interesting with some Youtube
slider-thing integration, it came to an end. So yeah, this seems to be aimed
at folks who need to build ads quickly and don't want to have to be HTML5
pros.

With that said, there's a "my templates" feature so maybe you can use it to
maintain your Star Trek fan website, or business portfolio website, too. I'd
just hesitate to recommend that in general, as my experience with GUI HTML5
builders has been that they aren't the best IDEs or text editors and I really
quickly start to need one in order to be efficient.

[0] [https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/08/helping-users-
easi...](https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/08/helping-users-easily-
access-content-on.html)

~~~
lstamour
This tool was announced in 2013 by a different part of the company:
[https://doubleclick-
advertisers.googleblog.com/2013/09/googl...](https://doubleclick-
advertisers.googleblog.com/2013/09/google-web-designer-beta-now-
available.html?m=1)

~~~
username223
Wow, that link is a truly amazing advertiser buzzword salad; it even has an
on-brand "up and to the right" graph. It makes me long for the days when
disabling Flash and pop-ups got rid of most web annoyances.

~~~
logicallee
I only clicked through due to your comment, I wanted to see what you were
talking about. You weren't kidding! I think I handle marketing speak pretty
okay, but this:

>Build beautiful HTML5 creative with ease.

creative _what_ \- repeated later, "However, even though the amount of mobile
and tablet work is expected to increase, cross-screen creative can be
difficult to adopt".

This just hurts so much. They don't want to call it "content" because ... it
doesn't qualify as such? It's just -- "some creative."

If it were a noun instead of an adjective it would seem okay for me but this
is just too marketing.

~~~
username223
The whole site is a treasure, the apogee of marketers marketing to lesser
marketers: "Today we’re excited to announce new DoubleClick precision
marketing innovations..."

Including this: "a new JavaScript API in Google Chrome, called Intersection
Observer, which provides viewability measurement for your mobile and desktop
web placements without the need for Flash. Built directly into the Chrome
Browser, Intersection Observer improves viewability coverage for all video and
display formats across screens by solving technical challenges associated with
mobile viewability measurement. It also provides faster browsing and less
battery drain, improving the consumer experience."

I don't use a web browser built by an ad company, but what does this mean in
human language?

~~~
shostack
The negativity is really uncalled for. You could simply say "I don't
understand, and haven't bothered to Google for 5 seconds what some of these
confusing terms mean--can someone please clarify?"

This stuff is all geared at advertisers who want better tools for designing
ads and landing pages, and publishers who want to create ad supported sites
more easily. So they are using industry jargon that people in the space (like
myself) will be familiar with. Yes it is "marketing to marketers" (not sure
about the lesser remark), but that doesn't make it any less specific.

I'm not sure which specific page you are referencing, but this is all
technical advertising jargon that means very specific things.

"Viewability" is a technical term referencing whether an impression is viewed
by a user. As advertisers increasingly demand more transparency around ad
inventory quality from publishers, viewability is a newer metric that the
industry looks at. Here's a good starting point from the IAB for how they
classify it [1].

Determining whether an ad has been in view has some technical challenges which
you might be familiar with if you know much about front-end stuff. At a quick
glance of your quote, this references improving the way a pages viewability of
ads is measured on mobile by removing the need for Flash for sites to signal
"hey, this ad impression is viewable (and thus more valuable)!" Flash bad,
this good.

Here's some further reading[2] on the technical challenges from a company that
handles inventory where these metrics are a factor.

Look, we get it, you don't like marketing. And yeah, my industry can lay it on
thick sometimes, but this is about as poor an example of that as it gets.

[1] [https://www.iab.com/guidelines/state-of-viewability-
transact...](https://www.iab.com/guidelines/state-of-viewability-
transaction-2015/)

[2] [http://productblog.appnexus.com/evolution-of-viewability-
mea...](http://productblog.appnexus.com/evolution-of-viewability-measurement-
brought-to-you-by-the-death-of-flash/)

~~~
FussyZeus
So since you're either a marketer or someone who works closely with them at
least, I have a serious question. Why can't you guys be happy with simple,
unintrusive text ads on websites? Why do you need to bombard people with
autoplay video, audio, etc. and annoy them to death? I have never heard of a
single consumer who enjoys this experience yet it's employed by everyone.

~~~
Daviey
Nobody enjoys getting email spam, but it is still very popular.. why? Because
it still works.

Marketers aren't dumb.. they wouldn't invest so heavily in this if it wasn't
effective.

