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An Open Source UI Builder for React

github.com

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Re: An Open Source UI Builder for React

#31

Post by catchmeifyoucan »

karmakaze wrote: post #4

Pagedraw looks very polished. I can take some wild guesses why it didn't succeed but glad to have it live on as open source. My best guess would be that it either did too much or not enough. Getting an extra developer's worth of productivity from a tool is great but there could be other ways to make gains as noted in the shutdown page. Visual editing is a different way of programming and can be more or less productiv…

are there tools for parsing/editing/outputting HTML+CSS? Yes!

Creator of Airppt here -> https://airpptx.github.io

Drag and drop a UI in powerpoint with your layout, and poof, you get a UI in HTML/CSS. Don't try anything too complex or fancy, and take a look at the limitations.

I haven't published on Show HN yet, still a work in progress - but a side hobby of mine

Re: An Open Source UI Builder for React

#33

Post by jpochtar »

darkpicnic wrote: post #27

I was tasked by my company with using Pagedraw in the early days. The team behind it was extremely patient and helpful and would literally fix bugs in real-time. I would keep an eye on them and look out for their other products. Good folks.

this comment, alone, made it all worth it :)

Re: An Open Source UI Builder for React

#34

Post by garyclarke27 »

matthewhager wrote: post #29

We've been working on solving this problem for over two years with a decent sized team. Designers and developers use different tools that don't understand the same formats causing hard handoffs and conversion steps to get a digital product to the customer. This is an extremely ambitious problem to solve because it requires building an entire Wix or Webflow that also speaks and outputs some sort of web component (in o…

Agreed a Unity like toolkit for general purpose UI would be awesome. I would be happy to pay a reasonable subscription for such for my team. A killer feature for us, would be easy wiring up of forms and display grids to Postgresql functions and views for storage and IO - we don’t want direct to table. Maybe you could somehow incorporate PostGrest for this.

Re: An Open Source UI Builder for React

#38

Post by pjmlp »

codingdave wrote: post #21
muhneesh wrote: post #2

Would a member of the Pagedraw team share a postmortem? Seems like this is a huge need and will be the future state of web / mobile design - what stopped you guys?

Probably the same as every other attempt at this since the mid 90s. People who can code front-ends don't need such a tool. People who cannot code front-ends hire people who can, and still don't need such a tool.

I can code frontends and I rather be productive with any help I can get, than writing everything by hand.

Loved Delphi, Forms, Blend, Netbeans Matisse and JSF designer, Blend, Outsystems, ...

As mentioned in another thread, these kind of tools with good workflows and developer experience don't get written for free.

Re: An Open Source UI Builder for React

#39

Post by pagutierrezn »

matthewhager wrote: post #29

We've been working on solving this problem for over two years with a decent sized team. Designers and developers use different tools that don't understand the same formats causing hard handoffs and conversion steps to get a digital product to the customer. This is an extremely ambitious problem to solve because it requires building an entire Wix or Webflow that also speaks and outputs some sort of web component (in o…

My wish list is short:

- A look and feel similar to Pagedraw would be perfect

- The output should be just: js, html and css. No frameworks.

- The tool should not offer its own components, only the possibility of integrating off-the-shelf webcomponents (w3c)

Re: An Open Source UI Builder for React

#40

Post by PurpleRamen »

codingdave wrote: post #21
muhneesh wrote: post #2

Would a member of the Pagedraw team share a postmortem? Seems like this is a huge need and will be the future state of web / mobile design - what stopped you guys?

Probably the same as every other attempt at this since the mid 90s. People who can code front-ends don't need such a tool. People who cannot code front-ends hire people who can, and still don't need such a tool.

Not all UI-builders are a fail. Visual Basic, Qt, Delphi, MS Access all had/have some very popular and useful UI-Builder. There is always a middle between no skill and high skill.
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