Hi, is there any ongoing projects with goal of making inkscape also as modular UX/UI design tool ?
in my search for foss design tool for UX/UI, Flow design and organization, so far only very few are available, out of that only few seems to be working (with some hardwork). but most of them are proprietary solutions or else oriented towards it.
afaik, inkscape has better design features than any other design tool out there ... however it lacks a few features to make it as a design tool for any front end designer.
those are : 1. svg to code conversion 2. library management for projects 3. parametric design convention 4. standard templates 5. animation
if those are made available through python, then it will become invincible, and i dont know about akira so far, tried but failed to build several times in this year.
like this : 1. select a target device, 2. choose a template dimension, 3. make flow for ux (from synthesized user flow in ux design with api), 4. collect/make icons, fonts, color palettes, 5. get standard components for the chosen device, 6. integrate together activity by activity in each discrete flow part of the 3 step. 7. convert every single ui from step 6 to css or android xml so that the layers, objects can be reused in Qt, Android, React.
This would definitely give free software projects an upper hand among the developer community like Fdroid, and other web based projects. However some very few projects are avaible in FOSS with such ideas, are no where near to inkscapes design versality.
regards
cosmobird.
Although I too echo the sentiment, Inkscape isn't currently set up for such things. It its, however usable for UX design, and is used by the GNOME project for mockups, etc. It's doubtful in the near future Inkscape will acquire the many many conveniences that UX design programs have. It's not impossible, but currently our developers are working on making Inkscape better at what it already does to provide stable releases for the future. That said, there's nothing stopping interested parties from creating a UX design branch of Inkscape to explore the possibilities. It's just we don't currently have the dev power necessary to undertake a major expansion like that. Just adding some concept of "flow" would be difficult enough, and would likely require different dialogues to be usable in the same way UX programs do it. You might also consider experimenting with extensions, which, say take svg objects on canvas and export them in some particular order along with an HTML file with some fancy css and javascript to do your animations and flow transitions. Building that externally would offer a way to do UX in Inkscape without modifying (or cluttering) Inkscape's current user interface.
To be sure, it's a great idea, and I think if you have the time and means to learn some Python to make this extensions (which Inkscape already supports to some degree), you could potentially make some really great add-on tools to help people make more fancy UX stuff in Inkscape. As far as adding page templates for different devices, that's actually something we could do fairly easily, and would be a nice to have for many developers who make mockups in Inkscape.
1. svg to code conversion - Difficult, but could be done as an extension for Inkscape or completely outside of Inkscape. 2. library management for projects - Probably not doable currently. However Doc and Jabier were working on the ability to link in svg files, so you could just use a file folder for your shared library items. Changing an item linked would change every instance of the svg in the file. You could also do what I do and create off-canvas shared objects (what I call a "super-template") and use clones of objects from that to arrange your designs. 3. parametric design convention - Yea, not really anything to solve that issue yet. More css is being integrated into Inkscape however, so it's conceivable that this will be less of an issue to accomplish in the future. 4. standard templates - I intend to make some of my "super templates" available to the public soon. These are different setups for making different kinds of things, from business cards, which auto-update an exportable preview of front and back, to website templates for making quick mockups. These simply use Inkscape's built-in features to work, so no code needs to be added. 5. animation - Yea, nothing at all yet. It's not that it can't be done, it's that figuring out a good UI for such a thing in Inkscape is a major undertaking. It may be possible to write a javascript program which handles the animation bits of svg components exported from Inkscape, in some standard way.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and ideas, and welcome to the project! :) -C
On Thu, Apr 2, 2020 at 5:29 PM cosmobird aimgreenviper@riseup.net wrote:
in my search for foss design tool for UX/UI, Flow design and organization, so far only very few are available, out of that only few seems to be working (with some hardwork). but most of them are proprietary solutions or else oriented towards it.
afaik, inkscape has better design features than any other design tool out there ... however it lacks a few features to make it as a design tool for any front end designer.
those are :
- svg to code conversion
- library management for projects
- parametric design convention
- standard templates
- animation
if those are made available through python, then it will become invincible, and i dont know about akira so far, tried but failed to build several times in this year.
like this :
- select a target device, 2. choose a template dimension, 3. make flow
for ux (from synthesized user flow in ux design with api), 4. collect/make icons, fonts, color palettes, 5. get standard components for the chosen device, 6. integrate together activity by activity in each discrete flow part of the 3 step. 7. convert every single ui from step 6 to css or android xml so that the layers, objects can be reused in Qt, Android, React.
This would definitely give free software projects an upper hand among the developer community like Fdroid, and other web based projects. However some very few projects are avaible in FOSS with such ideas, are no where near to inkscapes design versality.
regards
cosmobird. _______________________________________________ Inkscape Devel mailing list -- inkscape-devel@lists.inkscape.org To unsubscribe send an email to inkscape-devel-leave@lists.inkscape.org
Hi C R,
Thats great. Its very inspiring to learn that some of the stuff that i think would be necessary are already in process. And i am thinking of exactly to build plugins that provide addon features for making inkscape as ui/ux flow tool. I agree that it must not break the current interactivity that inskscape natively offers.
