
Rich desktop app for HTML/CSS authoring - joshsere
http://www.pingendo.com
======
jrwoodruff
I've only spent a few minutes with this, but so far it looks very promising.

I work in an enterprise envrionment where we have varying levels of
design/programming skill. One of our needs is for our designers or business
analysts to be able to mockup screens without explicity writing HTML but in a
way where nothing gets lost in translation to developers. We've been looking
at Axure, but I've generally found it to be disappointing, if not plain
annoying.

This looks much better.

Likes:

\- It's a native application. We're not always connected when we need to
prototype a screen, and, frankly we somehow haven't figured out the whole wi-
fi/security balance thing. Native is great.

\- I love that it uses bootstrap and provides a few template page options.

\- Responsive options, proper element positioning options... lovely

Wants/questions:

\- Customizable templates? Is it possible to alter or add to the default
styles and template options? I.e. an in-house modified bootstrap or bootstrap-
like option? Basically a way for the design lead to create custom elements and
styles for use by the rest of the team.

\- Ability to add new elements in snippets

\- Maybe some basic logic, just enough to allow a simulation-type scenario.
Although I would rather go without this than have the option over-complicate
the interface.

I apologize if some of the wants are already possible; regardless I am
definetly a customer.

~~~
smacktoward
Might want to look at Balsamiq Mockups:

<http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups>

It's easy enough for non-techies to use, can be installed locally, and can
have new elements added via snippets.

It doesn't generate HTML, but in my experience developers don't want to get
HTML; they just want to see what the non-techie wants done and then they'd
prefer to write the code themselves. Balsamiq works great in that scenario.

~~~
jrwoodruff
Yup, we've been using Balsamiq, it's fantastic for a lot of things but there
are times when a higher-fidelity tool is needed.

On top of this, we are also creating a standardized look and toolset for all
of our apps - something sort of like Bootstrap - so there are many situations
where it would be great to be able to just assemble the UI pieces that we've
already defined and say 'what do you think of this?' or even run through some
informal usabiltiy testing.

Side note: I think Balsamiq is the main reason I was so disappointed in Axure.
Balsamiq is so efficient and so good at what it does, and Axure... well, you
kind of wonder if anyone at Axure actually uses Axure.

------
ds9
'Scuze me for ranting, but too often these software project pages make the
visitor hunt for the licence. Is this GPL or BSD or proprietary or what?
Where's the source?

They're not saying - or it was taking too long for me to find. As a general
rule, if there's a big "download" button and they're urging you to try
something __before __they will give up any real info about it (or worse,
insetead of), well that strikes me as scammy and I just link away.

~~~
joshsere
You are right. License info are missing. We'll fix it. Pingendo in not planned
to be released as open-source. It's available in free download during the beta
period. A commercial version will follow. The download contains xulrunner and
pingendo binaries. Thank you.

~~~
cddotdotslash
Will it remain free for people who download it now? Or will it expire in a few
weeks when the commercial version comes out?

~~~
joshsere
At the moment is not planned to keep it free once finished the beta period.
but everything 'possible. Anyway we'll be happy to provide you with a free
license to thank you for your feedback!

~~~
Torrents
Any idea on price yet?

~~~
joshsere
No sorry! :)

------
crag
I like it. But (there's always a but) you badly need a short tutorial. A video
would work too. Something to get started on.

Also include a mailing list. I'd like to follow the development of this app
(cause it would come in handy for me). But I don't always remember to check a
website.

~~~
joshsere
Thank you! We are working on a "getting started" tutorial and a more
exhaustive user manual. For the developments you can checkout our public
developments board @ Trello [https://trello.com/board/pingendo-development-
board/506057b0...](https://trello.com/board/pingendo-development-
board/506057b0bdca2872540010e0) You can also click on Developments from the
Help menu within Pingendo.

Thank you for your feedback!

------
Discordian93
Shame it doesn't have a Linux version. But it appears to work fine on Wine.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Thanks for your note re WINE.

Edit: tried it myself too - install ran without problems. Seems like most
things work fine but code editing itself was buggy, couldn't select the
correct text or position the cursor on text in the code editor. Sadly that
makes it unusable for me.