~~~
hueving
>Marketers aren't dumb.. they wouldn't invest so heavily in this if it wasn't
effective.

So they're just unethical? Your logic can be used to justify a bunch of
terrible things.

>Nobody enjoys getting raped, but it is still very popular.. why? Because it
still works.

>Nobody enjoys getting scammed, but it is still very popular.. why? Because it
still works.

>Nobody enjoys getting robbed, but it is still very popular.. why? Because it
still works.

~~~
Daviey
No.. this is an unreasonable argument. Whilst you might think garish adverts
are unsavoury, I don't think you should compare it to illegal and terrible
things such as rape.

------
vcool07
Could any expert shed any information on why we lack a professional front-end
WYSIWYG kind of editor for the web ? I remember tools like
dreamweaver/frontpage existed a long time ago, but don't hear about them
anymore. Is it something that's too hard to make or is it just that the market
doesn't exist ?

~~~
c-smile
Last 10 years I am in the business of making WYSIWYG editors of various kinds.
Yet I am an author of BlockNote.net HTML WYSIWYG editor (it is pretty old but
works up until W7).

HTML/CSS WYSIWYG editing from mathematician point of view:

Second main task of a browser is: by having given HTML/CSS to produce set of
pixels on window's surface.

On other side WYSIWYG editor is aimed to solve opposite task: from desired set
of pixels (those ones you want to get) to restore/produce acceptable HTML/CSS
combination.

The problem is that the task can be accomplished only with pure HTML. As soon
as you add CSS to the equation acceptable WYSIWYG becomes barely possible: the
same set of pixels (rendering on the screen) can be achieved in many different
ways. Layout can use floats, absolute positioning, flexes and grids recently,
etc.

Direct task (rendering) is perfectly formalize-able and solvable (HTML5 and
CSS specs) - we have at least three independent implementations of these
formalizations.

But opposite task (HTML/CSS structure synthesis from given image) has no
determined solution.

And so different WYSIWYG systems use different approximations.

Like Microsoft Word, it produces HTML/CSS documents that are pretty close to
what you just saw in it, but that HTML/CSS is barely readable and reusable as
HTML/CSS. Others produce readable HTML but rendering is far from what you want
to see.

Therefore "ideal" WYSIWYG editing of HTML/CSS is not achieavable in principle.
You need to give up something - either WYSIWYG quality per se or feature set.
Like you can have WYSIWYG editing but for editable text alike islands: content
area of your blog site for example.

~~~
dualogy
Interesting thoughts!

> Therefore "ideal" WYSIWYG editing of HTML/CSS is not achieavable in
> principle.

I think users just need to be (made) aware that any & all web pages' design is
_always_ "template/theme"-driven. Even in the absence of CSS: the browser then
falls back on its unique user stylesheets / factory defaults (black Times in
unpredictable font-size on white background, unless maybe hi-contrast
accessibility setup has the colors reversed, unless, unless, etc..)

MS Word-style "WYSIWYG" looks like a "simpler" problem in this respect because
a piece of paper is a piece of paper (not really though as printing settings
can easily mess with what what-they-saw-they-thought-they'd-get). Any sane
web-page WYSIWYG must separate the content-formatting-without-tags
(bold/italic/a picture floating to the right/etc) from style editing --- so
will be essentially (at least) really "2 editors" (in 1).

Now as the user quickly grasps this intuitively after just a bit of tinkering,
I don't really see the issue anymore?

------
politician
It looks like they are positioning this as an efficient way to create ad
units, not entire websites. Maybe it should be called Google Ad Designer?

