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Ionic Creator – Fast Visual Ionic Prototyping

86 points by isawczuk 12y ago

bsaul 12y ago
Nice first version. I'm not sure what's the status of this project , but it took me 2 minutes to find a first obvious bug : i created a first page with a single button linking to a second page. First time i clicked the button, the transition worked, then i clicked back, then the button's link didn't work. (i only used "test mode" on Chrome,so i'm not sure the export has a different behavior).
- yesimahuman 12y ago
  Thanks for letting us know. It's "early beta" for sure. Will take a look at that!
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
tyrel 12y ago
It would be really nice if this website showed what it does before just saying "Sign up". Why should I give them my email address? I clicked the little logo at the bottom which brought me to another page which doesn't say much either about what it is.
- alesdotio 12y ago
  I thought the same. Here's a video I found https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvCUIiAupJ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvCUIiAupJ8
  - prezjordan 12y ago
    "Are you sexy? Girl asked" :|
  - yesimahuman 12y ago
    Just a disclaimer: that video is community created content and we (Ionic team) have no connection to it nor do we endorse it. That demo copy is just plain not cool.
- yesimahuman 12y ago
  Yea, good point, we need to change that copy :) Right now we source all our creator users through the Ionic Framework page (http://ionicframework.com/ http://ionicframework.com/) so most of them know what it is, but clearly we didn't think beyond that! EDIT: tweaked it a bit for now
- fpp 12y ago
  Try their github repository (MIT lic) https://github.com/driftyco/ionic https://github.com/driftyco/ionic or goto http://ionicframework.com/ http://ionicframework.com/
  - tyrel 12y ago
    I understand what it is after doing some offsite research, that's fine. But if you offer something to sign up on your site, it should be pretty obvious what you're signing up for.
    - wattengard 12y ago
      You wouldn't "accidentally" land on the Ionic Creator... If you are there, you know why, and what it is. And if you don't, it probably isn't that interesting for you anyway.
conradk 12y ago
Looks cool! Clean design and simple drag / drop workflow. For non technical people, definitely worth a try! First missing thing for me would be responsive images though. I can add an image, but unless it has the perfect size for the screen, it looks bad because the width does not adjust.
graystevens 12y ago
Posted this yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8629809 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8629809
- youaresolam3 12y ago
  cool story, bro.
yesimahuman 12y ago
(Creator creator here) - Cool seeing this on HN this morning. This tool is meant for Ionic Framework (http://ionicframework.com/ http://ionicframework.com/) developers to rapidly build UI for their apps. It's still early beta and there are definitely bugs, so any feedback or bug reports would be greatly appreciated!
- abluecloud 12y ago
  Clicking the export button doesn't seem to do anything for me. > GET http://creator.ionic.io/tmpl/designer/export-modal.tmpl http://creator.ionic.io/tmpl/designer/export-modal.tmpl 500 (Internal Server Error) response: Internal Server Error app id: 3e141dbe3cad
- wpietri 12y ago
  Yay! I'm excited to try this out. But please don't make people sign up to try your tool. Just have a "try it" link and throw them into an anonymous session. If they want to save their work, then ask them for their info. You'll capture a lot more curious-but-not-strongly-motivated users that way.
  - yesimahuman 12y ago
    Good call, we have plans to embed this and also have a demo mode. That being said, signups are doing really well today!
    - wpietri 12y ago
      I'm sure the numbers are good, but in your shoes I'd be looking at the bounce rate rather than total signups to prioritize a demo mode.
egeozcan 12y ago
The only hint to what it actually does on its page is "A simpler approach to live prototyping". Further information requires signing up. I usually don't complain about this kind of stuff and happily watch a video to learn more about a product but having to sign up to see what it does? That's too much, sorry.
mempko 12y ago
I miss VB6
dbla 12y ago
For those of you who have never used ionic (http://ionicframework.com/ http://ionicframework.com/) before I definitely recommend checking it out. It's an incredible framework for building mobile applications on top of Cordova. I've been using it for three mobile applications now it has decreased my dev time by probably 50%. The annoyances with testing, submitting to the app store, provisioning profiles, etc. are still there, but the actual development process is really enjoyable.
- TeeWEE 12y ago
  It also decreases your user satisfaction from my experience. Writing a full native app, versus an cordova based app is still a world of difference. So for business apps, data input apps etc, cordova is fine, but dont try writing your next killer app with it.. But opinions might differ, i know.
  - dbla 12y ago
    Yeah that's a fair point. The real downside of using Cordova in my experience is performance, but I do believe that is, and will continue to change. Mobile devices are getting faster and if you compare a typical Cordova app on a two year old phone vs. a new phone it's a world of difference.
shortnamed 12y ago
Tried developing a hybrid app in Ionic about 6 months ago, about 8 hours in I had seen so many bugs and inconsistencies in the docs that I ragequit. Looks like it still hasn't changed to something usable.
mistakoala 12y ago
Total n00b here.I took a look at Creator and it looks straight-forward with its drag and drop approach, but do I need to know more (e.g. a language or the Ionic framework) before I can do anything useful with it?
- delfaras 12y ago
  Ionic relies on CSS and AngularJS. Additionally, it is intended to be used with Apache Cordova, though it is not mandatory
  - mistakoala 12y ago
    I see. So I still can't quite jump right in and start making a basic app. No worries!

