Pencil – an open-source GUI prototyping tool for all platforms

https://github.com/evolus/pencil

by PleaseHelpMe • 9 years ago

379 86 9 years ago

github.com

zitterbewegung• 9 years ago

Wow looks better than balsamiq I will try this out at work.

pjmlp10• 9 years ago

balsamiq is a fast compiled Flash application, this will be an Electron one, and is XULRunner one currently.

buithehoa3• 9 years ago

What's your point?

jasonkostempski• 9 years ago

http://www.fiftythree.com/pencil https://www.apple.com/apple-pencil/

Kind of already an established name in the Apple world.

inyorgroove• 9 years ago

I recall using this for some prototype work around fall 2011. Apple's claim to the word was moot before this application existed.

Buttons840• 9 years ago

Can confirm, I also used this at least 4 years ago.

buovjaga• 9 years ago

Yep, the commit history in the old repo goes back to 2008: https://code.google.com/archive/p/evoluspencil/source/defaul...

chris_wot2• 9 years ago

This has been around a lot longer than Apple's products.

cmrx643• 9 years ago

https://www.apple.com/apple-pencil/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pencil

Kind of already an established name in the English-speaking world.

Serious talk though, this kind of comment is worthless.

ranman• 9 years ago

Why is it worthless? There's probably a trademark issue somewhere: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4801:lah...

Not that I really care... but there are too many damned pencils now. I vote apple rename theirs.

dflock• 9 years ago

Been using this for a while in it's various incarnations - this one is definitely the best so far.

Very useful tool for UI prototyping.

cmrx643• 9 years ago

I've been an occasional user of Pencil for 5 years (almost to the month). Really glad to see it moving away from XUL.

zmix2• 9 years ago

Really glad to see it moving away from XUL.

Why?

PleaseHelpMe• 9 years ago

You may want to take a look at this http://www.zdnet.com/article/mozilla-changes-firefox-apis-de...

cmrx643• 9 years ago

Because XUL will soon be unmaintained. It's too useful a tool to wither away and die.

jploh• 9 years ago

But they're moving to Electron which I wish packed lighter.

v3ss0n3• 9 years ago

using it and thinking about contributing it for long. The team did really ambitious work of dumping XUL and rewriting it in Javascript + HTML. I was one of the first user of new version since they hosted in gitlab , i was astonished that they did the conversion from XUL within just around a month and already working since then.

sametmax2• 9 years ago

Very instable on Linux unfortunatly.

buithehoa3• 9 years ago

Head over to their GitHub page and post your issue. They're pretty responsive.

sametmax2• 9 years ago

I prefer to pay for a stable solution than spend my time on improving an unstable one. Funny, when I was younger it was the contrary.

luca_ing• 9 years ago

Can't confirm.

buithehoa3• 9 years ago

As far as I know, most of Pencil developers are on Linux so Pencil is literally developed and tested on Linux most of the time.

Today, Pencil reached the #1 spot on both of GitHub trending lists (repositories http://i.imgur.com/4SRsna1.png and developers http://i.imgur.com/JrqTy3k.png).

I can understand that you had some issues with Pencil on Linux but claiming that Pencil is very unstable on Linux is a bit uninformed given its validated quality.

floatboth• 9 years ago

Did they really need Electron for this? Why not just make it also available as a normal web app with a URL?

comandillos• 9 years ago

Maybe because they'v been releasing desktop apps for all the previous versions, and doing an Electron app could make users more comfortable with it.

Also, Pencil doensn't need high performance requirements, si Electron could be perfectly valid for it (and im not a big fan of it)

gjjrfcbugxbhf• 9 years ago

This allows working offline and saving work locally using the native filesystem. A significant improvement over a webapp. My preference goes Full native app > electron >> webapp.

pjmlp10• 9 years ago

I rather have native app > webapp.

Really don't get the point of Electron, as I never got the point of XULRunner before.

If it is to be a webapp, take advantage of HTML5 features for offline apps, if it is to be native then take advantage of the OS UI/UX features.

Something in the middle just feels schizophrenic from UI/UX point of view.

jaymzcampbell• 9 years ago

There's always a lot of hate for anything Electron, so I'll just pipe up and say I am happier that they provide it as an offline app rather than having it online and needing me to have a tab in Chrome open. I know Electron isn't perfect but for regular users (those outside of the HN sphere) I don't think they really think about this much.

Pencil is a small enough project (10 contributors on Github) - I doubt they have resources (time or money) available to put web infrastructure behind it and maintain that - which would be a major distraction from their real goal.

wst_• 9 years ago

I see a lot of criticism around Electron. I honestly admit I am not a fan of it - see Slack memory consumption. OTOH I am not experienced enough to be able to judge the language as a whole. Could anyone not biased list pros and cons of Electron here? If it is so bad as people say, why more and more Electron apps pop up here and there?

tenryuu• 9 years ago

they keep popping up because they are piss easy to make and offer a runtime on all platforms.

Development time can be cut down, in exchange for a hindered performance on the client

whoisthemachine• 9 years ago

Slack really doesn't make sense as they already make native apps for mobile devices in Xamarin (.Net), but small projects like this do make sense, as the amount of human resources justification is clearly there.

mhink• 9 years ago

I'm probably a _bit_ biased in favor of Electron, but I feel like I can give a pretty reasonable rundown of the pros and cons.

