[HN Gopher] Show HN: Konty - A Balsamiq-alternative lo-fi wirefr...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Show HN: Konty - A Balsamiq-alternative lo-fi wireframe tool for
       modern apps
        
       Author : niklauslee
       Score  : 346 points
       Date   : 2024-09-12 03:31 UTC (19 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (konty.app)
 (TXT) w3m dump (konty.app)
        
       | janwillemb wrote:
       | Looks nice! Maybe add some explanation about licensing on the
       | first pages.
       | 
       | And the name sounds like "butty" in Dutch, so that will be hard
       | for me to recommend out loud for my Dutch IT students.
        
         | aitchnyu wrote:
         | Coq apparently renamed since professors have to introduce it to
         | 18 year olds each year.
        
         | Lio wrote:
         | That's nothing. In certain English accents pronouncing "konty"
         | is likely to cause even bigger, er, headaches than an innocent
         | reference to a butty.
        
           | dmje wrote:
           | Sadly I came here to say this
        
             | Lio wrote:
             | I keep picturing my mate from Rotherham saying it... :D
        
       | equalsabhi wrote:
       | Is this a free to use tool?
       | 
       | I was thinking about whether the GTM should be a figma plugin vs.
       | a desktop app. Would love to know the founder's thought process
       | on choosing the desktop app route.
        
         | rnavi wrote:
         | Excellent point.
        
         | niklauslee wrote:
         | For the future, we're looking at web-based version with real-
         | time collaboration. But for now, we decided to start with
         | desktop. We were also influenced by the "file over app"
         | philosophy of Obsidian's founder: https://stephango.com/file-
         | over-app.
        
       | keyle wrote:
       | What's going on with the url?
       | https://konty.app/http://localhost:4321/
       | 
       | Nice app. Loved Balsamiq for years, now I use an outdated version
       | of Sketch.
        
         | