
Polypane – Browser for Developers - gilad
https://polypane.app/
======
kilian
Author of Polypane here. I’m a bootstrapped solo dev trying to make this work
:) Cool to finally see it on HN. If you have any questions, happy to answer
them!

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t0astbread
Maybe a bit of a weird question but I'm curious: What's the reason behind this
being it's own entire browser? Like, if I were given the task of implementing
this I would try to avoid creating a new browser (because it sounds like a lot
of work). But I know that doing "weird things" like that sometimes causes you
to hit a lot more roadblocks than expected and I'm curious to hear the
technical story behind this!

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reilly3000
I don't tend to think of forking Chromium as a new browser. I imagine that
Chrome devtools aren't part of the browser extension API they provide, so
creating something would have to start at a lower level.

~~~
OJFord
They are on Firefox at least, I assume Chrome too, there's a Vue devtools
extension for example that adds a tab alongside inspect, console, debugger, et
al. to give you a sort of Vue-aware 'inspect'.

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vivgui
I use this as part of my daily workflow as a frontend developer. It saves me a
ton of time instead of messing around with chrome windows. I prefer this over
Sizzy because of frequent updates and better synchronized scroll support.

I do wish the reloading time would be faster but I understand that when you
reload 7-10 chromium windows at the same time, it's bound to be a bit slow.

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chaorace
It does what it says on the tin, multiple Chromium panes at once with
different dimensions, actions apparently sync up and everything. Frankly, I'm
surprised nobody has thought of this sooner!

Multiplatform support for Windows/Mac/Linux, which is to be expected, given
the Chromium base. Not open source, unfortunately, and free for trial only.

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Seirdy
> I'm surprised nobody has thought of this sooner

Firefox already has a Responsive Design Mode [0] that does this, but for one
pane. Combine that with a tiling window manager and you get everything except
the pane mirroring without having to use a proprietary browser.

I'd be interested in knowing if any other solutions exist just to add in the
syncing functionality.

Edit: a comment mentioned Browsersync [1]. Browsersync + a proper window
manager should give you everything Polypane offers and more, with any browser.

[0]: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Tools/Responsive_De...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Tools/Responsive_Design_Mode)

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konart
All chromium browsers had this for a long time. The point is - nobody really
provided a feature to have N views with different resolutions for the same
source

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ricardobeat
Blisk, Sizzy have been around for a while and do exactly this. Plus I remember
something (maybe Rocketmelt?) offering a similar feature waaay back.

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konart
We stand corrected then.

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ricardobeat
This is maybe the 7th take on this multi-viewport browser in the past few
years. Is there some hidden business model I'm missing to justify the number
of similar projects?

~~~
mekster
Increase their own productivity?

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amelius
I'm wondering about the business side of this. This tool sounds useful, but I
bet that Mozilla could implement this quite easily if the market wants this,
so why would a company pour resources into building something like this?

And as a user, I would probably miss the developer tools.

~~~
kilian
There’s both support for chromium devtools (including devtools extensions) and
I just launched a new custom Element inspector that’s even more convenient.
What would you miss?

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deedubaya
Sissy is pretty great, and has been around for a while
[https://sizzy.co/](https://sizzy.co/)

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chewzerita
From about 30 seconds of clicking on links, it seems to be the same author.

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yohannparis
Looks like a great tool, but I'm not paying another subscription, can I just
buy it for $90 or something.

~~~
0xFACEFEED
It's rough.

General question for the HN crowd: If one is passionate about building dev
tools then what's a good path for monetization? The options seem so very
limited. Fixed prices are nowhere near enough to cover the costs of supporting
a complex app and paying for 50+ subscription services doesn't make sense for
developers either. So far all I've seen is what effectively amounts to
sponsorships by FAANG type companies to build OSS dev tools.

~~~
2019-nCoV
The problem is every second developer is also passionate about building dev
tools. The market is naturally over-saturated.

The world does not need more dev tools.

There are bountiful real-world problems out there itching to be solved with
software for the developer who can overcome their one-dimensional interests,
to stop harbouring in the safe waters of the abstract and embrace the real
world. Take up a hobby as distinct from programming as you can tolerate.
Instead of that next industry meetup, go give a hand in your local community.

~~~
Aeolun
I dunno, I really enjoy building dev tools that scratch my own itch. Others
are always missing something that’s important to me.

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rkagerer
Anyone else find it painful scrolling through that site and waiting for the
animations to reveal the next "block"?

They're smooth, but by the time they show up my eyes have moved on from the
void where they had expected content to be. Coupled with the "marketingy"
phrases it annoyed me enough to leave before I learned anything about what
makes this browser special.

(Not knocking the tool, just the landing page)

~~~
kilian
As a developer myself there’s a constant struggle regarding how marketingy I
should make it. I don’t think I’m making any over-the-top claims and there’s
no denying it works, but different people respond to different things.

What were the phrases that most annoyed you?

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robenkleene
I'd love to hear the details of why web developers like this feature? As
opposed to say, clicking through the various dimensions in the responsive
design mode? I guess the idea is seeing the changes live: So as you're fixing
one aspect ratio, make sure you're not simultaneously breaking another?

If you're using something like Webpack, that supports hot reloading, couldn't
you simulate this just by having multiple browser windows open, each
displaying a different dimension size? So then is the idea that having to set
that up manually each time is a pain?

(Not judging, just seeking to understand, I'm a huge fan of any kind of speed
increase, but I'm curious if I'm missing anything here.)

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ricardobeat
> is the idea that having to set that up manually each time is a pain

Yes.

Most recently, component library viewers have started offering this as a
feature. It's very useful if you're making your UI element responsive.

~~~
robenkleene
Thanks! Follow-up question: So I'm guessing a "component library viewer" is a
local web app that you run to view WIP/finished components (like for
[https://storybook.js.org/](https://storybook.js.org/))? If you have a link to
an example I'd love to check it out.

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etaioinshrdlu
So what happens when JS queries the size of something?

Is the answer only correct for one pane?

I can only imagine that this is a big source of pain once any JS gets
involved. It doesn't sound like a very solvable problem.

~~~
kilian
JavaScript runs inside your panes so whatever you measure in JavaScript is
correct in each pane.

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pedrocx486
The idea is amazing but couldn't stop thinking about the companies using it.

Google? Is there a reason I should believe they're using it instead of the
very obvious internal tools?

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coopsmgoops
I'm guessing it means they sold at least one licence to someone at Google.

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xylophoner
Would be great to see an educational discount. I can see this being very
useful in a teaching environment.

~~~
kilian
I agree, that’s why it’s free to use through the GitHub student developer pack
:)

