All You Need to Know About 6 New Features of Google Web Designer V 1.1.1.0730

Oh Yes! Another awesome upgrade in the world of web designing. Raise your glasses, my dear Web Designers and Developers. It’s Party Time!!

Last September, Google introduced us to its brand new Google Web Designer (Beta version), a free and highly interactive HTML5 authoring tool for designs and motion graphics for HTML websites and ads. Though it was followed by minor changes and upgrades, the company made a quantum leap and added six new features this month; proving the world, yet again, that Google is the Jack as well as Master of all trades.

In the recent blogpost by Sean Kranzberg (Engineering Manager) and Tony Mowatt (Lead Product Manager) of Google Web Designer, One Year In: An Update on Google Web Designer, they shared statistics to support the growing popularity of this ad and web design editor. They said that the “ads built with Google Web Designer have garnered 2.5B impressions since the launch of the product; and over 20% of Google Web Designer’s user base are returning users and 72% are located outside the United States”.

So, I hijacked Bikash Nayak, the Senior Web Designer cum Developer of Click Labs, and asked him to review the new features of this much talked about Google Web Designer. And this is what he has to say about it…

Google Web Designer v1.1.1.0730: Reviewing the Six New Features

1) ‘A brand New Events System helps you to author highly interactive documents, components and timeline actions in response to any element in any other document of Google Web Designer. You can also write your own custom actions in JavaScript and convert predefined actions to custom actions and back, opening up many opportunities for creativity’.

Bikash Nayak: “With this Events System feature, Web Developers and Designers can save a lot of time. Also, if one wants to modify any style or component, one can do it with just a single click. And everything else will be updated simultaneously and automatically without any shred of effort. But there is nothing new about this feature, as similar functions are prevalent in most of the competing editors.”

 2) ‘Directly publish your creatives to DoubleClick Studios. Google Web Designer adds the studio enabler code, and associates the ad with the appropriate account, advertiser, and campaign’.

Bikash Nayak: “This feature can help Web Developers and Designers create ads for both mobile and desktop screens easily, conveniently and without any extra work. As we know that the demand for mobile marketing is increasing day by day, this feature can come handy to most of the developers out there.

 3) ‘Integrating with Google Drive to publish Web Designer files there, for better work collaboration and easy sharing of creatives.’

Bikash Nayak: “Now this is what I call an awesome feature. You can not only use Google Drive to share codes with your fellow developers and designers, but can also use it for training and documentation purposes. So far, I have not seen this feature in any other editors. #ThumbsUp!”

 4) “HTML with Pages” to create new files

Bikash Nayak: “According to me, converting a page into an HTML file is the best feature so far. So you can include a Document Page from Google Drive into the Google Web Designer, and enjoy its automatic conversion into the HTML format without wasting time on extensive coding.”

 5) Reworked Animation Timeline, which includes animation scrubbing, timeline events, auto keyframing, new UI for repeating animation and infinite animation, and the ability to switch back and forth between Quick and Advanced mode as needed.

Bikash Nayak: “It is a cool feature to attract the target audience with the help of animated ads. However, I have definitely seen similar features on competing editors before.”

 6) Revamped ‘Web Components’, including including the Canvas shapes, 360 Gallery, Carousel Gallery, Swipeable Gallery, iFrame, Map, Tap Area, Video and YouTube; along with added features: (a) The Gesture component – Lets you use touch and mouse tracking, taps, clicks and other mouse and touch gestures. (b) Tap to Call – Lets the user tap to initiate a phone call to a phone number that you specify.

Bikash Nayak: “This feature helps to make our ads stylish and attractive in limited coding. All you need is a single click to integrate cool videos, maps, etc. But this feature can be found in most of the competitor tools, hence I don’t see anything new here.”

(Source: Google Web Designer- Release Notes)

Overall Review:

In this highly competitive world of web designing, staying ahead (instead of abreast!) of the game is a must. Google tried to differentiate Web Designer v1.1.1.0730 by creating the buzz about 6 new, add-on features. Kudos to features like integrating Google Drive and HTML with pages for making Web Developers’ and Designers’ lives easy. But there is nothing new in rest of the features.