As suggested, i will try to brush up on python. Although i could not find better doc on python-plugin development for inkscape. If once i can properly go through it, i think i can encourage the local free software group (https://fshm.in) who have more pythonistas to work and contribute to inkscape.
I also made a health care app ui ux mockup flow which our coop released very recently. I am actually very satisfied when i did with inkscape. That is when i got frustrated with the companies that actually use almost all open standards and foss tools to build their tool and in turn not often anything in foss. It becomes an appropriation.
Thanks a lot C R, for your compassion and empathizing with me on the design perspective. Please share any available doc that i can follow up to learn on python plugin development (even if it is based on c++ please share), i will try to do as much as i can in my ability, along with the local community.
regards
cosmobird.
On 03/04/20 7:14 pm, C R wrote:
Although I too echo the sentiment, Inkscape isn't currently set up for such things. It its, however usable for UX design, and is used by the GNOME project for mockups, etc. It's doubtful in the near future Inkscape will acquire the many many conveniences that UX design programs have. It's not impossible, but currently our developers are working on making Inkscape better at what it already does to provide stable releases for the future. That said, there's nothing stopping interested parties from creating a UX design branch of Inkscape to explore the possibilities. It's just we don't currently have the dev power necessary to undertake a major expansion like that. Just adding some concept of "flow" would be difficult enough, and would likely require different dialogues to be usable in the same way UX programs do it. You might also consider experimenting with extensions, which, say take svg objects on canvas and export them in some particular order along with an HTML file with some fancy css and javascript to do your animations and flow transitions. Building that externally would offer a way to do UX in Inkscape without modifying (or cluttering) Inkscape's current user interface.
To be sure, it's a great idea, and I think if you have the time and means to learn some Python to make this extensions (which Inkscape already supports to some degree), you could potentially make some really great add-on tools to help people make more fancy UX stuff in Inkscape. As far as adding page templates for different devices, that's actually something we could do fairly easily, and would be a nice to have for many developers who make mockups in Inkscape.
- svg to code conversion - Difficult, but could be done as an
extension for Inkscape or completely outside of Inkscape. 2. library management for projects - Probably not doable currently. However Doc and Jabier were working on the ability to link in svg files, so you could just use a file folder for your shared library items. Changing an item linked would change every instance of the svg in the file. You could also do what I do and create off-canvas shared objects (what I call a "super-template") and use clones of objects from that to arrange your designs. 3. parametric design convention - Yea, not really anything to solve that issue yet. More css is being integrated into Inkscape however, so it's conceivable that this will be less of an issue to accomplish in the future. 4. standard templates - I intend to make some of my "super templates" available to the public soon. These are different setups for making different kinds of things, from business cards, which auto-update an exportable preview of front and back, to website templates for making quick mockups. These simply use Inkscape's built-in features to work, so no code needs to be added. 5. animation - Yea, nothing at all yet. It's not that it can't be done, it's that figuring out a good UI for such a thing in Inkscape is a major undertaking. It may be possible to write a javascript program which handles the animation bits of svg components exported from Inkscape, in some standard way.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and ideas, and welcome to the project! :) -C
On Thu, Apr 2, 2020 at 5:29 PM cosmobird <aimgreenviper@riseup.net mailto:aimgreenviper@riseup.net> wrote:
in my search for foss design tool for UX/UI, Flow design and organization, so far only very few are available, out of that only few seems to be working (with some hardwork). but most of them are proprietary solutions or else oriented towards it. afaik, inkscape has better design features than any other design tool out there ... however it lacks a few features to make it as a design tool for any front end designer. those are : 1. svg to code conversion 2. library management for projects 3. parametric design convention 4. standard templates 5. animation if those are made available through python, then it will become invincible, and i dont know about akira so far, tried but failed to build several times in this year. like this : 1. select a target device, 2. choose a template dimension, 3. make flow for ux (from synthesized user flow in ux design with api), 4. collect/make icons, fonts, color palettes, 5. get standard components for the chosen device, 6. integrate together activity by activity in each discrete flow part of the 3 step. 7. convert every single ui from step 6 to css or android xml so that the layers, objects can be reused in Qt, Android, React. This would definitely give free software projects an upper hand among the developer community like Fdroid, and other web based projects. However some very few projects are avaible in FOSS with such ideas, are no where near to inkscapes design versality. regards cosmobird. _______________________________________________ Inkscape Devel mailing list -- inkscape-devel@lists.inkscape.org <mailto:inkscape-devel@lists.inkscape.org> To unsubscribe send an email to inkscape-devel-leave@lists.inkscape.org <mailto:inkscape-devel-leave@lists.inkscape.org>
Can't may any promises yet, but I'm attempting to add common phone/tablet templates (in pixel dimensions) to inkscape's File > Create From Template functionality. I've collected over 6000 phone models and their screen dimensions into a spreadsheet. Obviously, I'll need to hack something together to choose Manufacturer, then model to make the results useful. The good news about that is in theory, you should be able to choose whatever phone make and model you want, and instantly have a template which is the correct size.
