ForeUI?

ID:181959
 
May 3 2009, 12:25 pm
http://www.foreui.com/

Is it me, or does this program do pretty much what BYOND's interface editor does, only as a mockup? And its $79?
May 3 2009, 12:31 pm
Pretty much. But it can skin them for different OSes and themes there and then. Probably quite handy for business use, for clarifying stuff with customers.
May 3 2009, 12:57 pm
There are lots of Free Software projects that do the same thing as well. UI design software has a large market.

Free Software cross-platform GUI builders:
http://www.netbeans.org/features/java/swing.html (targets Java Swing)
http://wxglade.sourceforge.net/ (targets wxWidgets)
http://glade.gnome.org/ (targets GTK+)
http://www.qtsoftware.com/products/appdev/developer-tools/ (targets Qt)

Apple's Cocoa-specific GUI builder: http://developer.apple.com/documentation/developertools/ Conceptual/IB_UserGuide/ApplicationBasics/ ApplicationBasics.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/ TP40005344-CH3-SW1
May 3 2009, 3:22 pm
Foomer wrote:
And its $79?

Apparently not even that. It's free to download and use for the time being.
May 3 2009, 4:13 pm
In response to Android Data
For an old version with no support or upgrades, yeah.
May 3 2009, 5:03 pm
Foomer wrote:
http://www.foreui.com/

Is it me, or does this program do pretty much what BYOND's interface editor does, only as a mockup? And its $79?

This kind of thing is common in the business world. Some non-technical stooge is put in charge of requisitioning technical tools. He won't trust anything that's free or open-source because it might not be "safe" or "solid" so he keeps looking until he finds an overpriced piece of closed-source software made by some tiny company with abysmal support and purchases that.

Then people like me have to live with it.


~Polatrite~
May 3 2009, 10:29 pm
In response to Polatrite
Polatrite wrote:
Foomer wrote:
http://www.foreui.com/

Is it me, or does this program do pretty much what BYOND's interface editor does, only as a mockup? And its $79?

This kind of thing is common in the business world. Some non-technical stooge is put in charge of requisitioning technical tools. He won't trust anything that's free or open-source because it might not be "safe" or "solid" so he keeps looking until he finds an overpriced piece of closed-source software made by some tiny company with abysmal support and purchases that.

Then people like me have to live with it.


~Polatrite~

But in quite a few cases the open-source, free alternatives *are* worse, less solid, more buggy and provide less support.

So lets see: Open source project with no guaranteed support outside of access to a forum of people who use the program, no guaranteed timeframe for fixes, etc. - Or licensed product for a completely irrelevant amount of money with guaranteed support, updates, phone number to call, etc.

If said stooge decides to go out and purchase a *bad* product for a lot of money, then you can chalk that up to the person just being plain out stupid - And nothing to do with paid vs. free software.

Backup software in particular suffers in this area, unless you have someone employed full-time to mess with it (RetroSpect is close to the only viable solution that works for multiple platforms and properly preserves metadata on OSX, f.ex).

Flowcharting software is yet another area where there simply doesn't exist a competetive, free program. Not for Windows, not for *nix, not for OSX. OmniGroup have made what is possibly the most amazing piece of software for that, which sadly is OSX only - Visio and similar are unfortunately the Windows alternative. The free software doesn't even come close in functionality, ease of use and end product appeal. And if I have to use 5 hours more to finish up a series of flowcharts because of the unintuitive nature of the program I'm working with, I've already bought the paid product 3 times over in my hourly wage.

As for the product, it does quite a few things the BYOND interface editor doesn't:

* Export to various formats
* Animations, flash support, etc.
* Content filled into the mockup, as opposed to a 'default state' mockup
* Skinning for different operating systems