

Scratchpad: Rapid prototyping from UI elements you clip/collect from the web - adraper
http://scratchpad.co

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thehodge
I think people are taking the lean startup method of throwing a landing page
up to gain intrest a little too far, this feels quite deceiving and to be
honest has annoyed me that oh.. I'm just signing up to a mailing list and have
to actually invite my friends to be 'front of the line'.. makes me feel like
nothing has actually being built at all apart from a pretty landing page.

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adraper
As the designer/developer behind this I promise you plenty is being build,
we'll be ready to start inviting people to use it in the next couple of days.

Sorry to have annoyed you, but there's really no better way to gauge
interest/insight into what your doing early than this type of approach, it
really does work out for the better in the long run.

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thehodge
"Sign up & Get Started Now!"

Thats exactly what your call to action says.. but thats blatantly a lie.. It
gives the expectation of instant access.

"Sign up to learn more, Coming Soon, Be the first to know"

all alternative CTA's that are less deceitful.

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francov88
I agree that based on the CTA you're expecting to go directly into the app,
but to be fair that's the bottom CTA (I never saw it as it was below the fold
of my screen).

Instead of taking the negative route, you could just tweet about it and ask
for early access...

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mrbogle
You can do this today with the <http://easel.io> chrome extension.

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/deejobgbijaihniifc...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/deejobgbijaihniifcoinjfaagfmnnap)

It uses html/css, so you can even edit the things you import.

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justjimmy
How are people gushing about this service in the comments when it's not even
released/available -_-

I got so excited, signed up, and then nothing :(

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adraper
Sorry, as was noted below the CTA was a little misleading, I've updated it
since—nothing sinister was meant by it, just trying to gain insight into what
people want as we put the finishing touches on the app, you should get an
email in the next couple of days to start using it

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pc86
What was the CTA before? Right now it says "Get Started Now" which is clearly
not the case.

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adraper
It says "Signup and Learn More" now, took a few minutes for the update to
propagate

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danialtz
>"Sign up and get started now!" I register, and then nothing. Isn't this tool
already released?

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adraper
Sorry, guess some of the release text made it into the beta signup, we'll have
a working app ready in the next day or so, if you signup i'll make sure you
get first access—promise!

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danialtz
Alright. Thank you.

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schrototo
Did you get the idea for this from that one footnote to Bret Victor's recent
essay? If so, that's some impressive turnaround time.

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adraper
Ha, I wish I could say I was that fast, although the whole thing's still very
much in it's infancy sadly my turnaround time isn't quite that quick!

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adambratt
Love the idea but isn't this the same thing as using command+shift+ctrl+4 and
then pasting into a photoshop document?

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adraper
It's similar yes (and partly what it's based on, i've been doing just that for
years), but not everyone has photoshop (or wants to go through the effort of
screenshot-ing and organizing their clippings on their hard drive

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bdclimber14
I couldn't help but realize the remarkable design similarities to
<http://www.blogic.com>. I'm curious if it inspired you.

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adraper
wow, some definite similarities, but no hadn't seen that site until just now.
It's actually based on another site design I'd done a few years ago:
<http://yourboxseat.com/>

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bdclimber14
Darn, I was going to say I was flattered.

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adraper
Sorry, happy to lie if it helps :)

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smit
How different is this from easel.io?

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adraper
The biggest difference is there's no extension to install (not a big deal to
most). Also, we're focused on non-designers being able to get their
thoughts/likes across easy to designers.

That said, as a designer myself the Scratchpad process is largely based on an
existing process I've employed for a while to get things going to show other's
in a simple manner what i'm thinking and get early buy in to be able to move
forward faster and on my own terms.

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francov88
Amazing tool. This is the kind of thing you've always dreamed of finding.

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rnernento
This is awesome, but isn't it a copyright nightmare waiting to happen?

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jonny_eh
As long as you don't redistribute what you copy I can't imagine it being a
problem. It looks to be meant for prototyping/wireframing.

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johnmurch
Looks like signup is broken :( Love to test this new tool out!

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adraper
Odd, send me an email at andrew[at]scratchpad.co and I'd be happy to give you
access when we have the tool live in the next day or two

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codegeek
In IE8, the stylesheet does not load.

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KThornton
Soooo excited about this!

