[kmeade]

Sorry to be negative, but I'm honestly mystified by the complimentary comments.

First, attempting to set up a domain name sends me to some site named shareasale.com. The site is blocked on my system because I'm using the winhelp2002.mvps.org HOSTS file to block shady web sites.

Next, I follow the 4 steps to select the Hero, Feature, Social and Footer templates. How I'm supposed to make an intelligent choice based on the shadowy outlines is beyond me.

Finally, I'm apparently supposed to click the Download... link. This gets me a little "success" message - but the end result is a file called "download" with no extension. Renaming the download to download.zip gives me something to extract which is... a single HTML file plus css and image folders. Clicking on the HTML gives me a local copy of the launchaco main page with no sort of customizations or anything.

WTF?

[kmeade]

Reply to myself... In spite of the downvotes, I'll plow ahead with this.

I see now that you're supposed to "play" with the website and put it into some sort of personally pleasing configuration and download the result. (The download feature still doesn't work properly for me, SORRY.)

People won't be surprised to learn that I'm an older programmer. I found it interesting to see how apparently out of step I am. People seem to like this and I think it cries for more structure and a tiny bit of DOCUMENTATION.

And those CSS/JS files. (f7e531b07478dedf9916.js??) There's no way I'd want to maintain something like this unless it used Bootstrap or some other established system.

So, downvote away. I personally remain unimpressed.

[tobz]

(disclaimed: not tied to Launchaco but I felt compelled to address your points)

#1 - can you provide an example of where buying/setting up a domain takes you to somewhere called "shareasale.com"? At worst, it seems like the links to the registrars (which are all legit, as far as I can tell) go through some sort of analytics/tracking service.

#2 - have you considered rephrasing your download issue as "Hey, this seems broken, and here's why: ..."?

#3 - what customizations did you expect there to be in the downloaded archive? are you not seeing the selected hero/feature/social/footer templates you selected?

#4 - while others have brought up the idea of using Bootstrap/Foundation/etc as a more familiar and tweakable base, the point is around easily making a website WITHOUT having to know or understand the underlying technologies. if you're already deadset of needing/wanting to do things yourself, the tool clearly isn't for you.

you may be unimpressed, but you could be a little more positive/helpful with explaining issues rather than writing about them in such a dismissive tone that sreams "i don't care about your thing, but let me tell you everything i think is wrong with it"

[kmeade]

Thanks for the reply...

#1 At the top of the first page, where it says "Name Your Business", click on "Let's Do It." The next page is full of link for various TLDs with prices - the links go to shareasale.com. ##UPDATE## The domain purchase links are now dead and there are no prices/links. Someone must have decided to remove them (maybe someone read my comment -- or something else -- who knows).

#2 In my first message I described exactly what went wrong. In my second message I said "the download feature still doesn't work properly for me" Different wording, but pretty much what you suggested. We must think alike (smile).

#3 When I wrote the first message, I clearly didn't get how the customization was supposed to work. My second message explains and clarifies. As I said, just a bit of documentation would be nice.

#4 I think of HN as a programmer's venue. When I saw all the glowing comments, I thought there might be a nice web development tool to check out. If HN has a lot of readers who are interested in "making a website WITHOUT having to know or understand the underlying technologies" - then I apologize for my misunderstanding. If we agree that this is not a tool for technical web developers, then your comments are spot on.

As to the last paragraph, the first thing I said was "sorry to be negative." Criticism, by it's nature, is often negative. I hate knee-jerk negativity as much as you do (I'll bet). But heaps of sugary praise is also bad in it's own "awesome" way.

In/re being more helpful -- well, pointing out problems is helpful, right? I'm wondering if my comments didn't result in the shareasale.com links being removed (see #1 above). Maybe OP could comment.

In/re dismissive -- That's what you say but who cares what you think? (smile again - please note as joke)

To the author of "Launchaco" I would certainly offer a "well done!" To me, the most impressive thing that you have done is offer your work up for us to review and discuss. I hope and suspect you were looking for more than praise.