Show HN: Visual Code Editor for UX and Interaction Designers | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Visual Code Editor for UX and Interaction Designers

5 pointsux-app3 comments

Hi, I've been developing UX-App for a few years as a side project. I'd be keen to hear your feedback in relation to the visual code editor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtCcJIFZmFs

Cheers, Eli

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Hey Eli,

Wow, looks very full featured for a side project. Must have taken a lot of effort to get it to this stage.

I'm an Axure user (also use pixate and framer), so I gave your tool a quick whirl (using Chrome).

I think some of the workflow bits could be improved, for example, here is what I did:

1) Placed a tab container on the screen (iPhone template)

2) Went into edit mode and placed a header on tab 1

3) Copied header from tab 1 and went to tab 2 and pasted it there.

What I expected was that it would place it in the same location as it was on tab 1, but instead it placed it somewhere randomly, so I had to move it to the same location, which takes extra time. I know, it might seem picky, but these little things do matter to me, as it speeds up my work.

Haven't tried the 'scratch' like code editor yet. Will give it a go.

What would you say makes your app better than Axure for example?

Anyway, congrats on launching and wish you all the success with it!

Thanks for the kind words :)

Thanks for the heads up about copy/paste, looks like a bug has crept in with regard to the this functionality. I'll fix this in the next day or two.

>What would you say makes your app better than Axure for example?

1) I think the library of functional components is pretty cool. Also the workflow with respect to nesting components is quite powerful and mimics actual GUI toolkits which makes it quick/easy to build up complex UI designs.

Here's a video that quickly covers some of the key features: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiQDAvltyXY

2) To my knowledge there is no other prototyping tool that has a code editor like UX-App. As you mention it is modeled after Scratch which I have found to be an awesome way to get novice programmers quickly up to speed (I'm a high school IT teacher).

Here's a video that demonstrates the code editor in more detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bbs1jeBNsyU

3) The device preview is very powerful and seamless. You can connect any number of devices and UX-App will push updates directly to all devices. UX-App will automatically deal with touch/gesture events so that everything works across mobile and desktop seamlessly.

Here's a quick video that demonstrates this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2mNRCmkQfo