
Show HN: Github for Designers - lominming
http://www.pixelapse.com/hn
======
kerryfalk
I've been thinking about how a GitHub for designers would work. This doesn't
quite seem like "it" to me. Don't take that remark the wrong way, I like
what's been done here. It's well designed and I could see a use for it.

But that's just it, I have to find a use for it. It isn't immediately obvious
to me. I'm not the typical designer as I don't have clients and my job isn't
100% design but I have been designing everything from packaging, to print
advertisements, to websites for ten years. I don't know why I would use this.
If I need alternate versions of files I just save them with version numbers.
The poor man's version control. But I don't need anything more than that - do
other designers?

The power of Github I believe is that it allows programmers to share their
work with their colleagues, learn from others, and work together with others.

I like Dribbble because it allows designers to do what they want to do with
their colleagues. Show off their work and get inspiration from other
designers. To me, Dribbble is the _closest_ thing to a Github for designers.

What's missing from Dribbble is the collaborative part. Coders working with
coders, designers with designers. But that's the problem. Coders have to work
with other coders all the time it's the nature of the beast. Designers do not
in the same way. In my experience.

So if it's not designers with designers then it's designers with coders. And a
place for those who (like me) both design and code to both showcase our work
and to work together with others. If you could turn this into a Dribbble +
Github I think that would be interesting.

~~~
bradhe
Man, this space is filling up so fast. We're working on a similar product,
we're funded and a little further along (shameless plug:
<http://www.revisu.com>). When we started working on this, there was no one in
this space. Now there are a ton of offerings!

I think you hit the nail on the head with regard to what designers need from
version control. We bill ourselves as Dribbble + Github for creative teams
exactly for the reasons you describe.

~~~
joemoon
Friendly advice:

I would really like to find out what revisu does and how it works without
signing up. An intro video would be ideal, or at least a much more detailed
feature list and screenshot walk-through.

~~~
bradhe
Thanks for the advice. We've been fortunate that we've had a huge user base to
test with initially, so we haven't put very much work in to our public-facing
stuff. More to come on this...

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andrewheins
I'm trying to come up with something more interesting to say than "Wow". I've
wished I had this a few times.

I think the only thing that you lose here is access to an actual "diff", but
visually, you get most of it.

Grats on a fantastic achievement.

~~~
shravan
Thanks for the kind words, Andrew. I'm not sure if you found it but you can
compare multiple revisions side by side and also overlay revisions to see
what's changed.

~~~
smhinsey
It took me awhile to find it, because in FF 10 on Windows, the X|Y button is
showing up as an FL (it looks like it might be a sprite issue? the buttons on
the bottom have the same problem) but once I found it, I liked it a lot.

~~~
lominming
We have fixed the problem for Firefox. It should look great now!

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daralthus
Oh cool, just last week got the same intent to do this, after someone
mentioned layervault.com in the comments.

Version controlling for design is great but if you want to differentiate from
layervault or pixelnovel.com then you should try and see if designers would
collaborate in an opensource fashion, ala github. (I am really curious about
this, as that's the real reason people use github AFAICT) So I would go and
add some social aspect for it, make it a bit more like dribbble, behance,
flickr (portfolios, inspiration) as these are the sites that designers use.
Also adding stockphoto/illustration selling and job board features would
probably make for the best designer platform ever. (not mentioning the
business options...)

And after this feature suggesting madness, I would like to point out that if
you want to keep this simple and stupid, then still please get a designer and
work on the ux.

Keep up the good work!

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PStamatiou
Nice to see others in this space. Kelly Sutton et al run the slick
<http://layervault.com> which comes to mind. "Simple version control for
designers"

~~~
LoneWolf
While I like the look of it, the mac only is an instant close and forget for
me, and I know of a few friends who would do the same, some because they don't
like macs others because they cant afford them. (Honest comment I don't want
to start a flamewar here)

~~~
shravan
A windows version is in the pipeline. We'll have more info soon!

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ThomPete
Love it but I fear it's not the right solution and I even don't think it's the
right problem it's trying to solve.