Pros: - Chromium is a mature, open-source project which shows no signs of going anywhere anytime soon. - Electron allows web developers to use well-understood tools (Chromium/v8, Node/v8) to build web applications with additional, non-Web capabilities in a predictable runtime environment. - Browsers are the most consistent (and consistently available) GUI environment across platforms. - Some of the bigger value-add capabilities (filesystem/device access, windowing, native menus) don't necessarily benefit from native code- the Electron and Node APIs are good enough. - Electron is well-documented, free as in beer, and there are a ton of examples and demo apps.

Cons: - Memory usage, obviously. Chrome's biggest selling point was its ability to share resources among tabs (cutting down on memory requirements) which goes straight out the window when each app needs its own instance of Chromium. - Disk usage, obviously. Each Electron package includes the entire modified-Chromium binary it was built with. - Many Electron apps fail to take advantage of the main/renderer process split, because of the easy access to Electron APIs inside renderer processes. - Packaging/building/signing/auto-updating still have a very poor developer experience, and are not consistent across platforms. - It's too easy to open up security holes by opening remote resources in a renderer process with Node integration on. (Personally, if there's one thing I'd change about Electron, this is it.)

To tell the truth, I see Electron as a stepping stone for the Javascript community. It proves that there's great interest in doing cross-platform native app development under Javascript. Personally, I'm hoping that after React 16 (with Fiber) launches, we'll see work on a React Native-like framework which fills the gap currently bridged by Electron.

z3t42• 9 years ago

developing for electron or nw.js is wierd as you mix in code that would usually run on a server. the advantage of using electron or nw.js is that you dont have to support all kind of weird browsers. but then it wont run on most mobile phones. so if you want to target mobile make a web app. if you only target pc and want to support both mac linux and windows then there are few alternatives for a gui app.

scanr2• 9 years ago

Pencil was my go to free wireframing app for some time. Great to see that they are updating it.

lj3• 9 years ago

May I ask why you don't use it anymore?

scanr2• 9 years ago

I still like it quite a lot but I find sharing content and collaborating is easier in some of the other apps.

Note: I haven't tried the new version yet, so they may be working on this.

glasz• 9 years ago

apps made with i-cant-learn-the-proper-language-so-i-just-use-one-thats-not-made-for-the-job always feel and perform very badly. at least for me.

i mean they call out performance issues right in the first paragraph in the readme.

terrible world of half-assed pseudo-native applications.

nkozyra• 9 years ago

"Can't learn" is rarely the issue. Supporting two or three separate native apps is.

For some organizations this is manageable and the right move. For others, resources need to be allocated otherwise and they take the path of least resistance.

Most non technical people don't know the difference, aren't checking ram usage, don't have philosophical opposition to writing desktop apps in a browser, etc.

If my choice was between writing real native apps and slowing development versus just getting something done, I'd choose the latter, particularly for a project like this one. I understand the complaint, but in practice it's often a developer's quibble.

z3t42• 9 years ago

What language and GUI framework do you suggest ?

jfaucett• 9 years ago

Pencil is awesome. It is my goto prototyping and wireframing tool. I honestly like it better than the other tools with price tags that I've used out there. Somehow it seems noone knows about this, but its doing for mockups/wireframing what Blender does for 3D artists - providing a high quality open source tool that is usable by industry professionals. I hope pencil and their devs get more recognition / funding.

threepipeproblm• 9 years ago

Pencil has many higher-res stencils now, but I prefer the old ones that actually look like Pencil drawings.

I have also given this to clients, to have them draw their own UI concepts (as a starting position / way of communicating) with good results.

kraig911• 9 years ago

Sketch, Axure, Balsamiq.... and I still go back to Pencil + Illustrator after all these years.

vram223• 9 years ago

How did you find Axure?

mattkevan• 9 years ago

I use Axure daily, but only after trying pretty much every other wireframing and prototyping tool first. It always looked too ugly and expensive, the Word of wireframing.

Having finally got to grips with it, in my experience it blows away everything else. Nothing else compares in terms of features or workflow.

But it's still ugly and expensive.

vram223• 9 years ago

I had used Balsamiq to design the forms/screens for a SaaS project for a client (collaboratively with them), and it was not bad. IIRC, response was a little laggy, which might have been because it was built using Adobe AIR (not sure). (I got a free copy of it from Peldi under their scheme for people who develop free / open source software projects.)

Has anyone tried Axure (paid product), and if so, how did you find it? Another client that I did a project for, had claimed it was good, when I told him I use Balsamiq.

brailsafe• 9 years ago

Love pencil and started looking to contribute late last year. Unfortunately I couldn't get it to build properly on MacOS. As a result I couldn't get anything to run, and with practically no documentation at the time I eventually moved on. Hopefully the situation has improved over the year. I'll give it another go soon and see what can be done.

mbonzo• 9 years ago

Hey everyone! Vim Girl here. I've just created a demo of Pencil! If you are interested in seeing how pencil works I built a simple page: https://youtu.be/KTcYMvENb0k

Pencil – an open-source GUI prototyping tool for all platforms

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