Macaw – Code-savvy web design tool • Hacker News Board

Re: Macaw – Code-savvy web design tool

#21

Post by nacs » Sat, Oct 19, 2013, 5:10 PM UTC

selmnoo wrote: post #13

Either that app is really good, or the demo video was really good. I normally don't get excited over tools like these, but wow that actually seemed very well done and very impressive. The HTML/CSS code it produced was beautifully clean, so interestingly I'm actually most excited about the possibility of this being used as a training tool: the option to be able to instantaneously see the code in a side window as you'r…

Narrator on video: "We're going to move through this pretty quickly".. Video length: 20 minutes.

The code produced by the app does look quite clean for a WYSIWYG however.

Re: Macaw – Code-savvy web design tool

#22

Post by evmar » Sat, Oct 19, 2013, 5:11 PM UTC

This looks really neat. It also helps me understand why so many websites look bad on non-Mac platforms (aka 90% of desktops): designers who do stuff like "that looks a bit heavy, let's bump down the font weight a bit" without realizing that these settings look unreadable on Windows or Linux.

Re: Macaw – Code-savvy web design tool

#23

Post by manuelflara » Sat, Oct 19, 2013, 5:20 PM UTC

I have to say after trying a few visual website editors (Dreamweaver, et), I've pretty much given up on this. But this video is really impressive. As someone else said, this could be really awesome specially for beginners. Looking forward to try the final product.

Re: Macaw – Code-savvy web design tool

#24

Post by MaxGabriel » Sat, Oct 19, 2013, 5:27 PM UTC

jebblue wrote: post #20

FYI, on Ubuntu 12.04 using Google Chrome, the Vimeo player kept going black after starting the video, I had to keep making small movements with the mouse to keep the video showing. It's almost like a div is made black and floated over the top of it if that's possible.

I had the same problem on OS X 10.8.5 running Chrome 30.0.1599.69. When I clicked the fullscreen button, the black went away, but it was only showing a static image of the program (I did have audio though).

Re: Macaw – Code-savvy web design tool

#25

Post by teleclimber » Sat, Oct 19, 2013, 5:28 PM UTC

abhididdigi wrote: post #19

Not coming to Windows? :( As you mentioned it's coming to app store soon?

It is coming to Windows... eventually.

https://twitter.com/macawco/statuses/378215232512208896

Re: Macaw – Code-savvy web design tool

#26

Post by parvatzar » Sat, Oct 19, 2013, 5:31 PM UTC

Awesome demo and App. Interesting name for the App. Made me look it up. Macaw: a large long-tailed parrot with brightly coloured plumage, native to Central and South America.

Re: Macaw – Code-savvy web design tool

#27

Post by stcredzero » Sat, Oct 19, 2013, 5:32 PM UTC

Certain technical things really are amenable to the Archy inspired "Zoomworld" spatial organization ideas behind iOS 7. There are lots of things that are best understood in diagrams, as flows of information, or material. Scheduling natural gas or petroleum, for example. Operations that data scientists do to tables of data in something like Stata are another example.

That said, not all things are suitable for this. For many things, you still want code. I suspect that there are opportunities for people to find harmonious ways of blending the two.

EDIT: Wouldn't something like hosting a web app be amenable to a Archy/Zoomworld style representation? The relationship between front-end servers, app server workers, back-end processes, and databases could exist as a giant diagram.

Re: Macaw – Code-savvy web design tool

#28

Post by ezequiel-garzon » Sat, Oct 19, 2013, 5:33 PM UTC

Any ideas as to how much it will cost?

Re: Macaw – Code-savvy web design tool

#29

Post by shaneofalltrad » Sat, Oct 19, 2013, 5:36 PM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #27

Certain technical things really are amenable to the Archy inspired "Zoomworld" spatial organization ideas behind iOS 7. There are lots of things that are best understood in diagrams, as flows of information, or material. Scheduling natural gas or petroleum, for example. Operations that data scientists do to tables of data in something like Stata are another example. That said, not all things are suitable for this. Fo…

speaking on iOS 7, I would love to look at that page in an iOS 7 phone, landscape and see how much gets cropped out of view.

Re: Macaw – Code-savvy web design tool

#30

Post by mikeash » Sat, Oct 19, 2013, 5:41 PM UTC

icambron wrote: post #11

th0br0 wrote: post #2

I had actually expected something for "real" code. (e.g. Scala, Go, younameit) While CSS3/HTML5 definitely made web design somewhat closer to actual coding (esp. on the CSS end), I still find it difficult to call renderer instructions in a markup language true "code". However, this looks like an interesting tool! Too bad that you only seem to be aiming for OSX. Are ports planned?

It's a textural representation of instructions for a computer; it's certainly code. I think the distinction you're looking for is whether writing HTML/CSS/etc constitutes programming or not. That's a recurring discussion on HN (I've personally come around to the view that it is).

Seems like a pointless definitional quibble. What matters is that when people see "code" used as a verb in this context on this site, they think of programming. Whether that's "what it means" or not doesn't really matter.