[KDE Usability] GUI mock-ups

[Markus-85]

Hi.
Does anybody know a good app for doing GUI mock-ups under Linux? Back
in the day when I was still using Windows, I used some prehistoric version of
Visual Basic for that.
Under Mac OS X (my OS after Windows) Interface Builder is easy to use, too --
even for non-programmers like me.

Under Linux I just tried QtCreator, but I feel too stupid for that. I just
don't understand how to create a GUI with it.
The resulting mock-up should be self-containing, if possible. Or at least the
developer of an app shouldn't have to jump through hoops to open mock-ups.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
-- Markus
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2009/9/9 Markus <kamikazow@...>:

> Hi.
> Does anybody know a good app for doing GUI mock-ups under Linux? Back
> in the day when I was still using Windows, I used some prehistoric version of
> Visual Basic for that.
> Under Mac OS X (my OS after Windows) Interface Builder is easy to use, too --
> even for non-programmers like me.
>
> Under Linux I just tried QtCreator, but I feel too stupid for that. I just
> don't understand how to create a GUI with it.
> The resulting mock-up should be self-containing, if possible. Or at least the
> developer of an app shouldn't have to jump through hoops to open mock-ups.

Qt's designer.  Manual with screenshots:
http://doc.trolltech.com/designer-manual.html

To install in ubuntu/debian:

apt-get install qt4-dev-tools qt4-designer

Then run:   designer
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[Michael Rudolph-3]

On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 16:59, Markus<kamikazow@...> wrote:

> Hi.
> Does anybody know a good app for doing GUI mock-ups under Linux? Back
> in the day when I was still using Windows, I used some prehistoric version of
> Visual Basic for that.
> Under Mac OS X (my OS after Windows) Interface Builder is easy to use, too --
> even for non-programmers like me.
>
> Under Linux I just tried QtCreator, but I feel too stupid for that. I just
> don't understand how to create a GUI with it.
> The resulting mock-up should be self-containing, if possible. Or at least the
> developer of an app shouldn't have to jump through hoops to open mock-ups.
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Thanks,
> -- Markus

Hi Markus,

I enjoy using Balsamiq Mockups
(http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups/desktop). It's an Adobe AIR
application, which means, it should run on Linux. But I haven't tried
that. It's also a commercial product, but you can ask them about a
free license, if you're using it for open source design work. That's
what I did. It's amazingly easy and straightforward. And so good at
what it does, that I can look past some of its shortcomings.

Another "tool" for mock ups and wire frames that works well on Linux
is html. You can search the web for how others are using it, but all
the how-to's I have seen describe just what you think they would.
Works probably best for people doing web design work.

Some Designers are using InDesign, so perhaps Scribus will work too.
Inkscape definitely will work, but not having any stencil sets is
really limiting and creating new ones everytime the default theme
changes might become a burden. Also the workflow might not be so
straightforward in Inkscape.

The best solution, however, would be what John already mentioned: Qt
Designer. If it was easier. It would perfectly integrate into the
workflow between designers and developers. But whenever I tried to use
it in the past, it was just not flexible enough. Sure you can
manipulate the xml directly for all the flexibility that you need, but
that totally robs you of all your design mojo. And playing with QSS
from within Qt Designer is a real pain and the documentation also
won't help, because it's written (or generated) for a different
audience. If the Trolls realized that with Qt Designer developers are
not their only target audience, then this could surely beat all the
other tools.

Untill then, I'll keep enjoying Balsamiq. :-)

I hope that helps,

michael
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[Celeste Lyn Paul]

Hmm.. unfortunately there isn't much out there in terms of Free
Software. I use OpenOffice Presenter, although that is pretty low
fidelity. Ideally, I would like to see Kivio's interaction improved
because then we could get an oxygen stencil set to make higher
fidelity mockups. There is also a XUL app called Pencil that you can
download as a Firefox add-on. If I need to do anything high fidelity,
I usually use Axure which isn't free and doesn't run in Linux.