Not much, but a start, anyway. :) -C
On Wed, Apr 8, 2020 at 4:39 PM cosmobird aimgreenviper@riseup.net wrote:
Hi C R,
Thats great. Its very inspiring to learn that some of the stuff that i think would be necessary are already in process. And i am thinking of exactly to build plugins that provide addon features for making inkscape as ui/ux flow tool. I agree that it must not break the current interactivity that inskscape natively offers.
As suggested, i will try to brush up on python. Although i could not find better doc on python-plugin development for inkscape. If once i can properly go through it, i think i can encourage the local free software group (https://fshm.in) who have more pythonistas to work and contribute to inkscape.
I also made a health care app ui ux mockup flow which our coop released very recently. I am actually very satisfied when i did with inkscape. That is when i got frustrated with the companies that actually use almost all open standards and foss tools to build their tool and in turn not often anything in foss. It becomes an appropriation.
Thanks a lot C R, for your compassion and empathizing with me on the design perspective. Please share any available doc that i can follow up to learn on python plugin development (even if it is based on c++ please share), i will try to do as much as i can in my ability, along with the local community.
regards
cosmobird. On 03/04/20 7:14 pm, C R wrote:
Although I too echo the sentiment, Inkscape isn't currently set up for such things. It its, however usable for UX design, and is used by the GNOME project for mockups, etc. It's doubtful in the near future Inkscape will acquire the many many conveniences that UX design programs have. It's not impossible, but currently our developers are working on making Inkscape better at what it already does to provide stable releases for the future. That said, there's nothing stopping interested parties from creating a UX design branch of Inkscape to explore the possibilities. It's just we don't currently have the dev power necessary to undertake a major expansion like that. Just adding some concept of "flow" would be difficult enough, and would likely require different dialogues to be usable in the same way UX programs do it. You might also consider experimenting with extensions, which, say take svg objects on canvas and export them in some particular order along with an HTML file with some fancy css and javascript to do your animations and flow transitions. Building that externally would offer a way to do UX in Inkscape without modifying (or cluttering) Inkscape's current user interface.
To be sure, it's a great idea, and I think if you have the time and means to learn some Python to make this extensions (which Inkscape already supports to some degree), you could potentially make some really great add-on tools to help people make more fancy UX stuff in Inkscape. As far as adding page templates for different devices, that's actually something we could do fairly easily, and would be a nice to have for many developers who make mockups in Inkscape.
- svg to code conversion - Difficult, but could be done as an extension
for Inkscape or completely outside of Inkscape. 2. library management for projects - Probably not doable currently. However Doc and Jabier were working on the ability to link in svg files, so you could just use a file folder for your shared library items. Changing an item linked would change every instance of the svg in the file. You could also do what I do and create off-canvas shared objects (what I call a "super-template") and use clones of objects from that to arrange your designs. 3. parametric design convention - Yea, not really anything to solve that issue yet. More css is being integrated into Inkscape however, so it's conceivable that this will be less of an issue to accomplish in the future. 4. standard templates - I intend to make some of my "super templates" available to the public soon. These are different setups for making different kinds of things, from business cards, which auto-update an exportable preview of front and back, to website templates for making quick mockups. These simply use Inkscape's built-in features to work, so no code needs to be added. 5. animation - Yea, nothing at all yet. It's not that it can't be done, it's that figuring out a good UI for such a thing in Inkscape is a major undertaking. It may be possible to write a javascript program which handles the animation bits of svg components exported from Inkscape, in some standard way.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and ideas, and welcome to the project! :) -C
On Thu, Apr 2, 2020 at 5:29 PM cosmobird aimgreenviper@riseup.net wrote:
in my search for foss design tool for UX/UI, Flow design and organization, so far only very few are available, out of that only few seems to be working (with some hardwork). but most of them are proprietary solutions or else oriented towards it.
afaik, inkscape has better design features than any other design tool out there ... however it lacks a few features to make it as a design tool for any front end designer.
those are :
- svg to code conversion
- library management for projects
- parametric design convention
- standard templates
- animation
if those are made available through python, then it will become invincible, and i dont know about akira so far, tried but failed to build several times in this year.
like this :
- select a target device, 2. choose a template dimension, 3. make flow
for ux (from synthesized user flow in ux design with api), 4. collect/make icons, fonts, color palettes, 5. get standard components for the chosen device, 6. integrate together activity by activity in each discrete flow part of the 3 step. 7. convert every single ui from step 6 to css or android xml so that the layers, objects can be reused in Qt, Android, React.
This would definitely give free software projects an upper hand among the developer community like Fdroid, and other web based projects. However some very few projects are avaible in FOSS with such ideas, are no where near to inkscapes design versality.
regards
cosmobird. _______________________________________________ Inkscape Devel mailing list -- inkscape-devel@lists.inkscape.org To unsubscribe send an email to inkscape-devel-leave@lists.inkscape.org
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