~~~
linkmotif
That was my first thought. If so, maybe this will make those ads suck less?

~~~
ourcat
there is no way on earth a full page interstitial/popup could suck less.

~~~
cbr
Close buttons could work reliably

------
johnhenry
Just wanted to point out that this has been out for quite some time with
little updates. If you click "Download Web Designer Beta", in the top-right
corner, you'll see a note saying that the page hasn't been modified since
April, 2014. Nonetheless, it could be a cool product -- if only Google decides
to move forward with it.

~~~
kyrra
That's the date of the TOS. It looks like this product has been around a
while. The latest build is dated Nov 16, 2016 as far as I can tell (they don't
date the release notes). The first release goes back to Oct 1, 2013.

release notes:
[https://support.google.com/webdesigner/answer/7218073?hl=en&...](https://support.google.com/webdesigner/answer/7218073?hl=en&ref_topic=6350071)

HN post when it launched:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6470426](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6470426)

------
waterflame
I've been using this tool since a year now to quickly build HTML5 banners for
DoubleClick. 1- the software was way too buggy than it is now, yet, it still
is, and updates aren't that frequent. 2- all objects are positioned absolute,
even though you can choose to create a responsive banner. 3- for me, it's
perfect for ads, and handles animations pretty well (it uses CSS animations)
4- you can always access the generated code and modify it once you understand
how it works. 5- I would never use it to create anything other than ads. 6-
the UI sucks, especially when the biggest part of the process is adding
assets, modifying their properties or settings their CSS, and you constantly
have to resize the accordion drawers.

~~~
dagge
Would be interesting to hear your thoughts on
[https://tweenui.com/animator](https://tweenui.com/animator)

------
hkdobrev
I was wondering if this is the same software which was announced years ago and
it was still in beta or it's a new software that's in beta. I've found I've
personally added the record to Homebrew Cask in 2013 -
[https://github.com/caskroom/homebrew-
cask/commit/429e430a622...](https://github.com/caskroom/homebrew-
cask/commit/429e430a622420a9952ddddf8b48b32a315f1126)

------
tonyhb
This has been out for around 5 years. I remember installing this at an ad
agency I worked at when HTML5 ads were barely a thing.

At this point they probably have a small team working on it for sake of their
ad division but people here shouldn't into this too much.

------
ourcat
Having lived through the birth (and death) of HotDog / Dreamweaver / Frontpage
etc. my biggest concern here is "HTML soup".

My next biggest concern is that these tools don't really teach people much
about how the web works and also that marketer-types tend to over-use these
tools with their new-found 'skills' and build over-bloated sites.

HTML is _easy_.

~~~
ff10
TIL that Dreamweaver is still being marketed.

------
sandGorgon
+1000 Cross platform including Linux. I hope this tool gets traction and goes
beyond html5 to mobile design as well.

------
keyle
Interesting product. There is a huge demand for it and I'm not sure what Adobe
ended up doing and if it works well. Interesting these products that come so
late to the party, to fix the gap left by Flash (it had timeline animations
etc. like so) for html5.

------
t3ra
So its not targeted towards making "pages" more towards just making HTML5
banners. I guess just trying to replace flash banners with HTML5 ones

The templates are all for banners and the tools for making say a "div" are not
there.

------
mochidusk
I'm currently building a browser-based WYSIWYG to make book covers. I've tried
SVG and Canvas but it's terrible for implementing multi-line text. Trying to
add kerning, tracking was almost impossible.

Not sure if anyone's heard of Readymag[0], but I'm really impressed with their
editor - and it has excellent typography tools and UI.

Anyway, what I've noticed is that now many people are abandoning their own
websites & blogs in favor of a centralized service such as Medium, Instagram,
etc.. I remember a few years ago there were alot of fashion bloggers and now
they're all on Instagram, updating daily. People have lost interest in
designing, building, maintaining their own sites because it's too much work
for the average person. Not to mention traffic going to the individual sites
are neglible compared to social media. When posting a photo on your own site
gets 10 visitors, but that same photo garners hundreds of likes on somebody
else's platform, then you're going to be spending time on that platform.

[0] [http://readymag.com](http://readymag.com)

------
stevebmark
Adobe Edge has already tried the HTML5 tooling route
[http://www.adobe.com/products/edge-
animate.html](http://www.adobe.com/products/edge-animate.html). I don't think
they got much traction and essentially abandoned it. Curious if this offers
anything different.

