Easel
Dev tools
web design editor
SHOW HN2012
346points
120comments
#27of 1,677 in 2012
Top 2%of 2012 by points
How HN took it
MixedNo clear lean
23 positive, 26 neutral or asking, 13 mixed, 16 critical, out of 78 comments about the project. Thread score +0.07.
Idea: 10 for, 5 againstDesign: 4 for, 4 againstExecution: 2 for, 6 againstPricing: 1 for, 0 againstPerformance: 0 for, 1 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Slick, fast interface and good keyboard shortcuts
From 3 comments
Very cool interface. Any a very nice usage of keyboard shortcuts. Can Easel output an entire web page? - meaning can I layout an entire page then get a zipped download of the…
pygorex on HNI was a a bit bummed when I realised that slick scrolling is canvas. It feels outstanding on my mac trackpad. It's a very 'appy' web-app, if that makes sense. It wasn't until I…
mwill on HNvery nice and fast - definitely by leaps and bounds more intuitive than the old dreamweaver I was using some 10 years ago!
jcfrei on HN
Useful for quick prototypes shared with clients
From 2 comments
Great idea guys! I can already see myself designing something and building a quick real-world prototype and sharing the url of that with clients. So much better than…
digitalengineer on HNI'm a web application nerd and I really think you're onto something here. As an initial offering this app has a lot of promise and I can't wait to see what else you guys do with…
DigitalSea on HN
Exports HTML/CSS snippets
From 1 comment
My favorite part is the HTML/CSS snippet generation. Many times I've had to play around with the CSS in Chrome inspector to get what I wanted. While it's not hard, I do like to…
jkeel on HN
Objections
Draws on canvas, not the DOM, so output is not real layout
From 2 comments
Congratulations! Glad to see more people attempting this type of thing. The demo content design is pretty nice. Some good things in Easel, but I have lots of problems with all…
splatcollision on HNCongrats on putting out a great looking alpha. One question I have: The entire layout is being drawn inside of a canvas. Why was this decision made? Since (at least partly) the…
skyhook_mockups on HN
Absolutely positioned output does not suit responsive layouts
From 3 comments
True, but this is just a different sort of approximation, too. Layouts where all the elements are absolutely positioned don't work in the real world, so the markup and css will…
grantjgordon on HNThis strikes me as a good mix of Balsalmiq (www.balsalmiq.com) and Photoshop. One of my pet peeves is getting mockups from designers that clearly fail to take the actual…
fendrak on HNI had a funny satisfaying feeling to have a free Illustrator Licence for a minute. That said I agree that, as cool and well delivered, it's against the fluid/responsive web we're…
agumonkey on HN
Cluttered, unfamiliar UI and unlabeled controls
From 2 comments
This is cool. I like the concept. I'm hoping that someone can create a web app that reduces the need for Photoshop. You guys are off to an auspicious start. Great work! My only…
thejerz on HNCool. One of the things that confuses me though are the hotkeys (control+shift+5 turns the div into a button? not very intuitive). Instead of hotkeys, I'd prefer to be told how…
aik on HN
Browser compatibility bugs in Chrome, Firefox and Windows
From 3 comments
It's impossible to use in Chrome 19 on Win 7 because the scrollbars are missing.
benmccann on HNThe "Make me pretty" section doesn't render properly for me under Firefox 13.0 on Arch Linux, but it looks right in Chromium. Here's what it looks like in Firefox:…
dsrguru on HNI’m sorry, my Firefox said that the script was unresponsive, I clicked ‘Continue,’ and everything remained sort of frozen.
premise on HN
Requests
Support for non-absolute, flowing layouts
From 2 comments
Just a drawing tool in the browser. This doesn't do anything different than Photoshop or Omnigraffle, if the web designer is smart enough to reuse layers / components. It could…
hcarvalhoalves on HNThe hard part about using the browser's layout engine is that it is limiting to the designer. We'd have to snap things into say, floating position, etc. And we'd have to know…
mrbogle on HN
Platform-neutral keyboard shortcuts
From 2 comments
Cool :) Two notes: ``` - I'm not on a mac so don't give me mac shortcuts - Control+Shift+E is already bound in firefox (and it's a very handy shortcut) ```
gizzlon on HNHi, this seems neat. Some points: In Chrome 19.0.1084.52 on Ubuntu, I'm getting told to use Apple command key shortcuts. There is no scrollbar. The scroll wheel works, but the…
mkl on HN
Open source release
From 1 comment
Looks nice, is it or will it be open source?
ericingram on HN
Questions
Can it export a full page as HTML?
From 2 comments
Very cool interface. Any a very nice usage of keyboard shortcuts. Can Easel output an entire web page? - meaning can I layout an entire page then get a zipped download of the…
pygorex on HNLooks like this webpage is drawn in Canvas. Can this tool translate the entire Canvas content to a HTML doc that I can then publish?
blyxa on HN
Does Download as PNG work?
From 1 comment
Does "Download as PNG" menu action in File menu work for anyone? That is the only feature I care about, and I haven't seen anything like that before.
flixic on HN
Alternatives named
Photoshop
From 2 comments
I'll stick with Photoshop and Sublime Text 2. Thanks though, it was fun to play around with for a while.
twodayslate on HNJust a drawing tool in the browser. This doesn't do anything different than Photoshop or Omnigraffle, if the web designer is smart enough to reuse layers / components. It could…
hcarvalhoalves on HN
Edit Room
From 1 comment
Congratulations! Glad to see more people attempting this type of thing. The demo content design is pretty nice. Some good things in Easel, but I have lots of problems with all…
splatcollision on HN
Marquee
From 1 comment
Looks a lot like getmarquee.com, only not as impressive.
ravejk on HN
Unbounce
From 1 comment
You should take a look at Unbounce. While they're targeting landing pages, their page editor does this the right way IMO. What I'd personally like to see is a JS in-browser page…
callmeed on HN