

Radi - mac app for producing web visual animations, video, realtime graphics - ChrisArchitect
http://radiapp.com/

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pavlov
This app is made by me, thank you for posting it!

Radi is a side project of mine that finally saw the light of day 7 months ago,
when I announced it here on HN: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2040844>

I've recently tried to pick up the pace with updates to Radi. I'm hoping to
finish the first draft of a manual soon, and to get some more concrete
examples done. (Producing sample content and tutorials is really hard, because
it's not enough to know the app, but you have to be able to see it through the
new user's eyes -- very difficult for me when I've worked on the app for so
long...)

I'm currently pretty excited about the possibilities of using <canvas> on top
of <video>, so that's something I'd like to write some documentation about...
If there are any other ideas about topics of interest, I'm all ears!

~~~
Robin_Message
A suggestion for helping you see things with fresh eyes -- read aloud.
Seriously, shut your door, open up the app and read the instructions aloud and
try to follow them. Note everything down that is missing or unclear (print the
instructions and buy a red pen.) And really read aloud, whispering or mouthing
isn't quite enough. It makes a difference to how you hear things.

Oh and p.s. that looks pretty damm good. I do research on visual programming,
so I was interested to take a look at your conduit app (reminds me of toolbox)
as well. I particularly like the comments you have attached to edges in the
graph, sadly I literally thought I'd invented that idea this morning :-)

~~~
pavlov
Thanks, and great suggestion about reading aloud, I'll give it a try. I'm
pretty sure that the typical "computer manual" style of acronym-loaded,
compressed run-on sentences is not a delight to the ear :)

------
Robin_Message
Can someone who has done some graphic design do a write up and comparison of
this and the Adobe Edge preview? I'd be interested to see how they compare,
especially in terms of the ease of creating stuff and the quality of the
output - speed, browser support, size.

~~~
rgbrgb
I'd be interested in this as well. Also, it would be nice to know how this
stacks up against Hype (<http://tumultco.com/hype/>).

~~~
pavlov
The big difference is that Hype and Edge use CSS properties for animation. The
image composition is built up from <div> elements whose style properties are
modified by JavaScript. This means the animation capabilities are limited to
those properties that can be expressed using CSS -- although this is not such
a bad limitation at all, because CSS3 is now so powerful and starting to be
widely supported.

Radi operates on a lower level to render its animations in HTML. Layers in
Radi don't directly become <div> elements in the output; instead, the layer
content is rendered either within <canvas> or <video> elements. You can use
both together, for example using canvas to overlay some dynamic graphics
context on top of a video.

To me, the capability to render content seamlessly to either video or canvas
is the most unique thing about Radi. Although I'm still not quite sure how to
express that as a benefit to the user, rather than a tech-spec curiosity... :)

(It's possible to do some limited CSS animation in Radi as well. There's a
concept called "timeline events" that can be used to animate top-level element
properties, so you can also use this model of animation on top of the
canvas/video rendering... But it's currently limited to opacity only, so this
feature is very much in its infancy.)

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timdorr
I know this is a subjective thing, but I think the app's graphical style is
somewhat ugly. If I'm supposed to be creating an attractive animation for my
site, I want to be surrounded by a similarly attractive workspace. I know it's
a nitpick, but it's why I write code in Coda, not Vim, TextMate, BBEdit, or
anything else. I'm fickle like that.

~~~
pavlov
I see what you mean... The trouble for me is that I'm working on Radi alone.
Coming up with an attractive custom UI style is a big undertaking with an
inherently uncertain result.

It feels like a safer use of my time to work on features, and just aim for a
"boring but reasonably professional grey" appearance for the interface. I know
that many artists actually prefer grey UIs so that it doesn't compete with the
actual content.

I've tried to use Cocoa-native controls wherever possible, and that also
limits the UI possibilities quite a bit. The overall look needs to be rather
neutral so that changes in the Aqua look don't mess up the custom-drawn
controls. (Recently Lion had a big change in most of the standard controls'
appearance, but IMHO the updated look made Radi look a bit better.)

------
Pewpewarrows
Previous discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2040844>

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acangiano
I hope Adobe is paying attention.

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bwanaaaaa
how does this compare to the mac app, hype? looks too similar no?

