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Review my Startup: jMockups - A Better Way to Web Design

jmockups.com

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Re: Review my Startup: jMockups - A Better Way to Web Design

#61

Post by petervandijck »

matt1 wrote: post #9
petervandijck wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Photoshop I can make something look good, I don't get the feeling that I can do that in jmockups. No layers, no visual design (buttons, logos, ...). I really don't understand where this would fit into a workflow, I'm trying to but I don't get it... Are you trying to replace Photoshop for web design? Can I design a good-looking button with the app? (I didn't see how to.) Can I design a logo? (I didn't see how to).…

Are you trying to replace Photoshop for web design? Somewhat, yes. Can you make a good looking button? Not as good as Photoshop, yet, but that's definitely on the todo list. Can you design a logo? No, and no plans for it. You can design your logo in Photoshop or Illustrator and import it into jMockups though. Can I design a repeating background pattern? No, and no plans for it, other than gradients. But again, you wi…

I don't understand it. So you'll still have to use Photoshop. And you still have to redo the html from scratch. In what step in the web development process do you need pixel-perfect html that's not a Photoshop file and that's not a final html design? I just can't imagine any place I've ever worked using this for actual work, I just don't see a need for pixel-perfect yet not designed throw-away html mockups.

I might just be being dense today too.

I'm really trying to understand it, but I just don't.

Now, if it was a tool that helped me create html+css that I could actually use in production, and that would help me quickly create a visual design that looks decent, that would be useful for me.

Re: Review my Startup: jMockups - A Better Way to Web Design

#63

Post by notahacker »

matt1 wrote: post #15
mgkimsal wrote: post #12

I gotta say, I'm impressed. Couple of things that I see missing that might make me want to pay... 1. Team sharing 2. Feedback - allowing someone with a password to come in and lay comments around on the screen. I think there is a market here, but as someone else pointed out, it might be a shorter term market to make something like this but customized for, perhaps, joomla. If this tool had knowledge of a particular sy…

Thanks. Team sharing and overlayed comments are great ideas and definitely something I want to implement in the coming weeks. Exporting the mockup to HTML or to a template is possible but very difficult to get right. I'm going to wait and a few months and see how the core mockup product works before venturing into that arena. We'll see where the feedback drives it.

Hooking up to tools your target audience already use (like Basecamp) might be the best solution for team sharing

Re: Review my Startup: jMockups - A Better Way to Web Design

#64

Post by foomarks »

matt1 wrote: post #58
foomarks wrote: post #55

I love where this is going. One thing that I would like to see included, which is absolutely essential for the way I design website is line-height: it is the core structure of my design and layout. (Read more about line-heights and vertical rhythms here: http://24ways.org/2006/compose-to-a-vertical-rhythm ) At this moment in time I feel trapped using Adobe products to produce my layouts. If jMockups solves the follow…

Thanks. Can you elaborate on the font rendering? Does it not currently do it correctly? Line-heights: Good idea. Will do. Drawing path tools: give me an example of how you would use this. Stay tuned.

Font rendering: I realize jMockups might only render "web-safe" fonts. But I would love to see an iteration that incorporates any typeface shared between a team of designers who have fonts locally stored. I have made attempts to switch to Inkscape, but it's inability to render different type formats is what is holding me back from using it.

Drawing path tools: This would be handy if I needed to create arrows and icons. I suppose I could draw them and import them as images; however, it would be really nice if I can draw them in directly!

Re: Review my Startup: jMockups - A Better Way to Web Design

#65

Post by matt1 »

paulnelligan wrote: post #62

Really great work matt, very intuitive and I hope you see lots of success with it. How do you plan to monetize ?

Gracias. There's currently a plan which lets you create up to 5 mockups for free and there's also a Pro plan which lets you create up to 200 for $24/mo. Lots of other ways to monetize down the road depending on how the cookie crumbles.

Re: Review my Startup: jMockups - A Better Way to Web Design

#66

Post by matt1 »

foomarks wrote: post #64
matt1 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. Can you elaborate on the font rendering? Does it not currently do it correctly? Line-heights: Good idea. Will do. Drawing path tools: give me an example of how you would use this. Stay tuned.

