
Pencil: open-source GUI prototyping tool - cheiVia0
http://pencil.evolus.vn/
======
mch82
The original project is abandoned, but a recently updated fork is available at
github.com/prikhi/pencil.

I prefer Pencil to more commonly referenced options like Balsamiq. Looks like
no commits in a few months, but hopefully the form is still going. An open
source UX tool focused on software application workflow prototyping rather
than GUI layout is an asset to the software development community.

~~~
mgliwka
It's not abandoned, but actually active again: There was a RC release of a
rewrite in electron at the end of July, see here:
[http://pencil.evolus.vn/Next.html](http://pencil.evolus.vn/Next.html).

~~~
benbristow
Website looks very dated! Even the footer says '2012'.

Why would they use KDE screenshots as the main screenshots too. KDE looks
awful IMHO.

~~~
quadrangle
KDE5 Breeze looks pretty nice actually, and KDE looks like _anything_ because
it is that adaptable, so it's not even sensible to assert an idea like "KDE
looks awful" since there is no look KDE doesn't offer, so it can do awful or
whatever you think is amazing.

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kschiffer
Been using this for a while due to student-related poorness. Gotta say it does
what I want and has helped numerous times also in bigger projects. The low
fidelity helps you focusing on gui structure.

~~~
amelius
What would you have used if money was not an issue?

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kschiffer
Probably balsamiq.

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huhtenberg
Seems like an abandoned project. Website copyright is 2012, last stable
release 2013, last news update over a year ago.

What's the context? Is it somehow notable regardless?

~~~
josh64
Well they had 3.0 RC1 released in July 2016
[http://pencil.evolus.vn/Next.html](http://pencil.evolus.vn/Next.html) and
their GitHub page at
[https://github.com/evolus/pencil/](https://github.com/evolus/pencil/) is
fairly active.

~~~
a012
Checked issues page and not found an response from their dev in the first
page, to me it's inactive.

I wandered to this software awhile ago but then moved immediately to
Lucidchart.com then Draw.io

~~~
kagamine
The company that make it is Vietnamese I think. They do some paid software
too, and it looks like pencil is what the developer does when he has time. So
I think the project is active, but not very active.

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icc97
This is a great product. Although not sure why suddenly it is appearing on HN.
Version 2 worked well and Version 3 I find a bit more complex but still great.

Above what they have on their website, there's various extra packs (stencils)
[0] that you can install with Bootstrap elements and Android Material
elements. Albeit that I find its better to keep to the sketchy UI as otherwise
you focus too much on the details.

    
    
      [0]: http://nathanielw.github.io/pencil-stencils/

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ensiferum
Or you can just use Qt's Designer which makes it very fast to knock up a GUI.
(and then later evolve it into the real thing as well)

~~~
kagamine
Not really, the 2 things are not alike and I don't think QT designer exports
to PDF, web and png (one of which is what the project manager needs, not a
project file that runs in an IDE).

Not bashing QT, but QT designer is not a wireframing/mockup tool.

~~~
ensiferum
Or you could build it into a executable and send that to the exec. I'd imagine
that's better than a pdf/png picture, no?

~~~
kagamine
Project managers want to put things in Word documents, they don't want
executables, they don't want a demo.

The point of wireframing is that the client doesn't look at it and go "this
detail is wrong!" Wireframes and mockups should only communicate pre-prototype
ideas, work-in-progress ideas and workflows. I think you might not understand
what a tool like this is for if you think QT creator is better than every
sketching tool on the market. Not a personal attack, but we seem to be talking
in circles already.

~~~
ensiferum
Entirely possible, I'm not an UX/UI expert and not familiar with that
particular tool. Maybe it's more about crafting/prototyping the UX instead of
the UI?

~~~
vidarh
Pretty much that - as someone else expressed in a joke: You don't want to send
the message that it's about evaluating functionality and that you're lamost
done. You want to send the message that this is a sketch to use as a basis for
discussing flows.

