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Polypane – Browser for Developers
- pedrocx486 6y agoThe idea is amazing but couldn't stop thinking about the companies using it. Google? Is there a reason I should believe they're using it instead of the very obvious internal tools?
- coopsmgoops 6y agoI'm guessing it means they sold at least one licence to someone at Google.
- no_wizard 6y agoI too am curious about how these claims are substantiated
- chaorace 6y agoIt does what it says on the tin, multiple Chromium panes at once with different dimensions, actions apparently sync up and everything. Frankly, I'm surprised nobody has thought of this sooner! Multiplatform support for Windows/Mac/Linux, which is to be expected, given the Chromium base. Not open source, unfortunately, and free for trial only.
- Seirdy 6y ago> I'm surprised nobody has thought of this sooner Firefox already has a Responsive Design Mode [0] that does this, but for one pane. Combine that with a tiling window manager and you get everything except the pane mirroring without having to use a proprietary browser. I'd be interested in knowing if any other solutions exist just to add in the syncing functionality. Edit: a comment mentioned Browsersync [1]. Browsersync + a proper window manager should give you everything Polypane offers and more, with any browser. [0]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Responsive_Design_Mode https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Responsive_De...
- trashburger 6y agoBrowserSync[0] has syncing different tabs, reloading the page on code changes, layout mode, and many other features. It basically does what Polypane seems to do, and it's FOSS. The only thing missing is, as you mentioned, multiple windows side-by-side, and you can pretty much do that manually (or with a tiling WM - which you already mentioned). [0]: https://www.browsersync.io/ https://www.browsersync.io/
- dragonshed 6y agobrowsersync is nice but it's just a different approach (proxying for multiple clients/tabs) with its own tradeoffs. Polypane is one browser tab (1 debugger, 1 css editor, etc) with multiple viewports, so there's no extra hassle or window-management involved when inspecting an element, editing a style, hitting a breakpoint, etc.
- konart 6y agoAll chromium browsers had this for a long time. The point is - nobody really provided a feature to have N views with different resolutions for the same source
- ricardobeat 6y agoBlisk, Sizzy have been around for a while and do exactly this. Plus I remember something (maybe Rocketmelt?) offering a similar feature waaay back.
- konart 6y agoWe stand corrected then.
- edjroot 6y agoThere's also Emmet Re:view, an open source Chrome extension (apparently not actively developed though, and I've never used it): https://github.com/emmetio/re-view https://github.com/emmetio/re-view
- jawngee 6y agobrowsersync syncs up everything, so I'm sort of failing to see the difference between this and a few tiled windows side by side (what I currently do) with browsersync sync'ing scrolling and clicking. You're likely already using it as part of your webpack dev flow anyways.
- deedubaya 6y agoSissy is pretty great, and has been around for a while https://sizzy.co/ https://sizzy.co/
- chewzerita 6y agoFrom about 30 seconds of clicking on links, it seems to be the same author.
- yohannparis 6y agoLooks like a great tool, but I'm not paying another subscription, can I just buy it for $90 or something.
- dandigangi 6y agoAgree on the pay side. Something like seems like it would be good to give a 30 day trial or something at least.
- 0xFACEFEED 6y agoIt's rough. General question for the HN crowd: If one is passionate about building dev tools then what's a good path for monetization? The options seem so very limited. Fixed prices are nowhere near enough to cover the costs of supporting a complex app and paying for 50+ subscription services doesn't make sense for developers either. So far all I've seen is what effectively amounts to sponsorships by FAANG type companies to build OSS dev tools.
- 2019-nCoV 6y agoThe problem is every second developer is also passionate about building dev tools. The market is naturally over-saturated. The world does not need more dev tools. There are bountiful real-world problems out there itching to be solved with software for the developer who can overcome their one-dimensional interests, to stop harbouring in the safe waters of the abstract and embrace the real world. Take up a hobby as distinct from programming as you can tolerate. Instead of that next industry meetup, go give a hand in your local community.
- amelius 6y agoI'm wondering about the business side of this. This tool sounds useful, but I bet that Mozilla could implement this quite easily if the market wants this, so why would a company pour resources into building something like this? And as a user, I would probably miss the developer tools.