Font rendering: I realize jMockups might only render "web-safe" fonts. But I would love to see an iteration that incorporates any typeface shared between a team of designers who have fonts locally stored. I have made attempts to switch to Inkscape, but it's inability to render different type formats is what is holding me back from using it. Drawing path tools: This would be handy if I needed to create arrows and icon…

There's some hacks for detecting which fonts are available on your computer, so I could, in theory, let you use any of them. And since the product is an image it wouldn't matter if the person you shared it with didn't have it. I'll see what I can do.

Re: Review my Startup: jMockups - A Better Way to Web Design

#67

Post by sandGorgon »

daleharvey wrote: post #14

I completely disagree with everyone else, I believe there is a large market for tools like this. Adobe make a lot of money from photoshop and I personally along with most web designers I know are dissatisfied with photoshop and its alternatives, they are are terrible tools for designing websites and applications. I think it needs a lot of polish, your application is designed like a website itself, dont have a footer,…

Photoshop's power = macros and actions (IMHO there are commercial outfits producing actions for Photoshop)

I have yet to see a web based design tool that has a good macro system - even basic ones (like auto align, increase/decrease font size, etc.) are missing

It's like telling someone who uses emacs to go and use gedit.

Re: Review my Startup: jMockups - A Better Way to Web Design

#68

Post by shadchnev »

matt1 wrote: post #38
shadchnev wrote: post #34

I stumbled upon this when I about to draw a wireframe for a new project on paper, so I decided to give it a try. Here's my comments, as I'm creating the mockup: - it's usable. Probably easier than Photohshop to throw together something quick and simple - There's no way it's going to replace Photoshop anytime soon since I need a many more tools to get a real design done but it works for mockups. - I don't get why the…

Your comment on the width is well-received. I doubt many people are going to use this to create a mockup wider than 960px, so when I implement the grid I think I'm going to limit its width. I'd appreciate everyone's thoughts on this. Ctrl C/V : Will do. Re layers: Can you give me an example (share your mockup link) where that would be useful? I worry that it would complicate things more than they need to be. Can you…

I didn't create the mockup complicated enough to use the layers but for a real pixel-perfect design they are a must, in particular the ability to show/hide them individually. However, they would probably overcomplicate this product, I'd keep it simple.

Re: shift. When I press an arrow key, the object moves a pixel or two. If I need to move it 100px to the left, I have to either wait a bit or press the button too many times. If the step was changed to 10 or 20px if shift is held down, it'd be easier to move objects.

Re: Review my Startup: jMockups - A Better Way to Web Design

#69

Post by bobfunk »

matt1 wrote: post #29
nickl wrote: post #28

If you’re using Internet Explorer, you need to switch to a different browser No

Internet Explorer (at least through v8) don't support the canvas tag, which jMockups is built on. Most web developers and designers don't use IE, so I don't think I'm giving up too much by not supporting it. Plus, you can share your mockups with anyone regardless of their browser so it shouldn't be an issue for most of the target audience.

Some numbers to back this up. We run http://www.domestika.org - the largest spanish-speaking community for designers with some.

There we have around 19% using IE and the rest on Firefox, Safari and Chrome.

If you assume that at least some of the IE users would be happy to download Firefox, Chrome or Safari when using a specific tool and you can get at least some more to install chrome frame, the percentage of IE users left means that for this kind of audience it really doesn't make sense trying to work around the limitations of that browser...

Re: Review my Startup: jMockups - A Better Way to Web Design

#70

Post by matt1 »

shadchnev wrote: post #68
matt1 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment on the width is well-received. I doubt many people are going to use this to create a mockup wider than 960px, so when I implement the grid I think I'm going to limit its width. I'd appreciate everyone's thoughts on this. Ctrl C/V : Will do. Re layers: Can you give me an example (share your mockup link) where that would be useful? I worry that it would complicate things more than they need to be. Can you…

I didn't create the mockup complicated enough to use the layers but for a real pixel-perfect design they are a must, in particular the ability to show/hide them individually. However, they would probably overcomplicate this product, I'd keep it simple. Re: shift. When I press an arrow key, the object moves a pixel or two. If I need to move it 100px to the left, I have to either wait a bit or press the button too many…

I like the shift idea a lot -- you can expect to see it implemented soon.
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