This is one of the reasons why find people taking pains in some of these type
of tools to _not_ make it look like the real deal, because the closer it looks
to the real deal, the more some people get hung up on irrelevant details.

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ldjb
We used Pencil on one of the modules I took at uni. I think that, aside from a
bit of glitchiness (I remember having a spot of trouble pasting text), most of
us got on quite well with it. It's relatively simple, but rather decent at
what it does.

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ldagon
[http://logicnet.dk/DiagramDesigner/](http://logicnet.dk/DiagramDesigner/) is
a light and operational alternative to Pencil.

~~~
cfrs
Windows only

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pqdbr
I love Balsamiq (desktop version), but lately I'm finding it such a memory hog
on OS X that's rendering my machine unusable, and that's with not-so-large
projects (30+ mockups)

~~~
balsamiq
whoa that's no good! Can you please send some more details to
support@balsamiq.com? It definitely shouldn't do that. Thanks!

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gobusto
At first, I thought that this was referring to
[https://github.com/pencil2d/pencil](https://github.com/pencil2d/pencil)

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vsviridov
Poor native support on OSX. Doesn't even allow to Hide the window.

~~~
comandillos
thats the reason i stopped using this one, i started using Sketch and
everything became much beautiful

~~~
kagamine
sketch is OSX only, though, so for us not on premium-ware it isn't an option.

~~~
vetinari
Even for those on premium-ware, the recent switch from $99/license to
$99/license/year-if-you-want-updates is quite an expensive step.

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annnnd
I used this project about a year ago when I need a fast way to create
wireframes, and was impressed! There are some rough edges here and there, but
it Just Works. Kudos to developers!

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ReedJessen
.vn is an interesting choice for a domain. The Vietnamese government has not
been an ally of free speech or of sharing ideas around the globe.

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ausjke
just tried the electron-based new release(RC release) and it looks fantastic!
I can do GUI design, and flowchart better than what I did with DIA.

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pmlnr
[http://pencil.evolus.vn/Next.html](http://pencil.evolus.vn/Next.html)

> Electron as the new runtime

No. Just no.

~~~
kagamine
Why. Just why.

edit: No really, why? Genuinely curious. You have to at least come with one
reason after writing that.

~~~
pmlnr
a, they are ginormous

b, they are slow

c, they don't integrate well with desktop

d, they put 1 of not 2 additional layers to execution ( a browser in the
background + the node nonsense stack )

In short, they are wasteful. I want to get the speed of my desktop back; it is
ridiculous that a 3 year old laptop with a high end ssd lags running these
crappy electron things; all of them just keep swallowing memory like there's
no tomorrow.

~~~
neurotrace
Didn't downvote but you can't blame the framework for the work of other
developers.

a & b. Yes, Electron is going to be slower than writing something in a lower
level language and yes, it's going to take more memory due to the JS runtime.
But it's entirely possible to create an efficient piece of software that can
be easily extended (examples: Visual Studio Code, Slack).

c. I don't even know what this is supposed to mean. Electron is built
_specifically_ as a way of writing desktop applications and it works on just
about everything. I even wrote an Electron app that runs smoothly on my old
Raspberry Pi 2.

d. You don't get a full browser, just the WebKit rendering engine and V8 with
Node.js bindings. Node.js has proven itself to be a worthwhile venture. A
number of companies now use Node.js in their backend. It's definitely not
perfect nor is it the fastest thing in the world but it isn't so terrible as
to toss it out entirely.

~~~
pmlnr
c. The design. Every single electron app I've tried/launched have it's own
aesthetics, which looks completely alien to my system. ( Which currently runs
XFCE. )

~~~
neurotrace
Blame it on the developers of those apps. Options already exist for producing
a native look and feel via CSS. [1] [2]

[1] [http://photonkit.com/](http://photonkit.com/) [2]
[http://reactdesktop.js.org/demo/](http://reactdesktop.js.org/demo/)

~~~
pmlnr
reactdesktop:

"Because this library is being currently built for Electron and NW.js, the
examples and demos on this site will only work properly in Chrome."

/me closes tab

