No release this week; What should we build next?

#1

Hi friends,

Ryan and I spent the last two weeks researching code export, but it’s not quite ready, so we won’t have a new release up on Monday.

For the next release cycle, we’re curious to hear what you need most for Subform to better fit into your workflow.
Some ideas from us:

  • Color variables that make it easier to name, reuse, and export colors to production
  • Type styles, for the same reason
  • A read-only “inspector” so that developers can look at and measure designs (similar to https://tudou527.github.io/marketch/)
  • Bulk image export, so you can automatically generate PNGs of artboards or components at a variety of device sizes
  • No new features, but more articles / videos demonstrating how to use the layout and component systems in detail
  • ???

What would ya’ll like to see in Subform next?

#2
#3

Looking forward to the help/tutorial videos the most. I love the new exporting features but I just can’t seem to find a use-able tool/scenario to take Subform’s exported code feature into an interactive prototype or add some state transitions.

Maybe seeing a video or two of how you guys would tackle something like this with what we currently have to work with would be great!

#4

Would love some videos and tutorials. I’m a longtime fanatical Antetype user, which uses the box model and features reusable widgets with per-instance customizations, and I find Subform to be rather bewildering. Seeing someone build a complex, responsive layout with reusable components would help clarify how to think about layout and systems in Subform.

#5

All of the above? :nerd_face:

I’d say, a “visual” catalog of saved components (which include color variables, type/paraph styles, and UI components) like I was aking about in this post..

#6

I’ve just looked at subform again after a while. What I noticed is that it hard to select the thing you want to select in the main window. I always need to use the tree view. For the artboard I like the way it’s handled in sketch, where each artboard has it’s name visible in the main window and clicking the name does select the artboard.

2018.03.12 Subform release 4553
#7

All the top three options are important for use in a work environment. The inspector mode is probably the most important, but with export a lot of those things are addressed.

#8

I think I understand what you’re saying here, but just want to clarify to make sure:

Is the issue that you can’t select an artboard in the canvas area because its children take up all the available whitespace in it? In other words, there’s no visible element of the “artboard” to click on?

#9

When you say “export” here, Brian, what specifically do you mean? (A lot of stuff gets lumped under that category. :slight_smile:)

#10

The export HTML and CSS capabilities. Which btw those are great, but would be fantastic to separate the markup and presentation. You can separate the presentation, but the markup only includes inline styling. I know that’s a whole other animal.

#11

One way to skin that cat is by generating unique class names for the markup and then putting the appropriate styles into the CSS. Would that be a more useful starting point for you? Can you describe your use case a bit more?

#12

Exacty that. E.g. in an app design you’ll hardly find any blank canvas space.

#13

Got it. That’s on our list of things to tackle, I’ll see if we can get it into the next release or two. Thanks for pointing this out.