Got some shock news today - a software company I have been involved with for the best part of 20 years is closing the doors. They produced Freeway, a Mac based WYSIWYG web design application that was borne from the ashes of their DTP software, Uniqorn.

I've been using Freeway since betas of version 1, developed addons for it, worked for the company both as an employee and on a long term freelance basis. So I'm in a bit of shock today, given how much of a chunk of my post-grad working life has been involved with them.

While their software doesn't die, it's no longer going to be developed further, so I'll have to find something as nippy and useful to continue my work long term.

I remember trying Freeway out in the early days of web, must have been late 90s I guess. It was around the time that QuarkXpress was King in the DTP market which made it easier for print designers to make that leap to the web. It felt a bit like a compromise to me though and as Dreamweaver was gaining popularity at that time, we tended to use that.

I wonder how much is due to them not developing the software to move with the times. Did it do Responsive coding for example? I don't know the answer, just asking the question.

Still, it's sad when another one goes to the wall, I don't give QuarkXpress much longer to be honest. Soon we'll be left with just Adobe holding consumers to ransom with their subscription model. No option, though, I guess.


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The latest version does do responsive sites, but not too well. In fact, I've been fixing sites made that way for a local company who can only cope with it so far. I think they relied too much on MacApp and never moved away from it. It's not a Cocoa app. Possibly Sierra breaks it beyond any hope of repair. I don't know.

I gave the test version a go, when I switched to Mac at the end of 2007, but I didn't have any web customers at the time. Then I started working for an advertising agency, so it was Windows and Eclipse (W/LAMP stack). Currently I use Notepad++ and WordPress or vi on the server.

Sorry to see them go. I know from the old place and here, that you were very active in supporting it and developing the addons.

That's a shame. I've been using Freeway for some time and will be sorry to see it go.

I was having a clear out a while back and came across my boxed complete copy of Uniqorn (and beta-copy disks). I wonder if it's worth anything?

Unfortunately Freeways time has been running out ever since Adobe released Muse...

I’ll reiterate what I’ve been saying to other people here.

You don’t have to upgrade to Sierra. If Freeway is on your mission critical list, and you have a load of files you rely on, then you want to keep your system as it is (which is always sensible). I have this horrible feeling that Sierra is going to be a big red line in the sand - things that are deprecated now (like the Java VM that Photoshop CS6 and below rely on) will very likely be gone in Sierra. There’s a new fling system being introduced, and more security built into the system to stop tampering. If you fiddle with the JavaVM that comes installed, you may find that the system will complain.

Given that Freeway isn't even a Cocoa application - it still relies on MacApp ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacApp ) just as it did in the 1990s, I expect that this is the final nail in the coffin. There are things about Freeway 7 that made me think “painted into a corner”. I guess this might be the case.

So, if you move on from El Capitan or earlier to Sierra, preserve your system in amber or create a Freeway Friendly system. So either create a new partition, get a second HD, or create a virtual machine, set that up and put Freeway and everything you’ll need (Actions, fonts etc) and use that.

Other than that, it’s a case of looking for another app that will do the job you need in a way that you are comfortable with.

EDIT: One of the (now ex) Softpress engineers posted on the Freeway Talk email list that Freeway 7 works in the Sierra developer preview. That’s obviously not an official Softpress response, though. Also things may change between now and release.

Well, yesterday Softpress re-awakened, or rather Softpress V2.0 did - and it seems that one of their engineers has been working on things in the interim, and we’ll be getting updates to Freeway after all. The plan will be to get Freeway working using Swift and Cocoa, to allow it to move forward agin.

So that‘s good news from this chair.

And a minor update to Freeway was pushed out yesterday too.