When a designer is working in photoshop they are not actually part of the
development process yet. They are still in design mode, they are for the lack
of a better word sketching.

Not until they start to actually output assets for developers do the github
concept start to make sense.

Designers often have different versions of the same design inside the document
in the layers and groups and smart objects.

They will for instance have a couple of version of a header or some styling on
their elements, perhaps different layout for main content.

So for this to be useful it would need to create a kind of master psd that
save the state of which layers and groups are turned off and on.

This way you can sketch away and not have to worry about creating a billion
different versions inside the documents that just make them bigger.

But that is a different problem.

------
collint
Why do I buy this instead of Layer Vault?

~~~
shravan
We think LayerVault is great and they're doing some stuff that's similar to
us. There's a few things we're doing differently.

When we first came up with this idea, we really needed a good way to comment &
annotate and keep all that feedback inline instead of it spilling over into
email. The second is that we provide an easy way to diff revisions side by
side or overlay them to see what has actually changed. Behind the scenes, we
actually work quite differently from LayerVault, particularly on large files.
I'd love to talk to you more to see how we can help you. Please email me
shravan@pixelapse.com.

------
jskopek
Clever of them to show a custom welcome message for Hacker News visitors. I
love how it jumps you right into a demo app with no login or registration
steps.

The functionality and usefulness of this service is fantastic, but I wonder
how hard it would be for github itself to compete; they've shown that they can
do simpler binary versioning and comparison with PNG/JPEG images, so all
they'd have to do is add support for previewing PSD files as well. Whether
that's a simple thing to support is not something I'm qualified to answer
though :)

~~~
thesash
I think psd versioning is outside of github's core competency. We've used
distributed version control for design files, and it really doesnt support a
natural workflow. Background syncing just seems much more natural as a
solution to the problem since the files tend to be very large, and are
compounded by rapid generation and disposal of many many versions.

~~~
jskopek
Good point.

Another issue that might be how integrated the version control system could be
into the graphics app. Github will never aim to integrate itself deeply into
Photoshop, so designers would be forced to visit a browser to see changes.

Something like OS X Lion's file versioning system might actually be perfect
for this.

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harisenbon
Very cool. Is especially like the automatic syncing. Getting designers to
actually upload things to a server, or got forbid have to type in commands to
git is just not going to happen.

I did find a small bug: in the X/Y view, your scrollbars are draggable, so if
you scroll the image, then release the mouse button the view panel gets stuck
to your mouse. (Chrome win7)

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ttruong
Gorgeous app and well done! I really like how all the images scroll together
when you are comparing multiple images.

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chrislloyd
This is a great idea! Often when doing work for clients I've wanted to show
them something more than just the finished PSD. They've hit upon the idea that
with design the through process is often as important as the final result.
Pixelapse will definitely will help me extract more value from my time.

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michaelmartin
Really liking this. I'd be curious to hear how you've approached the storage
problem?

Are the full files for each revision saved? Or have you developed a way to
store only the differences?

With large PSD files, the former could get expensive quickly, which makes me
wonder the same thing as ARolek asked, what will pricing be based on?

~~~
shravan
Hey Michael, We only store the differences between subsequent saves so the
actual impact on bandwidth & storage is pretty small. We're still playing
around with pricing but there will be a free tier with more options depending
on the space used.

~~~
michaelmartin
Thanks for the reply Shravan, that's awesome to know. Definitely sounds very
promising, I'm looking forward to seeing the subscription plans when yous are
ready.

------
networkjester
Looks cool; nice job!

Some notes:

When playing around with the |X|Y| functionality

BUG - Dragging the slider on a compare window beyond the container and
releasing the mouse causes the window to follow your mouse around. Your drag
and drop "sorting" functionality seems to kick in.

BUG 2 - Adding multiple versions to the compare frame works well, however it
was initially hard to tell how to remove a given frame. Some ability from the
frame would be nice, but that wasn't the bug. When you add multiple versions
to compare you see them highlighted below. Then when you go to another view
(i.e. the single revision view) and back to the |X|Y| compare view the frames
you were last comparing are still there, however they are no longer
highlighted.

Again, this looks great, just keep going! :)

------
marcamillion
So...as an indirect competitor...let me just say...well done. This is pretty
awesome!

This is something I have thought about doing for a while, but to be honest, I
never had the technical chops to do it at the time.

Sure, parts of this still needs polishing - got some quirky JS issues with the
comparison of the two images side by side in Chrome on Windows.

But you guys have done and awesome, awesome job!

Edit: Btw, this is the quirky issue I encountered -
<http://i.imgur.com/MOY9c.png> To replicate this, in Chrome on Windows 7,
click on the 'X Y' side by side icon and then just try scrolling the images up
and down, or side to side, and then moving the mouse. It moves the entire DOM
element.

Congrats on the launch.

------
OoTheNigerian
Nice idea.

Try and chose a 2 syllable or a less tongue twisting name.

