TE
TechEcho
Home24h TopNewestBestAskShowJobs
GitHubTwitter
Home

TechEcho

A tech news platform built with Next.js, providing global tech news and discussions.

GitHubTwitter

Home

HomeNewestBestAskShowJobs

Resources

HackerNews APIOriginal HackerNewsNext.js

© 2025 TechEcho. All rights reserved.

Pencil – an open-source GUI prototyping tool for all platforms

379 pointsby PleaseHelpMealmost 8 years ago

15 comments

jfaucettalmost 8 years ago
Pencil is awesome. It is my goto prototyping and wireframing tool. I honestly like it better than the other tools with price tags that I've used out there. Somehow it seems noone knows about this, but its doing for mockups/wireframing what Blender does for 3D artists - providing a high quality open source tool that is usable by industry professionals. I hope pencil and their devs get more recognition / funding.
v3ss0nalmost 8 years ago
using it and thinking about contributing it for long. The team did really ambitious work of dumping XUL and rewriting it in Javascript + HTML. I was one of the first user of new version since they hosted in gitlab , i was astonished that they did the conversion from XUL within just around a month and already working since then.
cmrx64almost 8 years ago
I've been an occasional user of Pencil for 5 years (almost to the month). Really glad to see it moving away from XUL.
评论 #14637721 未加载
评论 #14632147 未加载
dflockalmost 8 years ago
Been using this for a while in it&#x27;s various incarnations - this one is definitely the best so far.<p>Very useful tool for UI prototyping.
scanralmost 8 years ago
Pencil was my go to free wireframing app for some time. Great to see that they are updating it.
评论 #14630389 未加载
vram22almost 8 years ago
I had used Balsamiq to design the forms&#x2F;screens for a SaaS project for a client (collaboratively with them), and it was not bad. IIRC, response was a little laggy, which might have been because it was built using Adobe AIR (not sure). (I got a free copy of it from Peldi under their scheme for people who develop free &#x2F; open source software projects.)<p>Has anyone tried Axure (paid product), and if so, how did you find it? Another client that I did a project for, had claimed it was good, when I told him I use Balsamiq.
mbonzoalmost 8 years ago
Hey everyone! Vim Girl here. I&#x27;ve just created a demo of Pencil! If you are interested in seeing how pencil works I built a simple page: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;KTcYMvENb0k" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;KTcYMvENb0k</a>
threepipeproblmalmost 8 years ago
Pencil has many higher-res stencils now, but I prefer the old ones that actually look like Pencil drawings.<p>I have also given this to clients, to have them draw their own UI concepts (as a starting position &#x2F; way of communicating) with good results.
zitterbewegungalmost 8 years ago
Wow looks better than balsamiq I will try this out at work.
评论 #14629221 未加载
brailsafealmost 8 years ago
Love pencil and started looking to contribute late last year. Unfortunately I couldn&#x27;t get it to build properly on MacOS. As a result I couldn&#x27;t get anything to run, and with practically no documentation at the time I eventually moved on. Hopefully the situation has improved over the year. I&#x27;ll give it another go soon and see what can be done.
kraig911almost 8 years ago
Sketch, Axure, Balsamiq.... and I still go back to Pencil + Illustrator after all these years.
评论 #14631645 未加载
sametmaxalmost 8 years ago
Very instable on Linux unfortunatly.
评论 #14642801 未加载
评论 #14634965 未加载
评论 #14637621 未加载
floatbothalmost 8 years ago
Did they really need Electron for this? Why not just make it also available as a normal web app with a URL?
评论 #14629460 未加载
评论 #14629443 未加载
评论 #14629449 未加载
评论 #14629704 未加载
评论 #14631241 未加载
glaszalmost 8 years ago
apps made with i-cant-learn-the-proper-language-so-i-just-use-one-thats-not-made-for-the-job always feel and perform very badly. at least for me.<p>i mean they call out performance issues right in the first paragraph in the readme.<p>terrible world of half-assed pseudo-native applications.
评论 #14629726 未加载
评论 #14631685 未加载
jasonkostempskialmost 8 years ago
<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.fiftythree.com&#x2F;pencil" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.fiftythree.com&#x2F;pencil</a> <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.apple.com&#x2F;apple-pencil&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.apple.com&#x2F;apple-pencil&#x2F;</a><p>Kind of already an established name in the Apple world.
评论 #14628874 未加载
评论 #14628662 未加载
评论 #14628851 未加载