~~~
j45
I wonder why Edge didn't uptake. Possibly licensing costs, or maybe the timing
of it was a little earlier than where we are starting to build more immersive
experiences with HTML5/JS and are starting to desire the use of tooling to
making it easier.

------
nnd
On a related note: anyone knows a good guide to catch up with the recent
frontend design/development trends?

------
SnowingXIV
I wish things like this existed but not for front end, but for handling
databases. I want to be able to send values from my static sites into a
database and then from there be able to perform hooks and actions from said
database. This all being done securely. I need form handling and tracking.

------
namaemuta
For a moment I thought that google had designed a software for app designs
like Sketch or Adobe XD. None of them works for Linux so I was pretty excited
until I realised what it was really :(

------
avecfromage
Looks interesting! From the website, it is difficult to say how this software
is different to existing solutions like for example rocketcake. I guess it is
more useful for creating HTML ads?

Also, what if google decides to shut this down suddenly someday? Will it be
easy to switch a project to a different software then?

------
vivekd
Where is the need for this product? People who know about computers will
probably just use the very easy to learn HTML and CSS code and people who
don't know computers will likely use wix or wordpress or some similar
alternative. I wonder where this product will fit?

~~~
vonklaus
> Where is the need for this product?

An intuitive easy to use WYSIWYG editor is a highly sought afterand demanded
product category. Squarespace costs money and is actually (for me) a pretty
bad user exp.

Google probably can deliver on this because they are SEO. Even good editors
were not semantic. I havent tried this product, but if it is halfway decent it
will find market share. If it is _perfect_ it could replace wordpress.

I am pretty competent as a developer and I would use (based on my
understanding from the link) this product rather than battle css or compile
sass. Plus I can edit the code.

On top of top teir engineering, google has control of SEO & pagerank so maybe
they can win where orhers hadnt. No brainer for them.

------
hmoghnie
I wonder when will they shut it down.

------
bertjk
Hmm looks kind of like Celtra's AdCreator[0]. I wonder which came first? Has
anyone used both who can compare the two?

[0] [https://www.celtra.com/adcreator](https://www.celtra.com/adcreator)

------
aluhut
Does anyone know if it installs that Google Updater Service also on Win?

~~~
aluhut
Nevermind...crapshit installed itself or left some installer behind even with
me cancelling the installation. I hate google software...

------
frik
Any news? Is it a new version. I have it installed for at least a year.

------
Yhippa
I'm on mobile so I can't use the app but I'm hoping for a spiritual successor
to HyperCard. Looks like there's a lot of hand holding being done however.

------
symlinkk
what GUI toolkit is this made in?

~~~
rublev
Flash.

------
wbillingsley
Is this any relation to Pixate (which they sadly closed)?

------
Raphmedia
Ha, Google Web [Ads] Designer! I tried it. Works really well but who works on
ads on a daily basis?

------
sansubr
This is really cool. Landing pages could be built faster with this now..

------
baboun
Google Dreamweaver

------
gigatexal
What's old is new again: hello dreamweaver just this time from google.

------
fbreduc
the day google became microsoft for real this time... webdesigner aka
frontpage

~~~
helb
They first released it over 3 years ago. And it seems to be something like
"HTML5 ad-centric Flash" rather than the new Frontpage.

------
aeharding
(2013)

------
jdub
"The 90s are back, baby!"

------
TekMol
I thought, "ok let's try this..." hovered over the green button and then WOAH!
"Download Web Designer Beta" wtf.. DOWNLOAD? Are we back in the 90s?

