jpochtar

Yes! I completely agree. Thanks for posting this, it needs to be brought up in any conversation about code-free tools.

Pagedraw is not a code free tool. It never will be. I don't think it's possible either.

Programming needs to happen in language. Even if you did something like Scratch, (to which I prefer typing,) you still need the arbitrary constructs of language in order to express whatever you want.

Pagedraw is not programming, which only works because we don't really think HTML and CSS are either.

You will absolutely still need to write code to make novel algorithms and custom business logic until the AGI revolution comes. Pagedraw is meant to be used side by side with code implementing the business logic, state management, and anything else novel about your app. Pagedraw will take over more and more of the non-turing complete parts.

Today, with Pagedraw you write state management and API code just like you did before.

> Do you see this product as a tool for developers or a tool for designers to publish their creations directly to the web?

Yes. Both, eventually :) Today the product is a strict replacement for HTML and CSS, so it's something a developer would use to bring designs into production after the designer's done with them.

Actually, yes! All the parts of our site which are made in Pagedraw are fully cross-browser supported. That includes our landing page, dashboard, and parts of our editor.

Based on the feedback in this thread we're going to bump up the priority of this concern. Getting this kind of feedback is why we're doing this launch thread, so we really appreciate it.

Hey sorry about that! Could an Electron app work for you instead? We have some betas at https://documentation.pagedraw.io/electron/

You can keep working on your Sketch file after importing it into Pagedraw. Subsequent uploads will merge your changes in Sketch with your edits in Pagedraw.

We're pretty proud of the mechanism (it fell out almost for free from our live collaboration mechanism!) and will almost certainly blog about it when we have time.

https://documentation.pagedraw.io/sketch/#bring-in-future-in...

You never have to write CSS for a Pagedraw generated component. If you must use custom css, you can mark a block in Pagedraw as a handwritten component coming from a designated file. In that component (done entirely by hand, outside Pagedraw), you can of course use whatever CSS you want. Pagedrawn components and handwritten components play nicely together; the CSS we generate shouldn't interfere at all with the CSS you write by hand for non-Pagedraw components.

Pagedraw doesn't impose any organizational requirements on your Sketch files! You're right that requiring certain structures is bad UX; we agree and care deeply about following that principle. The incorrect file formatting error means we don't recognize your upload as a Sketch file at all.

Probably a bug on our side. Could you try emailing the Sketch file to team@pagedraw.io and we'll see if we can debug it?

This was tough for us, because we're big believers in the standards-based web. We 100% promise that all the code we generate works across all browsers.

Unfortunately, while most of the editor works in all browsers, getting full support is really hard. We're doing a lot of things that get pretty deep in the browser, so we wanted to lock things down as much as possible.

We almost were electron-only to ensure consistency, and can still give you the electron app today. We felt it was better to launch with Chrome + Electron than just Electron for an optional installation-free experience, which is why we only support Chrome.

I'm personally really sorry as an engineer that we don't support Firefox, Safari, and other browsers yet. It's on our roadmap :)

yes, depending on demand. Get your friends / coworkers to message us if they need it too

coming soon! :D

We're working on simplifying the common case usage for props, but they are complicated right now because we're going for giving you the full flexibility of React. What that means for us is that props have 2 parts: their definition and their usage. Go into the CODE tab of the sidebar and you'll see the prop definitions on top and the usages below. When you create a new binding by clicking "make dynamic", we automatically create both a definition and a usage for you. We don't do a great job of keeping the names in sync because we expect you'll rename the prop (and update the usage).

https://documentation.pagedraw.io/data-binding/

We haven't launched the Figma integration yet, (it's behind a config flag,) but it's coming soon! Sketch should be working today. Could you email us at team@pagedraw.io if it's not?

It's there! The main demo link goes to a simplified version of Pagedraw for the walkthrough, but if you sign in and use the full version from https://documentation.pagedraw.io/install/, you can choose between JSX, CoffeeScript, Javascript (React.createElement), and Typescript!

It's the same mechanism we'll use later to let you choose between React, Angular, React Native, ERB, etc.

Thanks! Just fixed the link :)

Wow, this is amazing!

"In the next release of Windows 10, we intend to begin listing PWAs in the Microsoft Store... The Microsoft Store, powered by the Bing crawler, will automatically index selected quality Progressive Web Apps"

First, Microsoft is encouraging devs to build with web technologies instead of Windows APIs. This is exactly the future their anticompetitive actions in the 90s were trying to prevent.

Now, they're now treating the desktop like a browser and their Store like a search engine. They've lost the API wars [1] so thoroughly that they're now dedicated to working for the other side.

[1] https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/06/13/how-microsoft-lost...

We already have a basic form of machine checked-proofs in everyday code: type systems. Type systems encode and prove simple theorems like "f(x: int) -> int returns an int, if x is an int". Typescript and Mypy show us that these proof checkers don't need to be built into a language. Even better, they show that proofs can be over subsystems of a program, since Typescript and Mypy both allow for partial/incremental typing. We just need to extend these systems to support more complex theorems.

Is anyone else concerned that this means IT can choose to hold back the version of Chrome in their organizations? Auto-updating Chrome has been low key one of the best solutions to the pain of backwards compatibility with older browsers. In the past we not only had to worry about compatibility between browsers, we had to worry about compatibility between browser versions. Further, auto-updating Chrome as dramatically reduced the time from new web feature implementation to widespread deployment and thus usability. I take it that turning off auto-updating will not be widespread, but I'd rather not risk it

this is going to be as addicting as 2048

I can't recommend this book enough. I read it around 9th grade and I've never looked at computers the same. It gives the reader confidence in understanding how these magical machines work from top to bottom. I am seriously emphatic about this book whenever friends ask about how computers work in the slightest. I'm so glad to see it frontpaging HN because of what this book taught me; I hope others will see it here and find it as great as I did

Where can I join freshStart?

If you want to migrate a coffeescript codebase to typescript, try out https://github.com/palantir/coffeescript-to-typescript which should do it for you automatically

There are two big final exams today, and the buildings targeted are where they are held. It seems very likely that someone didn't want to take their tests.