~~~
nollidge
Now that I think about it, if I said "Pixelapse" out loud, I bet most people
would hear it as something like "pixel apps" or "pixie laps".

~~~
evincarofautumn
My informal testing reveals people think it’s “pixel apps” or “pick slaps”.
I’m guessing the creators don’t have “dark” (velarised) L in their dialect,
because it’s a lot clearer when pronounced with a non-velarised L.

------
ranvir
For some reason we have a real problem hanging on to previous design
iterations and we often want to go back and try incorporating things from
previous iterations. This is going to be really cool, especially for
distributed teams.

------
freshfey
I think you might be onto something here. However I'd focus heavily on the
designers who don't know github. Because hackers 'round here are going to tell
you to just use github, because it make so much sense for them.

------
apsurd
I've always thought, in a working environment, it would be best for everyone
involved if designers got up to speed with git. I know git is hard, and I know
designers are not necessarily command-line junkies.

Rather, my point is simply: it's worth it.

So for me, downloading a client that syncs, while useful, is not the _answer_.

The answer is for designers to embrace git and also for developers to make git
easier to use. Whether that requires a better UI, better documentation, better
tutorials, etc.

Git has the power to do all this and more, there just needs to be an intuitive
wrapper for the workflow maybe?

~~~
taybenlor
GitHub have a fantastic Mac App which makes git significantly easier to use
for those less technically inclined.

~~~
RandallBrown
It's sort of fantastic. I love that it's not just a remapping of git commands
to buttons. It really is simple and easy to use.

The big problem with that is that its extremely buggy. It seems to choke on
merge conflicts most of the time and it can get into some really weird states.
I've had it undo changes on completely different files than what I told it to
and lose hours of work.

------
Osmose
How do I fork a design? Can I make another layer and merge it into the PS file
so that others can tweak my changes?

Just ideas that popped into my head looking at this. It's pretty awesome,
great job!

~~~
etherealG
I think this is the key part of git's workflow that improves on older simple
versioning systems. the fork and merge model is really needed in other spaces
too.

I wonder if it would be possible to turn design files into something textual
to leverage git's builtin merge capabilities?

------
ejreynolds
I'm still cracking up: They make you sign your name in Comic Sans on the
invite page. :-)

Also, really neat concept overall. Can't wait to try it!

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AtTheLast
I store all my designs in dropbox. This has worked pretty well. If I need a
design I just go into dropbox and grab it and make changes to it. It works,
but I'm guessing their is a better way. And when I need feedback I use a
combination of droplr and instant messaging. Their is definitely room for
innovation.

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georgemcbay
Cool idea but I suspect by the end of this year anyone who seriously uses
Photoshop will be using Adobe's Creative Cloud solution to solve the same
problems.

Granted, Creative Cloud isn't fully released yet, but it will be soon and it
is basically this plus Dropbox plus full native integration into all the Adobe
apps.

------
swatthatfly
You should allow this technology to be deployed on a local server. Many
companies consider their design to be confidential information, and they do
not allow storage on an external server, especially in U.S. where their data
can be subject to warrantless interception (Patriot Act and all).

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j_c
One problem is that your average designer will not know what versioning is,
never mind have an opinion as to whether it'd be useful or not.

