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Rich desktop app for HTML/CSS authoring (pingendo.com)
82 points by joshsere 4783 days ago
16 comments

I've only spent a few minutes with this, but so far it looks very promising.

I work in an enterprise envrionment where we have varying levels of design/programming skill. One of our needs is for our designers or business analysts to be able to mockup screens without explicity writing HTML but in a way where nothing gets lost in translation to developers. We've been looking at Axure, but I've generally found it to be disappointing, if not plain annoying.

This looks much better.

Likes:

- It's a native application. We're not always connected when we need to prototype a screen, and, frankly we somehow haven't figured out the whole wi-fi/security balance thing. Native is great.

- I love that it uses bootstrap and provides a few template page options.

- Responsive options, proper element positioning options... lovely

Wants/questions:

- Customizable templates? Is it possible to alter or add to the default styles and template options? I.e. an in-house modified bootstrap or bootstrap-like option? Basically a way for the design lead to create custom elements and styles for use by the rest of the team.

- Ability to add new elements in snippets

- Maybe some basic logic, just enough to allow a simulation-type scenario. Although I would rather go without this than have the option over-complicate the interface.

I apologize if some of the wants are already possible; regardless I am definetly a customer.

Might want to look at Balsamiq Mockups:

http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups

It's easy enough for non-techies to use, can be installed locally, and can have new elements added via snippets.

It doesn't generate HTML, but in my experience developers don't want to get HTML; they just want to see what the non-techie wants done and then they'd prefer to write the code themselves. Balsamiq works great in that scenario.

Yup, we've been using Balsamiq, it's fantastic for a lot of things but there are times when a higher-fidelity tool is needed.

On top of this, we are also creating a standardized look and toolset for all of our apps - something sort of like Bootstrap - so there are many situations where it would be great to be able to just assemble the UI pieces that we've already defined and say 'what do you think of this?' or even run through some informal usabiltiy testing.

Side note: I think Balsamiq is the main reason I was so disappointed in Axure. Balsamiq is so efficient and so good at what it does, and Axure... well, you kind of wonder if anyone at Axure actually uses Axure.

Thank you for your feedback. We are very happy of it. About your questions: Options to add new templates and snippets is on the way. Adding more complicated logic (axure-like) at the moment is beyond our purpose.

In any case we are very open to any new idea. If you are interested, you can follow developments at https://trello.com/board/pingendo-development-board/506057b0...

Thank you!

I'd agree with all of this, really enjoying using it!

This might be because it's still in beta but having the app start automatically after install would be good too.

'Scuze me for ranting, but too often these software project pages make the visitor hunt for the licence. Is this GPL or BSD or proprietary or what? Where's the source?

They're not saying - or it was taking too long for me to find. As a general rule, if there's a big "download" button and they're urging you to try something before they will give up any real info about it (or worse, insetead of), well that strikes me as scammy and I just link away.

You are right. License info are missing. We'll fix it. Pingendo in not planned to be released as open-source. It's available in free download during the beta period. A commercial version will follow. The download contains xulrunner and pingendo binaries. Thank you.
Will it remain free for people who download it now? Or will it expire in a few weeks when the commercial version comes out?
At the moment is not planned to keep it free once finished the beta period. but everything 'possible. Anyway we'll be happy to provide you with a free license to thank you for your feedback!
Any idea on price yet?
No sorry! :)
I like it. But (there's always a but) you badly need a short tutorial. A video would work too. Something to get started on.

Also include a mailing list. I'd like to follow the development of this app (cause it would come in handy for me). But I don't always remember to check a website.

Thank you! We are working on a "getting started" tutorial and a more exhaustive user manual. For the developments you can checkout our public developments board @ Trello https://trello.com/board/pingendo-development-board/506057b0... You can also click on Developments from the Help menu within Pingendo.

Thank you for your feedback!

Shame it doesn't have a Linux version. But it appears to work fine on Wine.
Thanks for your note re WINE.

Edit: tried it myself too - install ran without problems. Seems like most things work fine but code editing itself was buggy, couldn't select the correct text or position the cursor on text in the code editor. Sadly that makes it unusable for me.

