Show HN: Xpressive - CSS3 Live Design Tool for Mac OSX

by dilipray • 13 years ago

84 23 13 years ago

cliveowen• 13 years ago

I think a double display setup coupled with automatic page refresh after a change is more than enough to efficiently write CSS.

bbrks• 13 years ago

Yeah, I'm not quite sure why they're pushing "live changes" feature so hard. It's been around forever.

adyus• 13 years ago

Yes, but there may be some non-dev designers that do not yet know how to set it up, or haven't heard of Grunt.

joshcrowder• 13 years ago

This looks really interesting. Going to give it a play today. I'm interested in how you handle keyframe animations

EDIT I had a quick look through your CSS (which I think is built using Xpressive) overall I think it looks pretty good. Although you could definitely shave of 30% off by inlining some of the rules. For instance for margin:0 auto; you call margin-left:auto, margin-right:auto. The same applies for background, using the shorter version cuts files sizes dramatically

imjared• 13 years ago

Just for the sake of clarification, I don't think "inlining" is what you're looking for. Using `margin: 0 auto;` is shorthand, not inline. Inline would be `<div style="margin: 0 auto;"></div>`. Definitely don't want that :)

loceng• 13 years ago

I wonder if this kind of native design would be easier to use than fully custom setup that many web applications are creating.

scrumper• 13 years ago

Looks very impressive; I only do CSS occasionally so an easy tool like this is of value to me. Will try it.

A couple of things: I don't think the dot-org TLD is appropriate for a commercial venture. Your app store link takes me to an itunes web page on the Japanese app store, rather than launching App Store itself.

dilipray• 13 years ago

Hey, The link they pointed is https://itunes.apple.com/js/app/xpressive/id665817114?mt=12

They should have pointed it to global link https://itunes.apple.com/app/xpressive/id665817114

samsnelling• 13 years ago

Just purchased the full version for 21.99 on the Mac App Store. Is there an email address to give feedback to? I assume OP wanted feedback?

esusatyo• 13 years ago

I found this: xpressive@modulay.com

Also on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Xpressive_Team

oliverhunt• 13 years ago

What does this do that codekit and a browser cant?

jasonlotito2• 13 years ago

How do I get that timeline editing feature in CodeKit and Chrome? Oh, and automating the vendor prefixing. That would be nice as well.

Thanks!

STRML2• 13 years ago

The timeline editing is pretty cool. But you could easily get automatic vendor prefixing with SCSS/SASS (and you should be using a compile-to-CSS language if you're doing serious web design), and automatic reloads with Vogue or LiveReload. If I wanted to do serious CSS animations, though, this is worth a shot - and it's a great tool for inexperienced web designers or those short on time.

arvin• 13 years ago

I just downloaded the trial, but the app requires Mac OS X 10.8, I'm still on 10.7. I suggest to put something in the website that it requires 10.8.

schrijver• 13 years ago

I would suggest to make it compatible with 10.7 :)

bountie• 13 years ago

FYI, the call to action is obscured (actually it's more accurate to say there is no call to action, i.e. a button to download the app) in iPad portrait mode. You can see this when you resize the desktop browser to that width.

tambourine_man• 13 years ago

This is not a fault of Xpressive, but of CSS3's implementation: doesn't it bother anyone that we're in 2013 and we still have non anti-aliased motion graphics?

http://i.imgur.com/GAJuyqV.jpg

mmastrac• 13 years ago

Interesting: I'm using Chrome and I don't actually see the graphic you linked. I saw a mess of boxes shaped roughly like what you posted halfway down the page and had no idea what it was. Chrome bug? Or maybe a CSS issue?

Concours• 13 years ago

looks fine I may give it a try to compare it with http://brackets.io/ , can you tell me why would someone choose it over an amazing, free and open source project like http://brackets.io/ ? Why should I use it over Bracket ?

dharma1• 13 years ago

will give it a go, though there are other ways to do the live reload (grunt for instance).

Being able to save code changes in element inspector is nice, any way to do that in chrome?

What were the other killer features?

Show HN: Xpressive - CSS3 Live Design Tool for Mac OSX

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