WireframeSketcher Blog

New Android and touch gestures stencils, other improvements

Peter Severin — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0000

Hi everyone!

Today’s release brings several improvements and bugfixes. There are also new stencils, one for Android 4.0 and another one for touch gestures. Read on for more details.

Android 4.0 stencil

WireframeSketcher is an ideal wireframing tool for Android. It can be installed along with other Android tools inside Eclipse IDE which makes it an obvious choice. To further improve our support for Android we released a new Android 4.0 ICS stencil. This stencil can be used both for Android phone and tablet apps. It includes common controls, dialogs, action bars, lists and menus. There is also a Browser control for those who want to wireframe their website for tablets.

Touch gestures stencil

WireframeSketcher is being used more an more for wireframing mobile applications. The new Touch gestures stencil provides a set of symbols for annotating such applications. Included gestures are: Touch, Long Press, Drag, Swipe, Double Touch, Pinch Open and Pinch Close.

Other changes

Added Distribute Centers actions

Added background color property for Browser widget

Added neutral sort icon
Added multi-term search in Palette and Quick Add dialogs
Improved colors in TabbedPane widget by reverting colors of selected and background tabs

Improved text antialiasing on Windows
Improved automatic sizing of embedded icons in text
Improved Windows installer to automatically uninstall previous version
Improved error reporting in export dialogs
Improved support for RTL orientation
Fixed save to avoid data loss on errors
Fixed the issue with invalid characters when copying & pasting from external programs

Updating

To update to the latest version of WireframeSketcher go to the Help menu and select Check for Updates.

The version number of this release is 3.5.1.

Enjoy!

Pixel font sizes, small improvements and fixes

Peter Severin — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0000

Hi everyone!

Today’s release changes font size units from points to pixels, and brings several improvements and bugfixes. Read on for more details.

Pixel font sizes

This release brings a major change that modifies how font sizes are handled. Until now all font sizes were specified in points. A major issue with this approach was cross-platform compatibility of screen files. To fix this the new version switches font size units from points to pixels.

Please note that this is not a breaking change and old screen files will still keep their font sizes in points. The new version ensures that this migration is as transparent as possible and your screens look exactly as before. In some cases you may see font sizes specified in points (e.g. 12pt). This is done to preserve backward compatibility of your screens. You can also continue using fonts sizes in points by specifying the “pt” unit explicitly:

Other changes

Added an action to create a component from selection. Right-click on the selection and choose “Convert to Component…” and you’ll be prompted for a new screen file to save the component to.
Added new screen creation button in screen selection dialog of storyboard editor. Use it to create and add a screen to storyboard in a single action.
Added support for automatic Perforce checkouts. Now when you start editing screen files, they are automatically checked out and their permissions are set to read-write.
Changed row height slider to support 1px increments. This works by either using left/right arrows, or by holding Alt and clicking to the left or to the right of the slider thumb.
Enabled font size setting in Palette view. Right click in the Palette and choose “Settings…” to access it.
Fixed the issue with removing links in component overrides
Fixed an issue with exiting overriding mode in certain situations
Fixed an issue with PDF batch export and screenflow option

Updating

To update to the latest version of WireframeSketcher go to the Help menu and select Check for Updates.

The version number of this release is 3.5.0.

Enjoy!

Better screen flows, small improvements

Peter Severin — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0000

Hi everyone!

Today’s release brings better screen flows, and several improvements and bugfixes. Read on for more details.

Better screen flows

This release brings the long awaited export option for screen flows. Screen flows can now be exported as an extra page in PDF document:

Screen flows also got a long-needed face lift. Multiple links between a pair of screens are now collapsed to a single link. Link labels were also removed as most of the time they are of little use:

Screen flows can now also be printed. So if you need a single page with your screen flow then just go to “Screenflow” tab and print it. With the right system setup you can also print to PDF.

The last addition are align and distribute actions. These actions make it easy to layout screen flows with large number of screens.

