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by arbales 4570 days ago
There are a lot of opportunities to create great tools for designers – and you're right that QC has an uncertain future. However, QC is a really powerful tool, and shapes the way we design at Facebook. Whatever the future may bring, you can get real value out of this tool right now, and we think that's impactful.

Those lower-level patches can be integrated into your work in cool ways, they're there if you need them but don't get in the way.

A lot of individual parts of QC compositions can be replicated in the browser today, but the overall performance and rendering quality of QC for complex systems is still unmatched. As for universality, today most people designing for iOS and Android use Macs, so that's where we invest the most.

I hope you all give Origami a try :)
2 comments
sandGorgon 4570 days ago
I really wish that Facebook (or anybody with Facebook's resources) help drive adoption of a cross platform tool.

I live in a developing country and access to a Mac is very, very hard. Im not advocating for open source, but the Mac lockin makes this extemely difficult to adopt.

Even with Adobe tools, I can buy a legal windows license and a software license and it still would be many X cheaper than buying a Mac.

Of course, there's nothing like true open source (QtComposer,Inkscape, Blender), but the next best thing is Windows.

P.S. checkout Blender Composite Nodes -http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Composite_N...

and

Blender Python Nodes -http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Release_Notes/2.67...

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terhechte 4570 days ago
Oh, I didn't want to imply that Origami was not useful, I should have made clear that I really like that you guys are open sourcing this.

I remember using QC for UI design back in 2009 and struggling with some of the idiosyncrasies (I actually used it as an alternative to Flash since back then the QC plugin ran in Safari, so one could use QC in the same manner as Flash on a website, though there were tons of redraw issues), so this is very welcome. I just wondered whether, with the dormant interest for using QC for UI design, this isn't a market opportunity for a tool that caters specifically to this niche. I.e. something like Fireworks + QC.

Anyway, thanks for open sourcing Origami!

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