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Show HN: Barebones, a minimal wireframe app for iPad, built in 24 hours.

14 points| JonAtkinson | 14 years ago | reply

http://www.barebonesapp.com

I run a web development company in the UK[1]. Last weekend, we participated in Leedshack[2], and we build Barebones, which is a really simple wireframing tool for the iPad.

We spend a lot of time in meetings sketching in our notebooks, and often these sketches are a valuable artefact long before 'traditional' wireframing even enters the process; we wanted to replicated the speed and simplicity of 'back of a napkin' sketching, and combine it with really simple sharing (anything is better than taking a photo of a sketch with my iPhone and emailing it to a client!)

It's a HTML5 app, which uses <canvas> and the Dollar Gesture library to recognise shapes drawn on the screen and snap them to a 960 grid.

Our intention was for it to be so quick and simple to use that is can take the place of a quick pencil sketch in front of a client. It really is very simple to use, and we limited the gestures to just three very distinct movements, and with a little practise, it's actually very quick and accurate.

As I mentioned in the title, we built this in 24 hours, so it lacks quite a bit in polish, however all the guys on the team would love any feedback from fellow HNers.

[1] http://www.testled.com/ [2] http://www.leedshack.com

Edit: A lot of people will be reading HN in a browser; Barebones does work in any reasonably modern browser, and it works with mouse events, but it really doesn't feel 'right'. Try it in an iPad if you can.

12 comments

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[+] robgough|14 years ago|reply
I love the idea and the app, hard to believe this was just a 24 hour project.

Would be nice to get a native version at some point too, so you can run offline.

Disclaimer: I was at LeedsHack too, great event!

[+] JonAtkinson|14 years ago|reply
Thanks, Rob.

We were all running a script on our machines to screengrab each minute; we're going to compose them into a time-lapse movie at some point, so you can see how it all came together in such a short period of time. I'll tweet you the link when it's up.

Native version? "When it's done" ;-)

[+] bricestacey|14 years ago|reply
What are the 3 gestures? I can only figure out how to make a box or draw a line. How do I get text?
[+] bricestacey|14 years ago|reply
Aha! The front page fits so well on the ipad I didn't realize it scrolled. You should maybe give instructions in a modal when you first load a new document... Great work though!
[+] cbetta|14 years ago|reply
It doesn't seem to work really on an iPad 2 on iOS 5 beta. Probably a iOS problem but just FYI.
[+] JonAtkinson|14 years ago|reply
We didn't have an iOS5 device to test it with (to be honest, testing was somewhat constrained by the time!), so what are you seeing? Mismatched shapes or just general touch problems?