Silkscreen: Automatic Preview of PSD on iOS app | Hacker News Reader

Silkscreen: Automatic Preview of PSD on iOS app

getsilkscreen.com

27 pointspatrickxb17 comments

Hi guys, I'm one of the developers of Silkscreen. If you have any questions please go ahead and ask.

Btw, could a mod change the title? It's not about turning a .psd into an iOS App but just about previewing iPhone App mockups on your device.

So to be clear, this is not for transforming a mockup into an actual application?

Nope, this is for designers who need to preview their retina designs on a retina screen.

That makes a lot more sense. The title of this submission made it sound like some horrific image slicing and click-action tool!

Haha, we would never release such a tool. :)

Since we didn't submit the link we had no say over the title.

Bought the app. Works as advertised. I love that I can switch from iPhone to iPad and back again very quickly.

Initial requests:

* Use full screen dimensions - my comps are sized to the dimensions of the screen. I shouldn't have to crop or resize my canvas. Also makes it difficult to look at items in the footer.

* List the dimensions in the interface, before I try to drop a file onto it.

* Don't prevent the app from loading a file just because the dimensions are wrong - show me your best guess results and let me decide if I want to change the file

* Don't force me to rotate my image if I'm working on an app in landscape orientation. If Silkscreen requires images in portrait orientation, then Silkscreen should rotate the image, not me.

* How do I close an image but not close Silkscreen? Do I have to exit to the home screen?

* If I have iPhone and iPad running at the same time, preview an image on iPad, and then exit, Silkscreen Mac complains that the image dimensions are incorrect and the Mac app interface slides to the left inside the app window, becoming unusable.

* Would be nice to be able to drop multiple files and then select a gesture to go between them, especially if you could choose a different gesture for each transition.

Easier technic to preview a PSD on iOS: Open an additional view for your file (Window -> Arrange -> New Window) and place it one the side. Download the free tool 'LivePreview' http://www.zambetti.com/projects/liveview/ and place its window on top of your cloned Photoshop view. Open your iOS device, install the 'LivePreview' app and connect to your machine. Wolla - a live preview!

Silkscreen reads the PSD directly, so you don't need a second monitor.

Also we support previewing iOS Home Screen icons on a fake Home Screen.

Has anybody used this and compared it to LiveView?

http://www.zambetti.com/projects/liveview/

The basic principle is different. Silkscreen reads the PSD directly, so you don't need a second monitor.

Also we've heard that LiveView is crashy on Lion, but I never experienced that.

LiveView is free and you see your edits live without having to press Cmd+S.

My friend finally came over and told me that you iterate the supported file types by a rotating animated gif. I am not a business guy but I would maybe write it at least once on your website. So far it seems the list is "PNG images and Photoshop images". Please help me interpret this so I can tell what you're selling.

Sorry, we're currently in the process of making a screencast, submitting 1.1 and writing our email list. We haven't yet had much time to work on the homepage.

Silkscreen is for designers who design for retina devices and need a retina density preview on the real device.

This is a cool idea, but the site is not clear enough. A big video showing how it works would be more useful.

Year we're currently in the process of making a screencast. I'm thinking just zooming from Photoshop to the iPhone and showing how changes are reflected instantly should be a good explanation.

Bought the app for previewing Fireworks PNGs, but how can I view pages in it?

For now, it will show only the first page. Swiping between Fireworks pages is something we have on our roadmap.

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