

Atomic – Design, prototyping and collaboration tool - grantrobinson
https://atomic.io

======
grantrobinson
Today we’re launching our open beta, so anyone can set up an account and start
prototyping straight away.

Atomic makes it easy to share your designs and prototypes and gather feedback.
From today you can also invite teammates into your projects to work together
on the same set of designs, simultaneously.

If you don’t have an account already, you can grab a free account here:
[https://atomic.io](https://atomic.io)

We’d love to hear what you think.

~~~
embik
I'm no designer, but this looks great nontheless! Good job.

One thing I noted while reading on here was that currently, non-chrome users
are "blocked" (if I understood correctly) by a "not supported" message. I
understand you want to focus on Chrome first, but why don't you simply put up
that message as "Your browser is unsupported, atomic.io might not function
properly" (or a banner on top of the page), but make it available nonetheless?
It might not work 100% yet, but when working on cross-browser support you will
already have a bunch of people who tested your software on their browsers.
These will know the rough edges and can point you into the right direction.

If it's open to every browser I'm sorry I missunderstood this thread.
Nevermind my post then.

~~~
grantrobinson
Hi, you're right that it's restricted to Chrome-only for now. We have tested
it in other browsers and there are in some cases issues that would lead to a
poor experience - not the sort of experience we want people to have. I do
appreciated your suggestion of opening it up anyway though, and as we get
closer to fully supporting other browsers this may be exactly what we do.
Cheers.

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mejamiewilson
We've been using this tool for a while in beta and the biggest win I can say
is having an online tool that works. So many of the other tools out there have
issues when you drag and drop too fast, move your cursor over the wrong part
of the interface, copy and paste too quickly - but the guys at Atomic have
spent a heap of time making this feel like an installed app.

Other features aside, this is the winner for me.

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captainbenises
The history scrubber (scroll back through time and see all the decision ideas
that were tried out and abandoned) is genius.

~~~
leviathan
I've had this idea for quite a while for git visualisation tool where you open
a project and can open a file and scrub through the timeline and see the
changes live.

The fact that this idea is better suited inside an actual code editor (and not
just a standalone app) and me not being brave enough to tackle writing a code
editor is what is stopping me from doing it.

~~~
lloeki
I'm using this with fugitive.vim all the time:

    
    
        :Glog     # this can take arguments to reduce scope
        :cnext    # repeat!
        :cprev    # step back!
    

bonus: unimpaired.vim binds those quickfix navigation commands to [q and ]q.

------
artur_makly
How are you different from [http://Webflow.com](http://Webflow.com) ?

~~~
nealogrady
It looks like Atomic is purely for prototyping/mockups; Webflow is for
building actual websites. The interface certainly does look similar though.

------
crucialfelix
I am mystified. Probably something is not working correctly.

The Pages show various previews. Clicking on them does not open that page in
the right side (as I would expect). Its blank.

I can create rectangles, lines, hotspots and move them around. Hotspots
doesn't have any way to make them do anything that I can figure out. No ctrl-
click, no options. Its just a blue square.

I click on Layers. Lots of things here. The things I created and lots of
things I didn't (and can't see) like History, number circle, hotspot-
demo2.gif. I can drag them up and down in the Layers or I can drag them into
the main area but they don't do anything.

Why would History be in there ? Properties Prototype Tools ? I can double
click and retitle those objects. I have no idea what they are.

Obviously something is broken.

OK, I've opened the Keyboard shortcuts and at the very bottom it says ⌘ +
enter: toggle review mode.

With that I can actually see the design.

Suggestion: you probably want a very obvious button at the top to allow us to
toggle "review mode"

~~~
vimaljobanputra
Hi, what version of Chrome are you using? We've has users experiencing similar
issue on Chrome Dev/Canary which we're looking into, so you might want to try
Chrome Stable.

~~~
crucialfelix
Version 44.0.2403.9 dev (64-bit)

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arrowood
Allll right. Another atom-named project. Check.

[http://www.projectatomic.io/](http://www.projectatomic.io/)

[https://atomicobject.com/](https://atomicobject.com/)

[https://atomicorp.com/](https://atomicorp.com/)

[https://atom.io/](https://atom.io/)

[http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5023](http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5023) (Atom
Publishing Protocol)

(yeah, I know, look who knows how to google)

------
BinaryIdiot
So I'm actually looking around for a similar product; what's the difference
with Atomic and Invision? It kinda looks like Atomic is Invision Lite but then
again Invision has probably been around a lot longer so maybe it's not a fair
comparison.

It would be pretty cool if I could immediately jump in and try it out without
setting up an account. I understand most places don't do that but it's kinda
nice being able to try something before giving away your email address. In my
opinion anyway.

~~~
grantrobinson
Hi, I think there's actually quite a lot of differences between Atomic and
InVision, so I'll focus on what I think the main reasons are that you might
try Atomic if you're already familiar with InVision...

Atomic has drawing tools that let you actually design/layout interfaces in the
app. You can also import flat images from other apps (like PS or Sketch) for
prototyping if you want to. Atomic also lets you design complex and unique
animated transitions, not just the standard ones on mobile.

Atomic has some other special features too: like being able to style elements
with raw CSS, visually rewind through your history and make
branches/variations from any point, and team collaboration that lets multiple
team members work on the same set of designs, even simultaneously.

So lots of reasons to give it a try I think. I hope you give it a go and
please do let us know what you think.

~~~
jonahx
Looks nice. I'd also be curious to know the main differences between this and
proto.io...

~~~
grantrobinson
Lots of differences I think. Probably the main one is that Atomic's workspace
will feel more familiar to those used to Adobe apps or Sketch. I think it'd be
fair to say proto.io focusses more purely on prototyping, while Atomic tries
to integrate design, prototyping, collaboration and version control tools.

------
pavlov
The history slider looks awesome. It's great to see new design apps with
features that take advantage of the strengths of browser-based applications
for creative collaboration, rather than just trying to replicate desktop usage
models.

I'm using Safari so I didn't get to actually use the tool yet (it's Chrome
only)... Looking forward to it though.

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panic
I logged in and got a "Browser not supported" message on my up-to-date version
of Safari. What happened to the open web?

~~~
andrewliebchen
Just because this beta software doesn't support your browser doesn't mean the
open web is dead.

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huac
A few suggestions now that I've had a chance to play with it:

* Support for rulers * Custom zoom - or at least more granularity between 50 and 100 * Ability to align a div to the center or right * Related to the above - it appears that adding alignment css does nothing * FontAwesome

~~~
grantrobinson
Thanks heaps for the suggestions, I've add your vote to these features in the
list we maintain internally.

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lbotos
Do you know what's not a beautiful interaction? Scrolling 40px on the website
and wondering if your machine froze because it's this "cards scrolling over
things" UI concept... Designers, don't make me doubt my scroll.

~~~
grantrobinson
Good point! We'll try to fix that.

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andrey-g
Confused you with Atomic Object[0] at first, although they aren't exactly in
the same field as you.

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

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apitaru
Prototyping tools seem to be blooming this year (see pencilcase.io and
pixate.com), and it'll be great to see them mature over the next few years.

------
liviu
What is the reason for requiring only Chrome browsers?

~~~
grantrobinson
Hi, while we're in beta we've been keeping things to Chrome only, as it lets
us progress the product faster at this early stage. Specifically, this cuts
out a lot of time spent on cross-browser testing and bug fixing and lets us
focus on making sure we've got the right mix of features first.

It's the first time I've tried this approach myself, so it's a bit of an
experiment, but I think it's been useful for this particular product. In
saying that, we will be looking to offer wider browser support down the track,
so stay tuned!

