
Use Bootstrap, Nobody will Notice - charlieirish
http://strapfork.com/
======
jasonlotito
Title is wrong. Now you cannot use the advertised product. This is fairly
deceptive. My first thought was "Oh great, people are starting to spam HN."

~~~
jackbach
I'm sorry about the misunderstanding. About the spam... I'm the creator of the
app and don't know the person who submitted. I'm not running an affiliate
program either.

I thank the submitter, tho :)

~~~
grishma
Aside, could you answer this:
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21436380/how-to-create-
pa...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21436380/how-to-create-partial-
circle-arcs) ?

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CognitiveLens
Would it be unfair to describe this as a GUI for the LESS variables associated
with Bootstrap? Nice and simple idea, but if the cost really is $50, that
might be a little steep - any designer worth their pencil should be able to
work with a big list of variables just as easily (if not more easily) than a
point-and-click interface.

Obviously just conjecture at the moment, though...

~~~
andreasklinger
A designer worth their pencil might need longer than worth 50$ to get to an
initial mix of good look.

If it's somehow wysiwyg it might also speed up things a bit.

~~~
CognitiveLens
True, but you're going to need that designer to work on that initial mix
whether it's with this software or something they're much more experienced
with (probably Adobe CS) - unless the UI for this is radically better than the
mockup tools that pro designers use, the marginal utility of outputting LESS
variables probably won't add value, and might make things more complicated by
introducing an additional tool into the pipeline.

~~~
jackbach
I have different use cases in mind:

\- A designer that don't know/don't want to write css. She can keep her design
process and use Strapfork to create the css components.

\- A designer that likes the workflow that Strapfork proposes (UI is part of
the brand -> design components | design UI with mockups. Mix both in directly
inHTML and have the final design in the browser, no need of photoshop).

\- A backender that just want to customise bootstrap easy and fast.

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lowglow
Why do products that don't actually exist hit the front page?

~~~
KiwiCoder
On the off-chance this is a serious question;

As a developer, I want to know if my ideas are going to fly, so when a post
for a non-existent product hits HN front page I know there's at least some
interest.

As a prospective user I want a chance to influence development. When a post
hits front-page I get a chance to check out the idea before it is set in
stone.

As a HN reader I want to see what others are thinking about and doing. It's
inspiring.

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rurounijones
If anyone is interested in this you might also want to consider
[http://pixelkit.com/](http://pixelkit.com/)

~~~
namelezz
Beautiful UI!

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igorgue
Is it really worth $50 to avoid assholes here to criticize your site because
they use bootstrap?

~~~
mladenkovacevic
I guess it depends on your needs. I think $50 is reasonable for the advantage
of appearing unique and/or simulating the presence of an actual designer
within your team.

~~~
davidw
Among the sites the average person uses every day, are the odds really that
high that they'll encounter more than one with bootstrap?

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bliti
What is the issue with people noticing that you use bootstrap?

~~~
sergiotapia
When I see a website using default bootstrap styles I think it's fleeting and
not worth of my time and money.

~~~
Killswitch
When I see a website using default bootstrap styles, I give the
service/product a test run and see why the reason I came to the site
originally was a viable thing for me to continue. If not I don't waste anymore
time or money.

But hey, you're choice to spend your time and money on anything you want, and
if something is usable but not exactly custom pretty, your choice to not use
it.

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tlongren
With the number of free "theme" sites around, I think $50 is a bit steep.
However, the idea is awesome and I'd love to try it out.

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hipsters_unite
How does this differ from Jetstrap? [0]

[0] [https://jetstrap.com/](https://jetstrap.com/)

~~~
jackbach
Jetstrap is much more like a layout/markup creator, with drag and drop
interface. Strapfork is a customiser for the Bootstrap components, meaning
that you can add styles to them. It generates css and documentation, but you
still have to write your markup.

I should make that more easy to understand.

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mbell
I actually wouldn't mind a 'bookmarklet' type app that lets you change
bootstrap's less variables and updates your own actual pages in real time.
Similar to what FontFriend or SubtlePatterns have. It'd be useful for coming
up with an initial theme before tweaking it later.

~~~
mattront
Our desktop app Pinegrow Web Designer
([http://pinegrow.com](http://pinegrow.com)) lets you open a webpage and play
with its layout and styling, among other things (main use is to compose the
layout like you would in Jetstrap for example and then to also style the
page). At the moment Less variables work only in site stylesheet. Giving you
the access to Less variables for Bootstrap is in development pipeline.

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rjsamson
Was hoping to actually see how this works - is there any way to get into the
private beta?

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Killswitch
Looks interesting, I wanted to put my email in but then got a popup for
captcha which was almost impossible to get right, I gave up after the 4th
time. Good luck though.

~~~
jackbach
Ouch, that's bad news... I used the dafult setup for tinyletter. Didn't expect
that to happen. Anywaay, you can send me an email to jackjackbach at gmail, if
you are still interested.

Thanks you for reporting :)

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simonhamp
Looks interesting. Hope to get early access. Disagree with not wanting to let
on that you use the greatest and most popular front-end framework in the
world. Be proud!

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codegeek
"Style your very own User Interface with Strapfork's easy-to-use Visual
Editor."

Definitely interested in exploring. Is there a demo/video to check out ?

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alttab
This could easily just be a Javascrip app, built in a weekend, using a more
complete toolset of CSS generators and button creators, for free.

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Edmond
intrigued to see what you come up with..as we speak I am building a visual UI
builder for our dev product and bootstrap is the basis...your screenshots look
pretty so far :)

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znowi
How much will it cost?

~~~
jackbach
Hey, I'm not sure yet. I was thinking about something around $50. Maybe more
maybe less. What do you think?

~~~
thebouv
$50 is reasonable only in relation to how awesome the app is. Only have the
fluff on your page to determine that now.

That said, I am interested in learning more and signed up. I don't always have
access to a "designer" and this seems like a good idea.

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narzero
Looks fantastic, hope to see this soon

