PaintCode - Vector Based Obj-C Graphics Code Generator • Hacker News Board

If you boil down a UI element's description to a set of lines, colours and gradients, you can easily apply that to other elements at all scale factors, without having to ship piles of images (possibly in four different sizes, if you have iPad-specific assets) and deal with the horrible "stretchable images" system.

That aside, the ease of prototyping makes development that much faster.

Re: PaintCode - Vector Based Obj-C Graphics Code Generator

#5

Post by gte910h » Mon, Apr 02, 2012, 6:58 PM UTC

illicium wrote: post #2

Hardcoding... graphics? Why?

People are currently using PNGs

So you're hardcoding either way.

Additionally, paintcode has the flexibility of making say, a button that shrinks/grows based on the shape of another view, say, as is caused when you rotate an ipad, etc.

I've been very happy with the product so far.

Re: PaintCode - Vector Based Obj-C Graphics Code Generator

#6

Post by tptacek » Mon, Apr 02, 2012, 7:01 PM UTC

I'm waiting for someone to tell me what's horribly wrong with this before I click the "Buy" button, but it's taking effort to resist the urge. This looks extremely excellent.

Re: PaintCode - Vector Based Obj-C Graphics Code Generator

#7

Post by J3L2404 » Mon, Apr 02, 2012, 7:08 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #6

I'm waiting for someone to tell me what's horribly wrong with this before I click the "Buy" button, but it's taking effort to resist the urge. This looks extremely excellent.

There is a trial version so try away.

Re: PaintCode - Vector Based Obj-C Graphics Code Generator

#8

Post by DHowett » Mon, Apr 02, 2012, 7:12 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #6

I'm waiting for someone to tell me what's horribly wrong with this before I click the "Buy" button, but it's taking effort to resist the urge. This looks extremely excellent.

The only real downsides I can find are that:

1) You need to design the selected/deselected states for buttons separately and merge the code.

2) It'll give you drawing code, but you have to maintain those chunks of code directly in your source files. Any modifications you make to the code need to be reflected in the original PaintCode data, and vice-versa. This could be solved with clever comment guards and the ability to rebuild internal structure from the code it generated.

Neither of these really detract from the product. I've only used the demo, but it's honestly pretty amazing.

Re: PaintCode - Vector Based Obj-C Graphics Code Generator

#9

Post by 0x09 » Mon, Apr 02, 2012, 7:14 PM UTC

Previous discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3707421

Re: PaintCode - Vector Based Obj-C Graphics Code Generator

#10

Post by tptacek » Mon, Apr 02, 2012, 7:17 PM UTC

J3L2404 wrote: post #7

tptacek wrote: post #6

I'm waiting for someone to tell me what's horribly wrong with this before I click the "Buy" button, but it's taking effort to resist the urge. This looks extremely excellent.

There is a trial version so try away.

The money is irrelevant. $70 is chump change for any application I care about enough to do custom drawing in. But if there's something unworkable about the approach, I sure wouldn't want to waste my time.

(I have a couple Mac Cocoa apps I'm working on that I kinda sidelined because UI controls were painful).