endloop blog

Note: This video only covers the basics of the new update, please read the full notes for more details


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If you haven’t yet, check out our new YouTube channel for tutorials videos: www.youtube.com/imockups

New Feature & Changes:

• 2 new UI Controls: iPhone Keyboard and iPad Keyboard (both support Portrait and Landscape orientations)
• Tutorial Videos - we’ve included some handy tutorials & tips in videos to help you discover all the great features of iMockups. Just click and TOOLS -> TUTORIALS to view all the videos.
• Email Support form - contact us directly via email if you have any questions or concerns. The email support form can be accessed from TOOLS-> TUTORIALS and is the button labelled SUPPORT in the upper right corner on the top Toolbar.
• Major Canvas Changes:
• Default zoom level is now 75% instead of 100% allowing for greater visibility of the entire canvas.
• Default canvas size is now 1338×968. Existing pages in projects will not be affected, this only applies to new pages created from now on.
• Canvas size is now adjustable. Access the canvas size popover from the Page Edit Menu (from the Page viewer, tap on the current page thumbnail to bring up the Page Edit Menu)
• Canvas size, zoom level and position are now saved and restored when switching pages/projects and even after closing and relaunching iMockups.
• Canvas can now only be zoomed out to 50% and zoomed in to 150% and can only be panned to the edges of the canvas so you won’t be able to lose track of it anymore.
• Zoom speed and sensitivity have been increased.
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• Delete Page function has been removed from the Edit menu. It is now accessible via the Page Edit Menu.
• A new UI Control Quick menu now appears when a control is selected. The UI Control Quick Menu allows you to lock, copy, cut, delete and view info for the control(s) selected. To access the UI Control’s Info Properties popover, simply double-tap on the control.
• Locking a UI Control now locks both Position and Size (it previously only locked size).
• Export Project has been changed to export only 3 pages at a time due to memory limitations. We are continuing to optimize this feature to increase the number of pages but for now, this should allow you to export your projects by batches of 3.

Bug Fixes:

• Improved zooming in and out of the canvas. Zooming now focuses on where you pinched/expanded.
• Fixed a bug with Cut/Copy/Paste of Segmented Controller not copying with all segments correctly.
• Fixed a bug where the Multi-Select wouldn’t always work when attempting to select objects that were overlapping each other.
• Fixed a bug where UI Controls were being created off the canvas.

Just a quick note as we prepare for our WWDC trip this weekend:

1) We’re just about to submit iMockups v1.06 with some big changes to the canvas that I think people will like. Don’t worry, your old mockups/diagrams will remain intact. More details very shortly.

2) Check out our new YouTube channel for iMockups tutorials: www.youtube.com/imockups

I’ve embedded the 1st tutorial below but please check out all of them, they’re all short and you might find some good tips.




Here are the full update notes for v1.05 (be sure to check out the Upcoming Features section!):

New Features and changes

• Export Projects - now you can export projects (in batches of 5 pages, due to memory limitations). You can access this function from the Tools Menu.
• Export via EMAIL as PNG - you can now email out your mockups as PNG directly from within the app.
• Tab Panel, Navigation Bar, iPhone Tab Bar, iPad Tab Bar now support changing the Selected Tab. This can be changed using a slider from the Info panel.
• 4 New UI Controls - Tool Bar, On/Off Switch, Segmented Control, Slider Control (and more to come) — See an example below:

Bug fixes

• Fixed SplitView Controller object’s Titles field bringing up the wrong keyboard type.
• Fixed the ListView object’s labels not displaying correctly.
• Fixed Deleting projects sometimes causing crashes or errant behaviour.
• Fixed Deleting (NULL) projects. You should now be able to delete these phantom projects and rid yourself of them forever.
• Fixed a sporadic crashing bug with multi-touches.
• Fixed accidental multi-touch while resizing/moving objects.
• Fixed multi-select occasionally staying “stuck” on screen.
• Fixed position label being off by several pixels while moving around the canvas
• Fixed label centering issues with NavBar element

Upcoming Features (Stuff we’re working on right now)

• More iPhone/iPad UI Controls and full suite of icons
• More generic shapes and markup/annotation elements
• Colour picker for background and border
• Default canvas size will be 1:1 with iPad screen w/ option to increase canvas size
• Export to Balsamiq format
• Linkable actions (you can link UI objects to specific pages within a project)
• Group/Ungroup objects

As always, send feedback to http://getsatisfaction.com/endloop or just comment below.

