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Atlas by Layer – Open Source Messaging UI Components for Layer

atlas.layer.com

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Re: Atlas by Layer – Open Source Messaging UI Components for Layer

#4

Post by blakewatters »

jlukanta wrote: post #2

Great job in building this library! Can you share why should one choose Atlas over JSQMessagesViewController https://github.com/jessesquires/JSQMessagesViewController >?

Hey - Blake from Layer here. We're big fans of JSQMessagesViewController and a number of our early access developers built their UIs on top of it. The biggest difference between Atlas and JSQMessagesViewController at the moment is that Atlas is deeply integrated with the messaging services of Layer and the programming model exposed by LayerKit, while JSQMessagesViewController is backend agnostic. This translates directly into the amount of code that you need to write in order to get your UI and messaging fully wired. It's a trade-off -- with Atlas you write less code and have less things to coordinate within your UI, but you pick up a direct dependency on Layer. At this point there's a fair bit of overlap in functionality between Atlas and JSQMessagesViewController, but keep in mind that this is our 1.0 release. Looking a few months down the line, we'll be bringing a number of additional components and services online that will make the distinctions more apparent. We're also in the process of developing Atlas for Android and Web, which will share a similar API aesthetic. Hope this is helpful and you can find the time to give Atlas a whirl!

Re: Atlas by Layer – Open Source Messaging UI Components for Layer

#5

Post by heynk »

Nice looking components and library. I wanted to applaud your use of Typer.js[0] in combination with the iPhone 'mockup' in the top section. Usually Typer is just used for fancy replacement of words in a headline, but in this case the transitions perfectly match the UI. I'm not sure if others have used this to demonstrate 'live coding', but well done!

[0] - http://cosmos.layervault.com/typer-js.html

Re: Atlas by Layer – Open Source Messaging UI Components for Layer

#6

Post by saarons »

This would be great in the Android world. There are dozens of SMS/XMPP chat apps that all take a slightly different approach to chat interfaces. Some have implemented material design makeovers, but there still seems to be slight differences amongst the ones that have. Something like this for Android would go a long way to help the apps that still haven't made the transition.

Re: Atlas by Layer – Open Source Messaging UI Components for Layer

#7

Post by RobertLong »

heynk wrote: post #5

Nice looking components and library. I wanted to applaud your use of Typer.js[0] in combination with the iPhone 'mockup' in the top section. Usually Typer is just used for fancy replacement of words in a headline, but in this case the transitions perfectly match the UI. I'm not sure if others have used this to demonstrate 'live coding', but well done! [0] - http://cosmos.layervault.com/typer-js.html

Web developer from Layer here, glad you enjoyed it! It was the perfect fit and typer made it simple to implement. Thank you to the LayerVault team!

Re: Atlas by Layer – Open Source Messaging UI Components for Layer

#8

Post by blakewatters »

saarons wrote: post #6

This would be great in the Android world. There are dozens of SMS/XMPP chat apps that all take a slightly different approach to chat interfaces. Some have implemented material design makeovers, but there still seems to be slight differences amongst the ones that have. Something like this for Android would go a long way to help the apps that still haven't made the transition.

Hey saarons -- Blake from Layer here. This is a big challenge that we are actively discussing internally. With Atlas on iOS, we had the luxury of a gold standard reference UI thanks the ubiquity of iMessage. On Android, as you so aptly point out, there isn't such an (even de-facto) standard user interface to reference. We're experimenting with a number of approaches and user interface idioms and would love to discuss it with you in depth. If you're open to collaborating, hit us up on hello@layer.com and we can grab a call.
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