Other changes

Improved Ctrl+MouseWheel to zoom on mouse cursor position
Added “minus” icon
Cleaned up built-in icons to look better when rotated
Fixed an error when removing a rotated icon
Fixed an issue with “+” character in image file names
Fixed icon rotation in Label widget
Fixed the z-order of link areas in exported HTML

Updating

To update to the latest version of WireframeSketcher go to the Help menu and select Check for Updates.

The version number of this release is 3.4.2.

Enjoy!

A few bugfixes and better bulleted lists

Peter Severin — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0000

Hi everyone!

Today’s release brings a few bugfixes, one being a potentially serious issue with component overrides, and better bulleted lists. Read on for more details.

Fixed component overrides

This release fixes a serious issue with component overrides. In some very particular cases overrides were not computed properly and could cause strange effects and lost work. We treat bugs that may lose work very seriously so please update to make sure that you are not affected by this issue.

Better bulleted lists

This release also brings better bulleted lists. Bullets use circle and square styles for 2nd and 3rd nesting levels. This makes lists much more clear:

Bullets are now better centered vertically at large font sizes, and there is also a fix for an issue that caused extra lines to appear in some cases on Linux.

Other changes

Added “Edit Screen” action in presentation mode
Updated JRE in Windows distribution
Updated platform to Eclipse 3.7.2

Updating

To update to the latest version of WireframeSketcher go to the Help menu and select Check for Updates.

The version number of this release is 3.4.1.

Enjoy!

New Palette, new iPad stencil, and a whole lot of improvements

Peter Severin — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0000

Hi everyone!

Today’s release brings a new and improved Palette, adds a new iPad stencil to Mockups Gallery, and packs various changes that will improve your wireframing experience. Read on for more details.

New Palette

Finding your way through available assets and widgets is a big part of wireframing process. Palette view is the central piece of the UI that helps you do that. I’ve been collecting your feedback on Palette for more than a year and finally decided to sit down and bring its UI up to speed. I’m really excited with the result.

So here what the new UI looks like:

As you can see, Widgets and Assets drawers are gone and were replaced by a new filter tree that lets you quickly switch contexts. The new Palette also uses regular scrollbars instead of those annoying and hard to hit up and down arrows. Another change are better thumbnails. Thumbnails now let you see the whole widget when possible (notice the Browser). This last change makes working with custom assets a much more pleasing experience.

Another big change is support for cross-project asset sharing. This is accomplished via project references that you can setup by right-clicking a project in Project Explorer and choosing Properties > Project References. Use this mechanism to avoid asset duplication by placing assets in one designated project.

Then there are other small improvements like: keyboard navigation support; better handling of long file names (the palette detects camel case and underscored words and splits them up); better search matching.

I believe the new Palette will vastly improve you wireframing experience. I’d love to hear what you think about it so don’t hesitate to send me your comments.

New iPad stencil

There is a new iPad stencil in Mockups Gallery for creating beautiful sketchy wireframes with good layout precision. It includes iPad popovers, buttons, bars, icons, alerts and more. There is also a Safari control for those who want to wireframe their website for iPad.

This stencil should be used together with iPad Bezels and iPad Keyboards.

Other changes

Improved reorder actions to work with multiple selection
Fixed drag & drop in Outline view to preserve relative ordering
Removed navigation footer in exported HTML documents
Fixed missing master links in Screenflow editor
Fixed Quick Add to place widgets inside visible canvas when zoomed
Switched to regular file chooser instead of directory chooser in export dialogs on Windows
Fixed an error when exporting to non-existing or non-writable directory
Fixed multi-line text alignment when using \n in Button, Circle, Rectangle and Table widgets
Fixed PDF export to use images when Arabic or Hebrew text is used

Ubuntu Software Centre

WireframeSketcher can now be installed from Ubuntu Software Centre in Ubuntu Oneiric Ocelot and later. If you are an Ubuntu user then consider this option. The package integrates perfectly with your desktop and you get automatic updates through regular system updates. The only small downside is that updates tend to lag a little behind due to a manual review process.

Updating

To update to the latest version of WireframeSketcher go to the Help menu and select Check for Updates.

The version number of this release is 3.4.0.

Enjoy!