Thanks,
iMockups Team

Just wanted to write a short post and let you folks know what we’re working on for the next update:

• More iPhone/iPad controls (more specifics to come very soon)
• All nav bars and tab bar controls can now be set with a specific tab highlighted, using a slider on the Info panel
• Export to email (PNG format)
• fixed text field padding issues
• fixed some bugs with the Project view

More details to come but we just wanted to give you folks a heads up.

Thanks again for all your great feedback, it’s helping us to make this a better product for you. If you have feedback or suggestions, you can post them here http://www.getsatisfaction.com/endloop

Thanks,
iMockups Team

iMockups for iPad v1.03 is OUT and available on the App Store here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/imockups-for-ipad/id364885913?mt=8

Check out this new video showing off the new features in iMockups for iPad v1.03

- iMockups Team

Good news, we’ve resubmitted v1.03 but in actuality, it’s v1.04 (don’t worry, it doesn’t matter).

What matters is that we’ve added a few new features since the rejection, notably SMART SNAP-TO GUIDES.

Here are the full notes:

New Feature & Changes:

- ALIGNMENT grid-lines and SNAP-TO functionality! Now aligning and resizing controls has become MUCH EASIER!

- iPhone and iPad frames now maintain their aspect ratios when resized

- X, Y, width and height are now displayed while dragging or resizing controls

- LOCKING/UNLOCKING size for UI objects, this can be done from the Info panel for any selected object. Once locked, an object can be moved but not resized/stretched.

- Control Properties Popover no longer automatically appears when you create new controls. This is to allow for rapidly dropping many controls consecutively without interruption. The Control Properties Popover can be displayed by selecting a Control and then tapping on the Info button along the Top Toolbar.

- Tap a Control on the palette to quickly place a new Control on the page. This allows for rapid creation of multiple Controls consecutively by tapping on the Control’s button.

- Improved dragging Controls from the palette. You will see the control appear at your finger and you can then drag it around the page to place.

- Removed the Delete prompt when deleting Controls. Undo allows you to undelete elements so a prompt is not necessary.

Bug Fixes:
- Improved ease of enabling the MULTI-SELECT box and improved the accuracy of the selection box
- Fixed a bug with resizing Text Area, Paragraph and Lorem Ipsum controls
- Fixed a bug with controls not displaying properly after a copy/paste (Nav Bar, Tab Panel, iPhone Tab Bar, iPad Tab Bar)
- Further refined touch/hit sensitivity on resizer markers when resizing and moving controls.
- Optimized memory footprint of pages and projects, increases stability when handling large projects.
- Improved object selection and movement, fine tuned the blue dots touch radius.
- Info property popover for controls now always appears from the toolbar, preventing any fields from being cut off when the keyboard displays.
- Undo wasn’t tracking history when editing objects through the control’s properties popover.
- Fixed a bug where the Cut and Copy buttons would be disabled even though there were controls selected.
- Fixed a bug where the Control Properties Popover would not display the correct label or fields for the selected Control.
- Fixed a bug where the paperclip (current page indicator) was not moving with the current page when re-ordering.
- Improved accuracy when zooming in and out of the page.
- Fixed a bug where the Controls Properties Popover would not dismiss when going into Presentation mode.
- Fixed a bug where multiple popovers were appearing on the screen at the same time when switching menus.

We’ll let you know as soon as the update gets approved!

Thanks for your patience,

- iMockups Team

Sorry folks, we’re still working with Apple to get this update out as soon as possible.

There’s an area of disagreement that we’re trying to get resolved and hopefully it will mean the iMockups v1.03 update will hit the App Store very shortly after that.

Thanks for your patience, we’ll let you know as soon as we resolve this.

- Ken

Moar Cake

We just got back from 360iDev in San Jose and had an awesome time! Great to see old friends and meet new developers. If you’re an iPhone developer and haven’t gone to a 360iDev yet, you’re definitely missing out. It truly is one of the best, friendliest and most fun of all the conferences we go to.

And one of the best things about it this year was the Touch Arcade Game Jam. So many awesome developers, game dev veterans and novices, showed up and created some amazing concepts and games. This time, we teamed up with the awesome guys at Retro Dreamer and in a little over 9 hours, we managed to crank out Cake Defence!

Basically, you are a giant wedding cake and you have to defend yourself against the hungry masses. You do this by dishing out slices of cake (using tilt controls to aim) to appease and eventually defeat them. As you send out the cake though, you get smaller which means you have less cake to dish out - fortunately, this replenishes over time though. We even managed to include some powerups like Power Cake, Multi-Cake and even Infinite Cake.

