I have been looking through the forum and cannot find a definitive answer. If I export a site from bootstrap studio am I able to import the site to continue to or reedit further.
When doing a normal "save as", Bootstrap Studio saves your website in a file with the extension .bsdesign. This is the only type of file you can open in BSS and edit from within the program.
If you export your site, it is exported as ordinary HTML files, and a folder that contains all your site's assets, fonts, photos, CSS files and javascripts. You can edit these files just as you would edit any ordinary website, using a code-based editor like Visual Studio, Atom, or Notepad++. You can also import and edit these files as a complete website in a program called Pinegrow, which is the only program I know of that can open and edit complete websites. If you export your Bootstrap Studio site as HTML and CSS, you can NOT open those files again in Bootstrap studio and edit the site as you normal would. You could only import the HTML and CSS as code.
So to reiterate, if you want to be able to build and later edit your site in Bootstrap Studio, you must SAVE it in the program's .bsdesign format. Once you export the website, you will have plain HTML and CSS files that cannot be edited in Bootstrap Studio.
For the most part it's like this:
- Create your design/website in BSS and export whenever you are ready to upload it for testing or production site.
- Gather your notes and/or thoughts for editing.
- Reopen BSS and edit the site and once again export when you're ready to upload it.
This is basically how it always works. it works well, it's definitely worth the money.
If you're looking for something you can reimport to then Pinegrow, as Printninja already suggested, would be what you'd want to check out.
this same "limitation" is shared by all "builders" afaik -- the whole point of these is that someone with no knowledge of web design can get something of their own on the net. So, there's a million and one "builders" out there, using their own proprietary designs for the collected file Where they differ is to the extent to which you can customise the file as you go -- some builders give you very little freedom (like Mobirise and CoffeeCup) whereas BSS gives you significantly more, and a better ability to optimise your site's performance, at very little cost. IF one is prepared to put some work into understanding the principles behind good design and site performance BSS allows you much more scope to produce better, more individualized, creations. imho
just a follow-up to one of PrintNinja's earlier comments about Pinegrow -- they've got a "Pandemic Special" on at the moment -- 50% off all prices, so rather than it being "three times the price" it's "not quite as much" (though when you see EVERYTHING you get with the Lifetime License of BSS you really have to wonder how he did his sums??!!! Paying the new license fee for Pinegrow you only get twelve months of free updates (on top of your existing license, so it's a little better), but some would say "so what?!" to the latest list of updates together with some new capabilities with Bootstrap here here, and more generally
but for the higher, potentially annual, price difference?! maybe not for all a good thing
Thanks all.
Is there any video that shows how I can export a finished work as a non bss.design format so i can add via FTP or some other means to my private hosting outside the bootstrap studio. I do apologize if this sounds dumb as I have been struggling to showcase some of the work i have done.
Many thanks for your help
struggling with this
See the first answer by PrintNinja above -- this is the usual practice with creating sites to be placed on your external hosting server. (that's if I understand you correctly) -- Of course, after doing so, as explained above, you won't be able to re-import those files into Bootstrap Studio. This has all been explained before.
@banks Go into the settings of your project. Add a directory in the path that you want to export your project to. Save it. Now hit the big Export button at the top and it will export to the directory you told it to. Sweet and simple :)
Hi ,
I imported my whole site (rather a small one) in pieces as stated in the tutorial. The problem each page got listed as "customer code". The stage canvas (i think) showed the index page. I could do any editing by clicking on the component in the page. I had drill through the entire code and look for lines. This is horrible! I could have done a better job using the web developer option in the browsers. Sigh!!
Like someone here pointed out in another post, it looks like a waste of money. Not a big amount but still a waste. Got the feeling i got scammed.
This is horrible!
Got the feeling i got scammed.
How exactly did they scam you? Someone promised to you something and then sold you a different product? Are all the features present in the online demo working on your BSS local installation or you just got a different product than the one shown on this website?
Did you notice the big call to action on bootstrapstudio.io homepage "RUN BROWSER DEMO"? Did you try to click that button? Are you're sure you're using the right tool for the job you want to do? And that you know how BSS works? Calling the BSS developer a dishonest person that stole your money, without proving it, won't make you popular here.
Can you please show what feature is missing in your version that you've been promised you'd got buying that product?
BTW, apart from looking like a fool crying that the developer is a scammer, did you really spend your money on this software or you're just using a free 'student' license?
Other than the fact that @murugappan hijacked a thread that didn't have anything to do with his issue "directly". I do have to agree with him actually. The website does state you can import websites, well yes you can, but the website also "conveniently" leaves out the fact that you CANNOT edit them using drag and drop tools. This to me is one of the only pet peeves I have with this company and their website. They are very much "not" transparent on the functions of this app where importing is concerned.
Yes, @marrco is 100% right, you did get what you paid for, but ... so is @murugappan in that he was definitely expecting to be able to continue on with some awesome features that he cannot use in any HTML imported pages.
Just my 10 cents, but I truly wish that BSS would fix their website to state this so we wouldn't have to constantly do their customer support for them over this feature issue. :/
and seriously i am sure we are not allowed to say 'people are looking a fool' on the platform as you should somewhat have a right to your opinion even if you got the service for close to free We are all here for some experience and if we don't get it there is nothing wrong with us verbalizing our pain. I have still been unable to get the code from my works to put on a hosting plan, not sure if it's my knowledge base or tech inhibitions but i do feel the pain of @murugappan at the moment.
Lets be responsive in our utterances here.