86 points by isawczuk 12y ago

bsaul 12y ago

Nice first version. I'm not sure what's the status of this project , but it took me 2 minutes to find a first obvious bug : i created a first page with a single button linking to a second page. First time i clicked the button, the transition worked, then i clicked back, then the button's link didn't work. (i only used "test mode" on Chrome,so i'm not sure the export has a different behavior).

yesimahuman 12y ago
Thanks for letting us know. It's "early beta" for sure. Will take a look at that!

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

tyrel 12y ago

It would be really nice if this website showed what it does before just saying "Sign up". Why should I give them my email address? I clicked the little logo at the bottom which brought me to another page which doesn't say much either about what it is.

alesdotio 12y ago
I thought the same. Here's a video I found https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvCUIiAupJ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvCUIiAupJ8
- prezjordan 12y ago
  "Are you sexy? Girl asked" :|
- yesimahuman 12y ago
  Just a disclaimer: that video is community created content and we (Ionic team) have no connection to it nor do we endorse it. That demo copy is just plain not cool.
yesimahuman 12y ago
Yea, good point, we need to change that copy :) Right now we source all our creator users through the Ionic Framework page (http://ionicframework.com/ http://ionicframework.com/) so most of them know what it is, but clearly we didn't think beyond that! EDIT: tweaked it a bit for now
fpp 12y ago
Try their github repository (MIT lic) https://github.com/driftyco/ionic https://github.com/driftyco/ionic or goto http://ionicframework.com/ http://ionicframework.com/
- tyrel 12y ago
  I understand what it is after doing some offsite research, that's fine. But if you offer something to sign up on your site, it should be pretty obvious what you're signing up for.
  - wattengard 12y ago
    You wouldn't "accidentally" land on the Ionic Creator... If you are there, you know why, and what it is. And if you don't, it probably isn't that interesting for you anyway.

conradk 12y ago

Looks cool! Clean design and simple drag / drop workflow. For non technical people, definitely worth a try! First missing thing for me would be responsive images though. I can add an image, but unless it has the perfect size for the screen, it looks bad because the width does not adjust.

graystevens 12y ago

Posted this yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8629809 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8629809

youaresolam3 12y ago
cool story, bro.

yesimahuman 12y ago

(Creator creator here) - Cool seeing this on HN this morning. This tool is meant for Ionic Framework (http://ionicframework.com/ http://ionicframework.com/) developers to rapidly build UI for their apps. It's still early beta and there are definitely bugs, so any feedback or bug reports would be greatly appreciated!

abluecloud 12y ago
Clicking the export button doesn't seem to do anything for me. > GET http://creator.ionic.io/tmpl/designer/export-modal.tmpl http://creator.ionic.io/tmpl/designer/export-modal.tmpl 500 (Internal Server Error) response: Internal Server Error app id: 3e141dbe3cad
wpietri 12y ago
Yay! I'm excited to try this out. But please don't make people sign up to try your tool. Just have a "try it" link and throw them into an anonymous session. If they want to save their work, then ask them for their info. You'll capture a lot more curious-but-not-strongly-motivated users that way.
- yesimahuman 12y ago
  Good call, we have plans to embed this and also have a demo mode. That being said, signups are doing really well today!
  - wpietri 12y ago
    I'm sure the numbers are good, but in your shoes I'd be looking at the bounce rate rather than total signups to prioritize a demo mode.

egeozcan 12y ago

The only hint to what it actually does on its page is "A simpler approach to live prototyping". Further information requires signing up. I usually don't complain about this kind of stuff and happily watch a video to learn more about a product but having to sign up to see what it does? That's too much, sorry.

mempko 12y ago

I miss VB6

dbla 12y ago

For those of you who have never used ionic (http://ionicframework.com/ http://ionicframework.com/) before I definitely recommend checking it out. It's an incredible framework for building mobile applications on top of Cordova. I've been using it for three mobile applications now it has decreased my dev time by probably 50%. The annoyances with testing, submitting to the app store, provisioning profiles, etc. are still there, but the actual development process is really enjoyable.

TeeWEE 12y ago
It also decreases your user satisfaction from my experience. Writing a full native app, versus an cordova based app is still a world of difference. So for business apps, data input apps etc, cordova is fine, but dont try writing your next killer app with it.. But opinions might differ, i know.
- dbla 12y ago
  Yeah that's a fair point. The real downside of using Cordova in my experience is performance, but I do believe that is, and will continue to change. Mobile devices are getting faster and if you compare a typical Cordova app on a two year old phone vs. a new phone it's a world of difference.

shortnamed 12y ago

Tried developing a hybrid app in Ionic about 6 months ago, about 8 hours in I had seen so many bugs and inconsistencies in the docs that I ragequit. Looks like it still hasn't changed to something usable.

mistakoala 12y ago

Total n00b here.I took a look at Creator and it looks straight-forward with its drag and drop approach, but do I need to know more (e.g. a language or the Ionic framework) before I can do anything useful with it?

delfaras 12y ago
Ionic relies on CSS and AngularJS. Additionally, it is intended to be used with Apache Cordova, though it is not mandatory
- mistakoala 12y ago
  I see. So I still can't quite jump right in and start making a basic app. No worries!