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Pencil – Multi-platform GUI Prototyping and Wireframing

57 points by simulo 11y ago

karmakaze 11y ago
Interested, but not enough to build it just to see. The new project needs to show me something. For a visual tool to provide no visuals is poor presentation. A feature list and sample screenshots are a minimum.
- e2e8 11y ago
  The original project page has some more info. http://pencil.evolus.vn/ http://pencil.evolus.vn/
  - karmakaze 11y ago
    Thanks for the link. The question remains what's the difference between the original and the fork. The stencils page on the original project site shows some widgets[1]. [1] http://pencil.evolus.vn/Stencils-Templates.html http://pencil.evolus.vn/Stencils-Templates.html
- m0dest 11y ago
  When a GUI app doesn't show any screenshots along the way from the homepage to the download link, you can usually assume the worst. (Not true on GitHub, though.)
- franciscop 11y ago
  Exactly my thought, I even went to the documentation and introduction but nothing...
sandrae 11y ago
I've been using Pencil for some years now to pre-visualize new features for our Saas app. It's a great piece of software. Before that I used Balsamiq mockups and I'm glad I changed over to Pencil.
inanutshellus 11y ago
I'm using Pencil right now to map out an upcoming project. It's one of the few useful GUI prototyping apps I've found that's free. Most of the competition is for-pay, and I just don't do enough of this stuff to justify paying for squares and arrows on a PNG (I use it for exporting UML and page flows ATM.) If you don't want to build it, just use the original project's pre-built installation (RPM, Bundle, EXE here http://pencil.evolus.vn/Downloads.html http://pencil.evolus.vn/Downloads.html). The difference between this reboot project and the original is likely minimal, so if you like the original, it's probably worth coming back and building the reboot project.
- nawariata 11y ago
  Binaries are available too. https://github.com/prikhi/pencil/releases https://github.com/prikhi/pencil/releases
ArekDymalski 11y ago
I wonder why the Windows installer has grown from 22MB in case of original to 40.5MB in the reboot project. Anyway it's great that someone made an effort to reanimate this tool.
dopeboy 11y ago
Pencil is awesome. Being a fulltime Linux user, finding a Visio like diagramming tool is hard to find. I used Pencil to draw and maintain a finite state machine for a startup I was working on. Best of all, it is free.
ux-app 11y ago
Pencil is great, you should definitely give it a go if you need to do any diagrams or GUI mockups. I've been working on a prototyping app for a while (https://www.ux-app.com https://www.ux-app.com). It's more geared toward interactive prototypes. If anyone has any feedback about ux-app then I'd be keen to hear about it :)
hanlec 11y ago
If someone who used Pencil could share what they've liked at it, that could be more helpful than the current documentation.
fcanela 11y ago
I just used pencil in my company to create a mockup for a recent web project and it was a good experience. PRO: It gave good results to us. With Bootstrap + FontAwesome stencils we were able to create more realistic pieces and gathered better feedback. CONS: The linked repository version had a glitch which caused FontAwesome stencil disappear forever after few minutes using the application and being unable to reimport it. Evolus Pencil version worked well.

57 points by simulo 11y ago

Interested, but not enough to build it just to see. The new project needs to show me something. For a visual tool to provide no visuals is poor presentation. A feature list and sample screenshots are a minimum.

e2e8 11y ago
The original project page has some more info. http://pencil.evolus.vn/ http://pencil.evolus.vn/
- karmakaze 11y ago
  Thanks for the link. The question remains what's the difference between the original and the fork. The stencils page on the original project site shows some widgets[1]. [1] http://pencil.evolus.vn/Stencils-Templates.html http://pencil.evolus.vn/Stencils-Templates.html
m0dest 11y ago
When a GUI app doesn't show any screenshots along the way from the homepage to the download link, you can usually assume the worst. (Not true on GitHub, though.)
franciscop 11y ago
Exactly my thought, I even went to the documentation and introduction but nothing...

sandrae 11y ago

I've been using Pencil for some years now to pre-visualize new features for our Saas app. It's a great piece of software. Before that I used Balsamiq mockups and I'm glad I changed over to Pencil.

inanutshellus 11y ago

I'm using Pencil right now to map out an upcoming project. It's one of the few useful GUI prototyping apps I've found that's free. Most of the competition is for-pay, and I just don't do enough of this stuff to justify paying for squares and arrows on a PNG (I use it for exporting UML and page flows ATM.) If you don't want to build it, just use the original project's pre-built installation (RPM, Bundle, EXE here http://pencil.evolus.vn/Downloads.html http://pencil.evolus.vn/Downloads.html). The difference between this reboot project and the original is likely minimal, so if you like the original, it's probably worth coming back and building the reboot project.

nawariata 11y ago
Binaries are available too. https://github.com/prikhi/pencil/releases https://github.com/prikhi/pencil/releases

ArekDymalski 11y ago

I wonder why the Windows installer has grown from 22MB in case of original to 40.5MB in the reboot project. Anyway it's great that someone made an effort to reanimate this tool.

dopeboy 11y ago

Pencil is awesome. Being a fulltime Linux user, finding a Visio like diagramming tool is hard to find. I used Pencil to draw and maintain a finite state machine for a startup I was working on. Best of all, it is free.

ux-app 11y ago

Pencil is great, you should definitely give it a go if you need to do any diagrams or GUI mockups. I've been working on a prototyping app for a while (https://www.ux-app.com https://www.ux-app.com). It's more geared toward interactive prototypes. If anyone has any feedback about ux-app then I'd be keen to hear about it :)

hanlec 11y ago

If someone who used Pencil could share what they've liked at it, that could be more helpful than the current documentation.

fcanela 11y ago

I just used pencil in my company to create a mockup for a recent web project and it was a good experience. PRO: It gave good results to us. With Bootstrap + FontAwesome stencils we were able to create more realistic pieces and gathered better feedback. CONS: The linked repository version had a glitch which caused FontAwesome stencil disappear forever after few minutes using the application and being unable to reimport it. Evolus Pencil version worked well.