Kubuntu 13.04 (WINE 1.4.1).

~~~
joshsere
I'm sorry for the bug you encountered. We are actively working to fix all
problems remaining in our html and css parser. Would you be so kind to send me
an example of a not-working html file, so that i can fix the bug ?

------
melc
Downloaded win version for a 32bit xp system and noticed two bugs,

1\. along with the app another window started which was like the menu with a
menu item "File" represented by a horizontal line at the very top of my
screen, i just right clicked from task bar and closed it, main app still
worked.

2\. tried to open saved html file with browser (assigned to chrome) but the
url was wrong, it was missing the drive letter so nothing showed.

3\. after closing page and then choosing another template the app vanishes.

At first glance it is ok, maybe better suited for users without much
experience with browser tools and code. However it provides viewing in
different screen sizes, code snippets and drag and drop which are helpful.

~~~
joshsere
Thank you for filling these bugs! We already fixed them in our development
version that will be release in the next few days.

------
forgotAgain
Nice start. Right now I can see where it will help with quick wire framing
based on pre-existing themes. I like being able to drag items onto the tree
version of the DOM.

Would be nice to be able to alter LESS variables and recompile.

~~~
joshsere
Thank you! You are not the first asking for LESS support, we'll investigate
the ways to properly integrate it.

Thank you for your feedback!

------
mbesto
I'm a bit of a techie noob but it looks like you're just hosting the file on a
web host somewhere:

    
    
      curl -I http://www.pingendo.com/Pingendo.dmg
      HTTP/1.1 200 OK
      Server: Apache
      Last-Modified: Tue, 14 May 2013 15:24:34 GMT
      Content-Length: 38477827
      Content-Type: application/octet-stream
    

I would host your file on something like Amazon S3. I'm getting 93kb/s on your
host.

~~~
joshsere
Sorry but we did not expect such high number of downloads. we are fixing it.
thank you for the feedback!

~~~
mbesto
Let me know if you need help setting up. It's easy! contact in profile.

------
stuaxo
Ubuntu version pls :)

~~~
tobeportable
Portable Windows version pls :)

~~~
Killswitch
Nokia 6010 version pls :D

------
desireco42
On the first glance looks really, good. I started with template, made few
changes, added few things.

I personally use Zurb more, so if I could start with that... even if I can
make my own template, it would be fine.

------
pajju
Feedback:

1\. Make this as a webapp. Should work anywhere, like gDocs! Think: Anyone can
collaborate, so the ideas and possibilities are more.

BTW, Why did you go the platform way? any particular reason worth mentioning?

2\. Have a forum for knowledgebase, to answer FAQ's, ideas and take new-
questions. See OSQA or Askbot, might help you a lot in this direction.

3\. Show your users, all the cool possibilities. Videos and use-cases matters
most to convince anyone to try your app.

4\. Get more templates, widgets(short-codes) and page-layouts. This will be
cool to start-off!

~~~
mbesto
1\. Divshot does this and it's buggy. I actually really like that it's native.
In theory it's less error prone.

Downloading now...I'm a customer.

------
mtarnovan
I downloaded the Windows version, but don't see any references to Foundation,
in the app or on their website. Is the title wrong ?

~~~
joshsere
the title is wrong. we lately decided to not release yet the integration for
Foundation. It will be available soon with the next release. Sorry for the
inconvenience.

------
bluepanda_
It looks great, but isn't it risky to force people use an IDE? A lot of
developers like to work in their own environment.

------
tobeportable
What about a fluid + responsive template

------
altcognito
26mb install and not a word on what I am installing prior to running it?
Sorry.

~~~
camus
I believe there is an how it works link on the homepage.

------
monsterix
Looks neat. Perhaps a short video/screen-cast to show how it works or its
coolest feature would be great.

Will give this a try on the weekend.

~~~
joshsere
Thank you! We are working on a tutorial and a more exhaustive user manual, any
suggestion is more than welcome!

------
camus
With what is it coded on windows and mac ?

~~~
joshsere
Javascript

~~~
camus
you mean you used something like air ?

~~~
joshsere
Mozilla XULrunner, the same as Firefox.

