Vanilla 1.1.3 is a product of Lussumo. More Information: Documentation, Community Support.
My company, SandwichBoard, just launched a browser-based content management system designed specifically for restaurant web sites, and thought you would be interested in its ability to make your life easier and more profitable. Restaurant staff can manage their online menus, locations, hours, events, news, and site pages anytime—right from their web browsers. There’s nothing for you to install or configure—it’s already hosted and ready to go. You don’t have to do any tedious content updates or server configurations, just design.
We have several example themes you can work from, and you can create your own from scratch. SandwichBoard is built on the Liquid templating language (http://www.liquidmarkup.org/), so you have complete control over HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
Check out SandwichBoard There’s a 30-day free trial, so you can create a fictional restaurant web site to get a feel for what working with SandwichBoard is like.
Thanks!
Ian Lotinsky
SandwichBoard
Kudos Ian, this is great!
I’ve always had an interest in doing something of a similar nature. I’ll be sure to check out the trial sometime.
How long ago did you guys launch this and how have things been going?
-n!ck.
Thanks, Nick! We launched moved from private beta to public launch last Thursday and have been spreading the word to web designers since and incorporating their feedback.
Check out our blog for the skinny.
Does anyone else think the admin UI is a total rip-off of basecamp? I am hoping I am just missing something and it actually integrates with basecamp somehow or this is highly pathetic.
Writing it off as a “total rip-off” may be a bit hasty, but it does appear to draw (maybe coincidentally?) inspiration from 37signals’ work. Then, the current push in developing web applications is to keep things simple, both in function and design. At the very least, the product itself is unique as far as I can tell.
Thanks Jason. I’m Ian’s co-founder for SandwichBoard. We certainly did draw inspiration from 37signals’ work (and while neither of us have used Basecamp, we do use Highrise). That said, I’m confident that our design doesn’t veer into plagiarism. We certainly wouldn’t want to steal from a company that we respect so much.
I can understand Martin’s reaction, as some aspects of our design look very similar to 37s products (for instance the tabs). However, I think that style of design flows from a desire to keep the styling simple, and to use color and blocks to create the interface. That style, while certainly popularized and possibly created by 37s, is not unique to them or to us. FreshBooks, Shopify, the Mephisto blogging system, and Fetch are just a few examples of apps with similar interfaces.
I am sorry guys … I know you are working hard on your own app and doing great things. I also know I am harping on “design” and not focusing on some of the amazing things probably happening behind the scenes. I also apologize for bashing the work of a local start-up that is trying to do some great things in an industry needing much help.
However, being the pain I am I just get frustrated with what I consider to be blatant rips of anothers work .. especially when that unique work is what that other is most famous for.
Am I nuts, or does no one else see the unnatural similarities. I honestly believe this goes behind inspiration or polite imitation (the only reason I bring it up). As much as I want to see you succeed and wish the best for this endeavor … I hate seeing things like this happen to the good people at 37Signals.
Martin,
First off, don’t be sorry. If you think we’re ripping off 37s then it is your ethical duty to tell us so.
Stealing someone else’s design is a pretty serious offense that we don’t take lightly. I have nothing but the utmost respect for 37signals. They’ve served as an enormous inspiration to us and we owe them a huge debt of gratitude for giving Rails to the world. I wouldn’t want to repay them by ripping off their design.
Clearly the design was inspired by the philosophy of simplicity that 37s espouses. I don’t think our design crosses the line from “inspired by” to “rips off”. But if we did plagiarize, even unintentionally, I want to fix that.
I think that we’re in the same boat as apps like the ones I listed above as well as RadiantCMS, BoxCloud, the apps from FreshView and many more. Since 37s has talked about and linked to many of these, we presumed that they don’t have a problem with them and wouldn’t have an issue with our design.
I’ve emailed 37signals directly to make sure that they’re cool with what we’ve done. If need be we’ll make sure we fix the problem.
1 to 9 of 9
