INTRODUCTION TO HOTGLUE

In our first session of Web Design Studio we experimented with using hotglue; a tool for creating websites directly in the browser. It is an extremely visual tool and with the simple interface, it allows anyone to create a webpage by simple dragging and dropping images or creating text boxes.

There is a wide range of interesting tools which allow you to make a really dynamic and interesting site, such as changing the transparency of objects, the ability to add media from youtube, vimeo, and soundcloud, adding custom code, linking objects and bringing objects to the foreground/background. You can also change the colour and size of any shape, text, or background. These tools really enhance the usability and make it really exciting to use.

The first thing I did was was add some animated GIFs onto my homepage. It’s as easy as dragging the image into hotglue, and immediately the GIF appears. I then used the transparency feature to add some effect to the GIF. With the transparency tool, I would like the option to be able to manually add in the specific percentage of transparency.

changing transparency of image

my home page after adding animated GIFs

editing spacing between letters

adding youtube video to page

One major flaw is that hotglue is not responsive. This makes it difficult to view on a device with a small screen size such as a smart phone or small tablet. I viewed my website on my iPhone 4s only to find I had to scroll to view anything on the page, my animated GIFs were extremely slow, and the video took a long time to play as my phone kept trying to open the external youtube app I have installed. This would make it difficult to use hotglue to build a professional website as being able to view a site correctly on a variety of platforms is vital.

A few other functions that I feel would really improve hotglue are: a wider range of fonts to use, a crop tool for images, alignment tools, a grouping tool.

Overall, I feel hotglue is an effective tool to use when creating quick, simple webpages that do not require many advanced functions. Tools like the object and page cloning, or the ability to shift+click on the colour tool and enter your own RGB figures, helps keep the site consistent which from a design perspective is very useful. Although it lacked certain features that I find crucial when creating websites (like alignment buttons or the ability to specify what size you want the font) I feel overall it was an interesting and fun tool to use. I think once you have accepted this isn't a tool for making immaculate webpage designs, you can fully appreciate the simplicity and speed in which you can add content.