- kilian 6y agoThere’s both support for chromium devtools (including devtools extensions) and I just launched a new custom Element inspector that’s even more convenient. What would you miss?
- kilian 6y agoAuthor of Polypane here. I’m a bootstrapped solo dev trying to make this work :) Cool to finally see it on HN. If you have any questions, happy to answer them!
- t0astbread 6y agoMaybe a bit of a weird question but I'm curious: What's the reason behind this being it's own entire browser? Like, if I were given the task of implementing this I would try to avoid creating a new browser (because it sounds like a lot of work). But I know that doing "weird things" like that sometimes causes you to hit a lot more roadblocks than expected and I'm curious to hear the technical story behind this!
- reilly3000 6y agoI don't tend to think of forking Chromium as a new browser. I imagine that Chrome devtools aren't part of the browser extension API they provide, so creating something would have to start at a lower level.
- OJFord 6y agoThey are on Firefox at least, I assume Chrome too, there's a Vue devtools extension for example that adds a tab alongside inspect, console, debugger, et al. to give you a sort of Vue-aware 'inspect'.
- kilian 6y agoA browser extension would be the other option, but those are severely limited in what they can do and the regular browser model is not built with multiple panes in mind. To do everything I want to do (like css media query breakpoint defection) I needed something more low-level.
- ipsum2 6y agoCan you clarify what it means that Google uses your product? Is that everyone who does webdev work?
- vivgui 6y agoI use this as part of my daily workflow as a frontend developer. It saves me a ton of time instead of messing around with chrome windows. I prefer this over Sizzy because of frequent updates and better synchronized scroll support. I do wish the reloading time would be faster but I understand that when you reload 7-10 chromium windows at the same time, it's bound to be a bit slow.
- robenkleene 6y agoI'd love to hear the details of why web developers like this feature? As opposed to say, clicking through the various dimensions in the responsive design mode? I guess the idea is seeing the changes live: So as you're fixing one aspect ratio, make sure you're not simultaneously breaking another? If you're using something like Webpack, that supports hot reloading, couldn't you simulate this just by having multiple browser windows open, each displaying a different dimension size? So then is the idea that having to set that up manually each time is a pain? (Not judging, just seeking to understand, I'm a huge fan of any kind of speed increase, but I'm curious if I'm missing anything here.)
- ricardobeat 6y ago> is the idea that having to set that up manually each time is a pain Yes. Most recently, component library viewers have started offering this as a feature. It's very useful if you're making your UI element responsive.
- robenkleene 6y agoThanks! Follow-up question: So I'm guessing a "component library viewer" is a local web app that you run to view WIP/finished components (like for https://storybook.js.org/ https://storybook.js.org/)? If you have a link to an example I'd love to check it out.
- ricardobeat 6y agoThis is maybe the 7th take on this multi-viewport browser in the past few years. Is there some hidden business model I'm missing to justify the number of similar projects?
- mekster 6y agoIncrease their own productivity?
- rkagerer 6y agoAnyone else find it painful scrolling through that site and waiting for the animations to reveal the next "block"? They're smooth, but by the time they show up my eyes have moved on from the void where they had expected content to be. Coupled with the "marketingy" phrases it annoyed me enough to leave before I learned anything about what makes this browser special. (Not knocking the tool, just the landing page)
- kilian 6y agoAs a developer myself there’s a constant struggle regarding how marketingy I should make it. I don’t think I’m making any over-the-top claims and there’s no denying it works, but different people respond to different things. What were the phrases that most annoyed you?
- etaioinshrdlu 6y agoSo what happens when JS queries the size of something? Is the answer only correct for one pane? I can only imagine that this is a big source of pain once any JS gets involved. It doesn't sound like a very solvable problem.
- kilian 6y agoJavaScript runs inside your panes so whatever you measure in JavaScript is correct in each pane.
- xylophoner 6y agoWould be great to see an educational discount. I can see this being very useful in a teaching environment.
- kilian 6y agoI agree, that’s why it’s free to use through the GitHub student developer pack :)