I see this as a case of applying a successful model from one field to another
without consideration around whether this is actually a problem in the first
place.

~~~
jlcx
The usefulness of versioning and other successful models in other
fields/contexts is an interesting thing to think about. It could be that some
applications of these models are not solving existing problems so much as
creating new opportunities. Versioning for art and design could create new
opportunities for collaborative creation even if it doesn't solve the problems
of existing artists and designers. I don't know how well this can work,
though.

------
akazackfriedman
For me the biggest thing about Github is the ability to learn for other
programmers. I am a CS grad student though so I recognize that for others
collaboration is the secret sauce. Provided this solved my problem of trying
to learn something about design, I'd use it frequently.

------
jhsi
I went into the demo expecting more of reapplication of git workflow (with
some sort of staging area equivalent) for design, but after playing around
with the demo it's clear the combination of auto-saving and milestones is both
simpler and more elegant. Amazing work guys!

------
dsawler
Is this only for Photoshop? What about Fireworks or Illustrator?

When I click for an invitation, I get an Application Error (An error occurred
in the application and your page could not be served. Please try again in a
few moments.

If you are the application owner, check your logs for details.)

~~~
shravan
Hey dsawler, Pixelapse works with Fireworks and Illustrator as well & we're
looking to add new formats. Is there a format in particular you'd like to see?

Re: the app error. We underestimated the load on the site. :) We just scaled
up so if you refresh and try again, you should be able to sign up.

~~~
dsawler
Oh, that's great. Those are the only two I use :) Excited to try this out!

------
egypturnash
I would be interested in fooling with this, but I'm an Illustrator addict!
Photoshop used to be basically what hosted my scanner drivers, and now that I
do most of my work direct in AI, and TWAIN seems to be a dead standard, I
don't even use it for that.

~~~
shravan
Hey there! We didn't mention it in the demo but Pixelapse works with
Illustrator files as well.

------
softbuilder
If you like this you might also like my friends at <http://revisu.com>. Can't
quite tell where the features overlap or diverge. Would love to know more.

Congrats on a sharp looking launch, Pixelapse!

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XLcommerce
Great work. I can really see a use for this kind of thing for designers.

My favorite is the side by side view. Speaking of which there is a bug in
latest chrome on win where the side by side panels get dragged when using the
scrollbar.

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dryicerx
A few months ago I made <http://artevolve.com> pretty much to mimic github for
graphics/art... but doesn't seem like designers or artsy folks were that
interested in it.

------
Sandman
Just a word of warning - the site's broken when viewed in FF 9.0.1 on Linux:
<http://i.imgur.com/Y24CX.png>

------
josscrowcroft
Anybody else see the resemblance between the logo and that of
<http://www.premiumpixels.com>?

------
ARolek
Really cool idea. We could use this everyday. Have you thought about what the
price is going to be? Will it be per doc, or per GB of storage used?

~~~
shravan
Hey arolek, We're still playing around with pricing but it will probably be
based on storage.

------
stchangg
Awesome! But.. why comic sans in the signup?

~~~
k33l0r
Because the font-family for the input is set to "'Tangerine', cursive", and
for some reason 'cursive' defaults to Comic Sans on Windows.

------
_feda_
Very slick (which is important, because designers by nature have high
standards). Quite a lot of potential I think.

------
peteforde
Instant utility, nice UI, good workflow that came from people scratching their
own itch.

Fuck it, I'd fund this.

------
_feda_
Is it just me or is the server very slow? I guess it's getting hammered to
death right now.

~~~
shravan
Yeah, we didn't anticipate this making it to the top. We just scaled up so it
should be faster now.

------
jansen
Have been in private Beta and I love it! Keep up the great work!

------
miles_matthias
How is this helpful? On projects I've worked on, I've been able to teach the
designers how to use github for Mac and they picked it up really easily and
felt good learning something programming-ish.

------
acerimmer
What technologies do you use on client side?

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evanm
This is fantastic -- looks great, guys.

------
nodesocket
Great work guys.

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webbruce
Impressive!

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ColdAsIce
The web site repels me as a GNU/Linux user. It seems to be designed only for
people who own iProducts and own a license to adobe photoshop.

