‍It finally happened. For years we’ve been skeptical about creating an iPad version of Sitely. And the irony is the first mockups of what Sitely (then Sparkle) would become, were for an iPad app. But early on we decided on the Mac direction, it felt more like a more sustainable business. About the skepticism, on our community we have talked at length about the interaction issues with a small screen, the finger as a pointing device, and the restrictions of iOS/iPadOS.

‍In the mean time the iPad has grown to be a significantly larger market than the Mac, Apple has added the Pencil, an amazingly great creative tool, along with a wide array of keyboards, trackapads and assorted pointing devices. iPadOS has addressed many of the software platform concerns that were deal breakers, including adding support for background processes, necessary for publishing using FTP/SFTP, and a more flexible windowing system.

‍While that made the iPad platform itself attractive and viable, and while Sitely was already using many system services that over the years Apple had unified across platforms (multi-processing, graphics primitives, web and networking), there was the final big step.

‍We needed to rewrite the user interface from the ground up, to not just be a version of the Mac interface, but rather to feel at home on iPad, and deliver the large number of options that make Sitely so powerful, while still preserving the lightness of a device that you might use while standing in line, or at the beach.

‍This is what we did with version 7, a software update with its roots starting with the initial Sparkle 1 release, and picking up steam with under the hood changes a few years ago. We’ve been pushing on this for the last few months, while also adding exciting new features.

‍Today we’re super proud to release Sitely 7, for iPad and Mac.

‍The launch video is magnificent. We’ll soon be adding walkthroughs and more examples of the iPad interface, you can see a bit more on our home page.

‍We manage a single code base, so the two versions have full feature parity. You can take a Sitely project file to your iPad and work on it there, then sync it back and continue on your Mac. Every element, every setting, every animation, every gradient, it all works. Painless and a no brainer. Easy.

‍And that’s without even talking about the great new additions in version 7, which of course are iPad and Mac.

‍What’s new

‍Before detailing the new features common to both platforms, there are in fact just two features that are platform specific, and that’s just because of the specifics of the platforms.

‍On the Mac we have added an “alternate device view”, that is you can add a pane that sits next to the inspector and shows the “other” device. Say you’re editing your desktop layout, the alternate device will be by default the smartphone, so you can check it side by side for any alteration.

‍On the iPad there’s a “wireframe” mode, where you can sketch a new element and it will be added to the page right away, this is ideal to use in combination with a pencil, though it works with a finger as well of course.

‍Now for the additions.

‍Vector Drawing

‍Create and edit simple vector graphics, sketches, and shapes directly in Sitely. This works very well on the iPad, finger or pencil, and can in fact even draw pressure-sensitive strokes if your pencil supports it, but it’s great on a Mac as well, to draw simple arrows or lines.

‍3D Models

‍In version 7 Sitely adopts the three.js library, an industry standard for displaying and interacting with 3D models. This is our initial integration of a very sophisticated tool, there is a ton of flexibility we don’t expose, but what is there allows you to create several cool effects and showcases.  For example the rotating iPad at the top of the page immediately shows Sitely running on an iPad and the effect is pretty cool (you can also play around with it and spin the fidget). But there’s much more you can do, from 3D motion that runs on hover, to scroll-based motion that follows you as you scroll down the page, to simple but effective animations of a 3D model of a product you sell. There are a few canned animations that get you started quickly, and a full keyframe editor to build a custom motion, or you can adopt the motion path exported by the 3D modeller.

‍Magic Box

‍As developers of a web design app, we frequently have the conundrum of whether to build some component or effect, trading complexity in the interface with richness of available features. Do we add a “snow” effect? Do we add a “falling leaves” effect? Do we add a “shimmering background” effect? What about a “lasers with droids” effect, my website needs it on May the Fourth!

‍The Magic Box solves this long tail of special effects, and in fact that’s underselling it, simple widgets can go be built as well. So it’s a win-win, you can have just about any effect in your pages, and your site becomes unlike anybody else’s.

‍How the Magic Box works is it uses a modern AI (say GPT 5.5 or Gemini 3), and transforms your description of what the widget or effect should do in a little bit of custom code for your page. It doesn’t stop there: because the exact effect might be something you’d like to tweak, Sitely produces an inspector that lets you change basic things like the background color, or the number of flying saucers, or the frequency of zombie re-spawn. The settings also vary depending on what you described the widget should do.