Kubuntu 13.04 (WINE 1.4.1).

I'm sorry for the bug you encountered. We are actively working to fix all problems remaining in our html and css parser. Would you be so kind to send me an example of a not-working html file, so that i can fix the bug ?
Downloaded win version for a 32bit xp system and noticed two bugs,

1. along with the app another window started which was like the menu with a menu item "File" represented by a horizontal line at the very top of my screen, i just right clicked from task bar and closed it, main app still worked.

2. tried to open saved html file with browser (assigned to chrome) but the url was wrong, it was missing the drive letter so nothing showed.

3. after closing page and then choosing another template the app vanishes.

At first glance it is ok, maybe better suited for users without much experience with browser tools and code. However it provides viewing in different screen sizes, code snippets and drag and drop which are helpful.

Thank you for filling these bugs! We already fixed them in our development version that will be release in the next few days.
Nice start. Right now I can see where it will help with quick wire framing based on pre-existing themes. I like being able to drag items onto the tree version of the DOM.

Would be nice to be able to alter LESS variables and recompile.

Thank you! You are not the first asking for LESS support, we'll investigate the ways to properly integrate it.

Thank you for your feedback!

I'm a bit of a techie noob but it looks like you're just hosting the file on a web host somewhere:

  curl -I http://www.pingendo.com/Pingendo.dmg
  HTTP/1.1 200 OK
  Server: Apache
  Last-Modified: Tue, 14 May 2013 15:24:34 GMT
  Content-Length: 38477827
  Content-Type: application/octet-stream
I would host your file on something like Amazon S3. I'm getting 93kb/s on your host.
Sorry but we did not expect such high number of downloads. we are fixing it. thank you for the feedback!
Let me know if you need help setting up. It's easy! contact in profile.
Ubuntu version pls :)
Portable Windows version pls :)
Nokia 6010 version pls :D
You can safely make a zip of the installation folder.
On the first glance looks really, good. I started with template, made few changes, added few things.

I personally use Zurb more, so if I could start with that... even if I can make my own template, it would be fine.

Feedback:

1. Make this as a webapp. Should work anywhere, like gDocs! Think: Anyone can collaborate, so the ideas and possibilities are more.

BTW, Why did you go the platform way? any particular reason worth mentioning?

2. Have a forum for knowledgebase, to answer FAQ's, ideas and take new-questions. See OSQA or Askbot, might help you a lot in this direction.

3. Show your users, all the cool possibilities. Videos and use-cases matters most to convince anyone to try your app.

4. Get more templates, widgets(short-codes) and page-layouts. This will be cool to start-off!

1. Divshot does this and it's buggy. I actually really like that it's native. In theory it's less error prone.

Downloading now...I'm a customer.

There are a number of sites/webapps that do this already. I think the fact that it is a standalone app is actually kind of refreshing and opens them up for things like inclusion in the Mac App store.

http://easel.io http://divshot.com http://jetstrap.com

All do this directly at:

http://www.bootstraphero.com/the-big-badass-list-of-twitter-...

There are a bunch of web apps that do aspects of this (button, form and theme builders).

Thank you for you feedback! 1. Making it like a pure web app is not possible, at the moment. BTW We have some ideas about collaboration we are working on. 2. You are right 3. You are still right 4. Definitely right

All these stuff are already on the way.

Sincerely thanks you for your feedback!

I downloaded the Windows version, but don't see any references to Foundation, in the app or on their website. Is the title wrong ?
the title is wrong. we lately decided to not release yet the integration for Foundation. It will be available soon with the next release. Sorry for the inconvenience.
It looks great, but isn't it risky to force people use an IDE? A lot of developers like to work in their own environment.
What about a fluid + responsive template
26mb install and not a word on what I am installing prior to running it? Sorry.
I believe there is an how it works link on the homepage.
Looks neat. Perhaps a short video/screen-cast to show how it works or its coolest feature would be great.

Will give this a try on the weekend.

Thank you! We are working on a tutorial and a more exhaustive user manual, any suggestion is more than welcome!
With what is it coded on windows and mac ?
Javascript
you mean you used something like air ?
Mozilla XULrunner, the same as Firefox.