Creating websites can be fun, but web development can easily scare beginners away. Last week we reviewed Weebly, a web app that makes developing a web site dead simple even for absolute beginners. Even being the great service that it is, though, most developers frown upon it for one simple reason: it does not speak their language.
More often than not, you’ll find the developers and the rest of your team at loggerheads for the same reason: the devs want geeky tools, and everyone else wants a solution that’s simple to use without touching code. Is there a solution that can be used by both developers and content managers at the same time without frustrating either group? That’s what Spinto is all about: an app that brings developers and the rest of your team together.
What is SpintoApp?
Spinto is brand-new app that aims to bridge the gap between devs and writers. With git support, Jekyll integration, and a pretty WYSIWYG editor, its a crowd puller for both noobs and nerds alike. It tries to ease up website creation process and make it fun again. Let see how that works in the real world.
Sync-up
Just enough Git
One of the interesting feature about Spinto is the powerful Git integration. For those who’re wondering what Git is, it’s a small, open source, code-management tool written by Linus Torvalds back when he was creating the Linux kernel, and then popularized largely by GitHub, the excellent hosted Git service. Basically, the idea is to keep track of every single version of your code, so that you can revert it to its old state if things get messy. Git allows you to fork a new copy your code-base, without messing your existing versions, and experimenting with that. If you’re interested in learning more about Git, I’d encourage you to get started with this excellent screen cast, put up by our own Jeffrey Way, here.
What’s the difference?
People usually use git to create and maintain their code repository. With all your business logic and interface available at the same location, it’s easy for developers to collaborate, especially for larger teams. But a website is always not about its code. As awesome as your code is (which I’m sure it is), it’s absolutely worthless without your content. Unfortunately, you’ll only find non-techies working on managing your content half the time and it is nearly impossible for them to stay in sync with the development team. Most of the time, they’ll be working with a outdated code, just to see your website going bonkers in production.
Spinto, unlike many other apps, approaches this problem differently. It makes available both your code and content in Git. This way both developers and the rest of the team have access to the most recent copy of both your code and content. This way both your team can work together with apparent ease.
Why would I need it?
Let’s say that you own a restaurant and planning to go Italian for the weekend. Your chef has created a few tasty specials and have given you the menu while the tech team is hard at work in crafting a beautiful design. Without a way to sync data, your tech team will keep waiting for the content team to complete first and vice-versa. This is a classic- chicken egg problem and clearly Spinto can help you out here.
Websites are fun!
Spinto is quite simple to use. Once you signup for the service, you can directly work from the app(writers) or manage your code from git(designers). The WYSIWYG editor makes it easy on the writers to edit their content and even offers you to do some basic HTML edits. Meanwhile, in the background, it pulls up the latest code from your team’s git account and lets you preview the content with the latest code. Another interesting thing to note is, you don’t have to create a site/ blog from scratch. It uses Jekyll to generate the static code and developers can start focussing on what’s relevant.
It’s an interesting idea. The concept of pushing content itself is a relatively new, and is yet to catch up with most web-masters. Spinto is a brave step forward to building a highly collaborative development environment. It’s impressive to see how well the product has been shaped up even in the beta stage. I’d strongly recommend you to check this one out today.