

Show HN: Xpressive - CSS3 Live Design Tool for Mac OSX - dilipray
http://xpressive.org/

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scrumper
Looks very impressive; I only do CSS occasionally so an easy tool like this is
of value to me. Will try it.

A couple of things: I don't think the dot-org TLD is appropriate for a
commercial venture. Your app store link takes me to an itunes web page on the
Japanese app store, rather than launching App Store itself.

~~~
dilipray
Hey, The link they pointed is
[https://itunes.apple.com/js/app/xpressive/id665817114?mt=12](https://itunes.apple.com/js/app/xpressive/id665817114?mt=12)

They should have pointed it to global link
[https://itunes.apple.com/app/xpressive/id665817114](https://itunes.apple.com/app/xpressive/id665817114)

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arvin
I just downloaded the trial, but the app requires Mac OS X 10.8, I'm still on
10.7. I suggest to put something in the website that it requires 10.8.

~~~
schrijver
I would suggest to make it compatible with 10.7 :)

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tambourine_man
This is not a fault of Xpressive, but of CSS3's implementation: doesn't it
bother anyone that we're in 2013 and we still have non anti-aliased motion
graphics?

[http://i.imgur.com/GAJuyqV.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/GAJuyqV.jpg)

~~~
mmastrac
Interesting: I'm using Chrome and I don't actually see the graphic you linked.
I saw a mess of boxes shaped roughly like what you posted halfway down the
page and had no idea what it was. Chrome bug? Or maybe a CSS issue?

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cliveowen
I think a double display setup coupled with automatic page refresh after a
change is more than enough to efficiently write CSS.

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bbrks
Yeah, I'm not quite sure why they're pushing "live changes" feature so hard.
It's been around forever.

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adyus
Yes, but there may be some non-dev designers that do not yet know how to set
it up, or haven't heard of Grunt.

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publicfig
That's what I was wondering about. Grunt is absolutely perfect for these kinds
of workflows and if you want realtime changes that don't involve refreshing
the page, just use the developer console.

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Concours
looks fine I may give it a try to compare it with
[http://brackets.io/](http://brackets.io/) , can you tell me why would someone
choose it over an amazing, free and open source project like
[http://brackets.io/](http://brackets.io/) ? Why should I use it over Bracket
?

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bountie
FYI, the call to action is obscured (actually it's more accurate to say there
is no call to action, i.e. a button to download the app) in iPad portrait
mode. You can see this when you resize the desktop browser to that width.

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joshcrowder
This looks really interesting. Going to give it a play today. I'm interested
in how you handle keyframe animations

 _EDIT_ I had a quick look through your CSS (which I think is built using
Xpressive) overall I think it looks pretty good. Although you could definitely
shave of 30% off by inlining some of the rules. For instance for margin:0
auto; you call margin-left:auto, margin-right:auto. The same applies for
background, using the shorter version cuts files sizes dramatically

~~~
imjared
Just for the sake of clarification, I don't think "inlining" is what you're
looking for. Using `margin: 0 auto;` is shorthand, not inline. Inline would be
`<div style="margin: 0 auto;"></div>`. Definitely don't want that :)

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samsnelling
Just purchased the full version for 21.99 on the Mac App Store. Is there an
email address to give feedback to? I assume OP wanted feedback?

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esusatyo
I found this: xpressive@modulay.com

Also on Twitter:
[https://twitter.com/Xpressive_Team](https://twitter.com/Xpressive_Team)

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loceng
I wonder if this kind of native design would be easier to use than fully
custom setup that many web applications are creating.

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dharma1
will give it a go, though there are other ways to do the live reload (grunt
for instance).

Being able to save code changes in element inspector is nice, any way to do
that in chrome?

What were the other killer features?

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oliverhunt
What does this do that codekit and a browser cant?

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jasonlotito
How do I get that timeline editing feature in CodeKit and Chrome? Oh, and
automating the vendor prefixing. That would be nice as well.

Thanks!

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STRML
The timeline editing is pretty cool. But you could easily get automatic vendor
prefixing with SCSS/SASS (and you should be using a compile-to-CSS language if
you're doing serious web design), and automatic reloads with Vogue or
LiveReload. If I wanted to do serious CSS animations, though, this is worth a
shot - and it's a great tool for inexperienced web designers or those short on
time.

~~~
jasonlotito
I was asking because the OP to my comment implied it could be done with just a
browser and CodeKit. I'd rather keep the number of dependencies to a minimum.
I haven't used Chrome for front-end dev work for some time, so maybe it's
added these features. And CodeKit does compilation, so I figured it would have
this.

If I have to go the route of installing a bunch of individual tools and
maintaining them separately, then it becomes less appealing.

~~~
STRML
Yeah, I get that. It depends on how often you do web work. If you do it as
often as I do, it makes a lot of sense to put in the extra effort now to
streamline you work in the future. But obviously that doesn't apply to
everyone.

