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Launch HN: Pagedraw (YC W18) – Compile UI Mockups to React Code

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Re: Launch HN: Pagedraw (YC W18) – Compile UI Mockups to React Code

#111

Post by mohamedmansour »

jpochtar wrote: post #22
ezconnect wrote: post #5

Doesn't work on Firefox

This was tough for us, because we're big believers in the standards-based web. We 100% promise that all the code we generate works across all browsers. Unfortunately, while most of the editor works in all browsers, getting full support is really hard. We're doing a lot of things that get pretty deep in the browser, so we wanted to lock things down as much as possible. We almost were electron-only to ensure consistenc…

Doesn't work on Edge, Firefox, or even Safari. I am sorry, your first sentence "big believers in standards" is just a lie. It is just developer laziness for supporting non standard stuff and doing User Agent sniffing.

Rule #1 is do feature detection not user agent detection. What are you doing that is "pretty deep in the browser"? NaCL? Experimental Chrome features?

Re: Launch HN: Pagedraw (YC W18) – Compile UI Mockups to React Code

#112

Post by sireat »

Nice work!

This is really promising for bridging UI/UX and programming.

The paradigm seems right to this javascript dinosaur.

Hopefully some day it can work like Visual Studio Design View where a non UI/UX programmer can produce a quick mockup and have it actually work without worrying about knowing intricacies of XAML.

Interesting bug/glitch: Just by clicking a few controls in MainScreen, the generated mainscreen.js code produced really deep nesting divs.

We are talking about divs like this:

when nothing really had changed on the screen.

Re: Launch HN: Pagedraw (YC W18) – Compile UI Mockups to React Code

#113

Post by nojvek »

gablg1 wrote: post #75
nojvek wrote: post #72

Really really like that you used VSCode's monaco editor. Dunno how possible it is, but I would definitely pay for a vscode plugin to have a native app like experience. Design -> Code is definitely a big problem. Creation time is one, but updating should be easy too. Also I would love a reverse, code -> Design output as well, so it's a two way tweaking experience, where both design and code are always in sync. i.e Rea…

All credit for the monaco editor to our awesome friends at Stackblitz (stackblitz.com). Gonna announce the depth of that partnership soon ;) Native VS Code integration is already here! The “3 screens” you see (design, code, preview) are just there for the demo— only the design editor on top is part of Pagedraw. You get to use your regular text editor (VS Code included), and localhost env if you use the full version a…

We have a ton of components. And our sketch files have slight mismatches. So I wondered if it could do a two sided sync.

Code accounts for so many states that sometimes design doesn’t account for. Error, loading, empty, too many items, network disconnected etc.

Re: Launch HN: Pagedraw (YC W18) – Compile UI Mockups to React Code

#114

Post by nojvek »

jpochtar wrote: post #74
nojvek wrote: post #71

You talk a lot about the compiler backend. Suppose we use a different UI library other than the big ones like React and Angular. How can I plug in my custom backend ? Do you have plans to open source the backend ? So devs over time can make it even smarter for all sorts of use cases ? Open source and profitable are orthogonal things. You can still be profitable and build a solid product with a raving community.

Definitely! I'm glad to see this is on other people's minds :) We're huge on backwards compatibility (and think everyone should be), which is why we don't want to expose something we haven't stabilized yet. We'll have a way to export our just-before-codegen internal representation (shame on me for forgetting the PL term) once it settles down a bit. It's very much like a DOM, so there's not too much craziness there. W…

Will be definitely be looking out for it.

This is a great first minimum delightful product. Good job.

Re: Launch HN: Pagedraw (YC W18) – Compile UI Mockups to React Code

#116

Post by WhitneyLand »

jpochtar wrote: post #87
WhitneyLand wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mind sharing some of the primary reasons this is required by your editor? >all kinds of crazy nonstandard things webpages shouldn't do

- until recently, there wasn't a universal cross-browser API for pinch zoom support. Not sure if that's still the case. - we do a lot of work with the selection/focus browser API, which doesn't always work the same / have the same APIs - until recently, Firefox had a different opinion about where an outline should go wrt positon:absolute children ...and what seems like a million more little things. We decided it was…

Thanks. I think it’s a good decision, it seems like a classic example of needing to recognize sometimes going against conventional wisdom makes the most sense given particular circumstances, like gaining critical mass in a start up. As to where the right decision might be different for a later stage company.

Re: Launch HN: Pagedraw (YC W18) – Compile UI Mockups to React Code

#117

Post by gablg1 »

nojvek wrote: post #115

I don’t see a “add yourself to a mailing list” form on the home page. You should definitely have one so I can follow up with updates on the product.

You can just sign in and you'll be automatically added to our mailing list. Of course you can also unsubscribe at any time if you want!

Re: Launch HN: Pagedraw (YC W18) – Compile UI Mockups to React Code

#118

Post by notheguyouthink »

tmzt wrote: post #101

I'm absolutely a believer that some form of this app will be the future of programming, probably with a touch of Eve, some AI, etc. I'm also looking at this problem, but coming to it from a different angle. I'm not a designer, and I'm not at home in Sketch. I'm looking at developers that can take a very well designed and coded HTML page, where the designer themselves has built the interaction design in whatever they…

Fyi, the page fails to render the source text in Safari (OSX 10.13.3)

Re: Launch HN: Pagedraw (YC W18) – Compile UI Mockups to React Code

#119

Post by tmzt »

notheguyouthink wrote: post #118
tmzt wrote: post #101

I'm absolutely a believer that some form of this app will be the future of programming, probably with a touch of Eve, some AI, etc. I'm also looking at this problem, but coming to it from a different angle. I'm not a designer, and I'm not at home in Sketch. I'm looking at developers that can take a very well designed and coded HTML page, where the designer themselves has built the interaction design in whatever they…

Fyi, the page fails to render the source text in Safari (OSX 10.13.3)

Thanks. Is this a known issue with Monaco?

I'll have to borrow a Mac and take a look at this.

Re: Launch HN: Pagedraw (YC W18) – Compile UI Mockups to React Code

#120

Post by betrpic »

ggg9990 wrote: post #94
kakarot wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, and I'm saying I fundamentally disagree with this vendor-locking approach. Qt doesn't lock me into a particular environment and is cross-platform. It's a view framework, not an entire browser. Huge difference.

If your product is useful enough people will install what they need to, like Photoshop and Excel.

I agree also its an early iteration of the product. I think you would prefer to get a working version out there earlier and get feedback about the product rather than wait a month and get it right in every browser.
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