My 2cents
Mr Marrco, like what banks and Jo wrote, we are entitled to our opinion and have the right to vent our frustration. You should realize the demo version do not allow you to use all the functionality, especially in the areas of export and import. Only after purchasing I found there were bad limitations and that, my friend, in my terms is "scamming", which means selling something that is not what it is. The term may be harsh but the developers need to get a shot in the head for declaring false statements. I am not sure if you are the developer of this software but i assume that you are from the way you are defending them.
I just bought Pinegrow on a monthly subscription and it worked extremely well. They have full documentation and tutorials. All this for $6 a month which i find affordable too. My frustration stems from my experience of being ripped off by sub-standard software many times.
Honestly, this is one piece of frustrating software.
@banks I answered your question about exporting to get your files for uploading to your own server, not far below where you asked the question. I didn't see anything anywhere else where you said it didn't work. Did you read my post and try it yet? It's very simple to do. Scroll back in this thread and you'll find it if you haven't seen it already.
@murugappan They did not scam you, are not scamming, just aren't being very transparent about "how" the feature works. It does exactly what the website says it will do, just not exactly as we expected it to do. Don't disrespect a company just because it didn't make the app you purchased do exactly as you wanted it to do. Yes, I already agreed that they need to be more transparent in their importing situation for HTML files, but let's be a bit more respectful about it. The software is not frustrating, it's that you don't know how to use it correctly yet that is frustrating, and that isn't because of the import, it's because of their lack of documentation which they have been very slowly updating in bits and pieces. Do the tutorials, that will help a lot. Yes, we know they are old, but they still have much value in the basics of the app. A lot is covered there that many people ask questions about (and don't bother to read the tutorials first for) so give it a whirl and see how it goes. Recreate your site within BSS for practice, that's a good way to learn it as well.
One thing I can tell you. Once you get working with this app, you will see that it is far from sub standard and is one of the best apps for web building out there using Bootstrap. Sure there are others, but not as tight as this one is and Pinegrow has a horrendous learning curve and their documentation leaves a lot to be desired as it is not clear and precise in any way on many of it's subjects.
Hi Jo,
Thank you for the feedback. I do lots of work in IT for over 40 years and used various tools. Have even created a Codeigniter installation version containing twig, eloquent, hmvc and ion auth. What was frustrating for me is the amount of time i had to spend searching for CSS, JS components in a page with heaps of HTML code e.g AdminLTE Template. I want to import the pages in and modify specific parts. This did not work in the BS Studio. In Pinegrow i could click on any component and i would the entire configuration on the component. Pinegrow is simple realy as iot allows me to import the entire website simply as a folder. Only thing short in Pinegrow is that i could edit the js code by clicking it into an edit window.
In BS Studio i had to import each piece separately and once done after some hard work, the edit canvas got locked as BS treats it as custom code. So please help me understand how can i click the component in the page canvas and get the codes associated with it? Also, if i remember correctly, if i create a website using BS and export it, i can only import it again the same way i detailed earlier and, worse i will not be able to edit it. Does that sound correct?
I do agree that it has some awesome sleek features but these will not be available if i imported the pages. So how do i benefit from all this?
Unfortunately there's nothing to be done about that issue. Already stated, it cannot do what you want it to do for that setup. In order to get the full benefit of this program, you will need to recreate your website.
The app saves as a proprietary file, I don't know a single app that is setup this way, that doesn't work the same way. Check out Coffeecup's builders, same thing. All saved in proprietary files and you cannot import anything into their website builders either (not counting the HTML Editor which is not a builder, but an editor). The same goes for almost any app that saves proprietary files as their project files. You're welcome to check that out if you like and prove me wrong, would love to hear about it even! In the meantime, Pinegrow is not a 100% builder, it's a builder and editor system and doesn't save proprietary files, instead it adds files to your project (similar to Dreamweaver) that save your setups within them. That's why you can do what you do want to do with Pinegrow.
If it's that easy for you with Pinegrow, and it's that much better, then why are you worried about this one? Go back to using Pinegrow and call it good.
Firstly though, if you want a refund you need to contact Support, the forums cannot help you with that as it's basically a user to user forum with an occasional Dev appearance. If you don't want a refund (I would still highly suggest you check it out further by recreating your site), then you'll need to accept the fact that it cannot do what you want. You WILL have to recreate your website within it in order to use the features of the app. If it's not what you want to do, then please feel free to go back to using Pinegrow since it does what you want it to do.
BSS is exactly what I needed and expected based on review of the website. Works well and the price is right. Do I wish I could import an existing template available in HTML? Sure but that is not what I needed at the time. Do I need it now? Not really. If I need to edit an existing site and just have the HTML available I will use an HTML focused editor. My two cents.
I do understand how someone could become frustrated after buying BSS and discovering they can't "import" a website and edit it like a site built in BSS, because on BSS's website there is an advertised feature that reads:
Import Existing Websites: If you have a website that you've developed previously, you can import it. Just drag and drop the HTML, CSS, JS files and images into Bootstrap Studio and they will be added to your project.
However, this particular blurb is listed under the larger heading of EDITING CODE, which I suppose the developers feel explains that anything you import will only be editable as code.
From a marketing perspective, I don't like this. (Sorry Martin) It definitely creates a "gray area" where a potential buyer could believe that they can bring an existing website (or a purchased template,) into BSS and start editing via the visual interface, as if it were a website built in BSS. An experienced web developer might understand what they mean, but a novice who's just learning to create sites would probably not make the distinction. Personally, I would reword the text on the BSS website to read:
Import Existing Websites: If you have a website that you've developed previously, you can import the HTML, CSS and JS code from it to save you the time of having to recreate these assets from scratch. While BSS does not directly import websites, it can import their stylesheets and javascripts, while the HTML will import as a "custom code block", which can be edited like any other ordinary HTML.