On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 10:59 AM, Markus <kamikazow@...> wrote:

> Hi.
> Does anybody know a good app for doing GUI mock-ups under Linux? Back
> in the day when I was still using Windows, I used some prehistoric version of
> Visual Basic for that.
> Under Mac OS X (my OS after Windows) Interface Builder is easy to use, too --
> even for non-programmers like me.
>
> Under Linux I just tried QtCreator, but I feel too stupid for that. I just
> don't understand how to create a GUI with it.
> The resulting mock-up should be self-containing, if possible. Or at least the
> developer of an app shouldn't have to jump through hoops to open mock-ups.
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Thanks,
> -- Markus
> _______________________________________________
> kde-usability mailing list
> kde-usability@...
> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-usability
>

--
Celeste Lyn Paul
KDE Usability Project
KDE e.V. Board of Directors
www.kde.org
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Use QtDesigner directly. Forget about layouts, just place the widgets in
the correct location, take a screen shot and the kolourpaint is your friend.


Markus wrote:

> Hi.
> Does anybody know a good app for doing GUI mock-ups under Linux? Back
> in the day when I was still using Windows, I used some prehistoric version of
> Visual Basic for that.
> Under Mac OS X (my OS after Windows) Interface Builder is easy to use, too --
> even for non-programmers like me.
>
> Under Linux I just tried QtCreator, but I feel too stupid for that. I just
> don't understand how to create a GUI with it.
> The resulting mock-up should be self-containing, if possible. Or at least the
> developer of an app shouldn't have to jump through hoops to open mock-ups.
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Thanks,
> -- Markus
> _______________________________________________
> kde-usability mailing list
> kde-usability@...
> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-usability
>
>
>  

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[Celeste Lyn Paul]

QtDesigner is too much for quick layouts and forces you into high
fidelity mode. Sometimes you dont need or dont want to work at that
level.

On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 5:13 PM, Diego Iastrubni <elcuco@...> wrote:

> Use QtDesigner directly. Forget about layouts, just place the widgets in
> the correct location, take a screen shot and the kolourpaint is your friend.
>
>
> Markus wrote:
>
>> Hi.
>> Does anybody know a good app for doing GUI mock-ups under Linux? Back
>> in the day when I was still using Windows, I used some prehistoric version of
>> Visual Basic for that.
>> Under Mac OS X (my OS after Windows) Interface Builder is easy to use, too --
>> even for non-programmers like me.
>>
>> Under Linux I just tried QtCreator, but I feel too stupid for that. I just
>> don't understand how to create a GUI with it.
>> The resulting mock-up should be self-containing, if possible. Or at least the
>> developer of an app shouldn't have to jump through hoops to open mock-ups.
>>
>> Any ideas?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> -- Markus
>> _______________________________________________
>> kde-usability mailing list
>> kde-usability@...
>> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-usability
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> kde-usability mailing list
> kde-usability@...
> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-usability
>

--
Celeste Lyn Paul
KDE Usability Project
KDE e.V. Board of Directors
www.kde.org
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Markus a écrit :

> Hi.
> Does anybody know a good app for doing GUI mock-ups under Linux? Back
> in the day when I was still using Windows, I used some prehistoric version of
> Visual Basic for that.
> Under Mac OS X (my OS after Windows) Interface Builder is easy to use, too --
> even for non-programmers like me.
>
> Under Linux I just tried QtCreator, but I feel too stupid for that. I just
> don't understand how to create a GUI with it.
> The resulting mock-up should be self-containing, if possible. Or at least the
> developer of an app shouldn't have to jump through hoops to open mock-ups.

I used to do ascii art mockups but they can be painful to draw. Lately I
have been transitioning to Inkscape, but I still do some kind of ascii
art with it. For example creating a set of checkboxes is really fast:
add a text shape and type a set of "[x] foo bar" in it.

The nice thing about using Inkscape to do so is that you can easily move
things around, annotate part of the mockup with arrows and draw several
windows in a single image, showing transitions with arrows as well.
Using Inkscape also makes it possible to detail specific parts a bit
further if need be

One thing you want to be careful about is that while you can mail the
resulting .svg around, some svg renderers are not (yet) capable of
rendering everything Inkscape does (Qt renderer comes to mind), so it's
a good idea to generate a .png of your mockup as well.

Aurélien
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