Now and the future...

Haven't posted for a while, thought I would let everyone know of the development we are working on.

The snippets creation and storage is now implemented, but we are now working on a way to import and export libraries of snippets, so for example a company could share it's components with everyone to make sure designs were produced to a style.

We are now revisiting the components and you'll soon be able to change font size and face for all components with text. We are working on adding actions to certain components, so bringing more interactivity to the preview area. 960 grids, word and excel importer, and importing from competitive wireframing applications are other extra features in the works.

Finally, we have real time collaboration working in our test lab, but we have to wait for Flash 10.1 to implement in the live version.

All good stuff, as we continue making iPlotz the best wireframing app out there!

adding something interesting to the mix at iPlotz

We have been busy adding new features to iPlotz, the newest of which will be the creation, storing, exporting and importing of custom components and libraries. We are still working on where the snippets are stored, but you can see it in action on the sandbox server at iplotz.com/staging. So far you create your elements, select them and then from the inspector palette add them as a snippet. Currently they appear at the top under a tab next to pages, but we will be moving that under a new tab next to components.

We shall shortly be making live the project management application on the website, so that should help getting projects organised.

I'm also mulling over an idea to offer a monthly competition for ideas presented via iplotz, commented and voted on by users and ourselves, where the winner gets 3 months design and coding (1 designer and 1 web developer) to produce the website or software application. Anyone like this idea?

Version 2 released

After a couple of months of hard work, version 2 has now been released with a whole host of new features, including html export, and component search box, improved linking from components like tabs and menus. There are lots more changes, so best to have a peek and try them out, and take a look at the release changes from the link at the base of the app.

The desktop version always follows a couple of weeks behind so that is due in a couple of days.

We're now working on 3 new features - making links work in pdf exports, storage of snippets and grouped items in the left component side, and real time collaboration on wireframes.

enjoy!

development still ongoing...

I haven't updated the blog for a while, since I've been in Asia travelling, but the development has not stopped. We've been consolidating the application, making sure most of the bugs are squashed. The version history seems to be working well and now we are working on HTML exporting as well as some other exciting new features. I won't be adding the new features in the blog anymore since they are there in the application at the footer, so you can check anytime for changes and big fixes.

iPlotz has been growing steadily over the last 6 months since launch, and it's interesting to note a few copycat sites popping up. Nice to see that we had the right idea...

update to 1.5.2, align elements now done...

~ Text component controls can now be access without double clicking the component
~ Added automatic linking for in anything with a http or www in front of it become a link in the Notes component
~ Added Icon to identify linked components
~ Added Dutch and Catalan languages
~ Added background Grid customization for specifying grid width, subdivisions and color
~ Added an option to add commas in datagrid, using [,]
~ Added group aligning of Multiple selected objects
~ Added short cuts for bring to front(ALT+SHIFT+up), send to back (ALT+SHIFT+down),
bring forward (CTRL+up for WIN or COMMAND+up for MAC) and send backward (CTRL+down for WIN or COMMAND+down for MAC)
~ Added auto created email accounts/password on invites
~ Added pixlr inline editing for images
~ Changed the delete icon and edit icon on the images in My Library
~ Fixed the issue with shortcut for select-all
~ Fixed the issue with line tool selection after moving the line
~ Fixed the autosizing issue in datagrid while header is off.
~ Fixed the format reset issue in datagrid after editing the text.
~ Fixed the delete and send email icon flashing initaly in the Project New/Edit window.
~ Fixed the issue with the Browser Window Component which causes URL continue to remain in view even after removing it
~ Fixed the issue with Notes losing default color
~ Fixed the issue with name of the page not getting saved with export to single ipml file

online and offline now in sync

Finally we have updated the desktop app to have the same features as the online app, and you can also publish a wireframe directly to a project on the server. These are some of the extra things added as well:

- More controls for text component
- Line tool with arrows
- Export whole Project to PDF
- User can enable/disable autosave (second tool on toolbar)
- Added button for 100% view for Page View Zoom
- Page View Zoom plus and minus now are clickable
- Added Escape key to deselect component and select the Page
- Added a red border for Master Pages
- Fixed the issue with \'null\' value in task list add task button when no project is selected
- Fixed the issue with add task if no project is selected
- Added an option to bypass the Welcome Screen

Color text and datagrid changes

Latest small update is 1.4.1, where the Datagrid now has quite a few more options. As we progress each component will get similar treatment to make it more useful. We have also added color selection tot he text component. We are investigating the best way to allow individual items to be changed in the text block, using html style codes in square brackets [i] [/i] for example.

You will also notice on the Manage section, that the sitmaps show as you select each project. I find this useful to check what pages are in a project, and to go directly to one, either in Wirefrme mode if you have access, or Preview if not.

We've often had requests to change the color scheme...but I like it so far...it is a bit dark, but if anyone has any ideas of a better color scheme, I am open to ideas..;-)