We hope to have a video up soon, but in the mean time, here are some delicious screenshots.

Our apologies, we had to resubmit so we decided to roll a few more fixes and features into this update (just submitted). Here are the full update notes:

New Feature & Changes:

• LOCKING/UNLOCKING size for UI objects, this can be done from the Info panel for any selected object. Once locked, an object can be moved but not resized/stretched.
• Control Properties Popover no longer automatically appears when you create new controls. This is to allow for rapidly dropping many controls consecutively without interruption. The Control Properties Popover can be displayed by selecting a Control and then tapping on the Info button along the Top Toolbar.
• Tap a Control on the palette to quickly place a new Control on the page. This allows for rapid creation of multiple Controls consecutively by tapping on the Control’s button.
• Improved dragging Controls from the palette. You will see the control appear at your finger and you can then drag it around the page to place.
• Removed the Delete prompt when deleting Controls. Undo allows you to undelete elements so a prompt is not necessary.

Bug Fixes:

• Optimized memory footprint of pages and projects, increases stability when handling large projects.
• Improved object selection and movement, fine tuned the blue dots touch radius.
- Info property popover for controls now always appears from the toolbar, preventing any fields from being cut off when the keyboard displays.
• Undo wasn’t tracking history when editing objects through the control’s properties popover.
• Fixed a bug where the Cut and Copy buttons would be disabled even though there were controls selected.
• Fixed a bug where the Control Properties Popover would not display the correct label or fields for the selected Control.
• Fixed a bug where the paperclip (current page indicator) was not moving with the current page when re-ordering.
• Improved accuracy when zooming in and out of the page.
• Fixed a bug where the Controls Properties Popover would not dismiss when going into Presentation mode.
• Fixed a bug where multiple popovers were appearing on the screen at the same time when switching menus.

Thanks for your continued support! If you like iMockups for iPad, please leave a review on iTunes http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/imockups/id364885913?mt=8, thanks!

Hopefully this will be approved soon, keep your eyes peeled

- iMockups for iPad Team

It should be available within an hour or so, but here is the full update notes:

Bug Fixes:

- Greatly improved stability from general crashing when switching projects or between Presentation Mode and Edit Mode
- Fixed crashing bug with cutting,copying and pasting certain controls
- Multi-select (tap and hold TWO FINGERS on the canvas) should now be easier to activate
- Fixed bug where Properties popover for elements wasn’t displaying properly
- Controls Panel positioned incorrectly when iPad is laid down flat
- Slightly jittery animation when zooming and panning canvas with TWO FINGERS
- Erratic behaviour when swiping between projects in Project View
- Improved resizing controls (blue markers should be easier to touch)
- Disabled auto-hiding of Page Deck and Controls Panel when panning and zooming canvas
- Added an additional Toolbar button (INFO) for bring up the selected Control’s Info panel
- Updated Help page (HELP can be accessed from the TOOLS menu)

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IMPORTANT TIPS: PLEASE READ!
***************************************
- PLEASE Visit our blog http://blog.endloop.ca
 and follow @EndloopStudios and @iMockups on Twitter for the latest news and updates!

- Tap TOOLS > HELP for an overview of controls

- You must use TWO FINGERS to PAN the canvas since a single finger will select and move controls

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UPCOMING FEATURES:


- snap-to grid lines

- border and background color picker for UI controls

- more export options: email, XML, PDF

- improved customization of UI controls

- more UI controls

- more icons
- improved touch controls
- additional themes/skins



***** 

Expect fast and furious updates!

We are listening and want YOUR FEEDBACK - we want to make the product that you want to use.

PLEASE Visit our blog http://blog.endloop.ca so we can hear your voice!

*****

If you’re happy with iMockups and our continued updates, please leave an honest review for us in the App Store: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/imockups/id364885913?mt=8

We want as much feedback from our community as possible, so feel free to leave comments here or email us at endloop [at] endloop.ca

*UPDATE* We’re submitting another update before we move onto more features-focused update:
It will feature a short but essential list of improvements:

- improves object selection and movement, fine tuned the blue dots touch radius
- LOCKING/UNLOCKING for UI objects, this can be done from the Info panel for any selected object. Once locked, an object can be moved but not resized/stretched.
- reduced memory footprint of pages and projects, increases stability when handling large projects

Thanks again for your patience!
- iMockups Team.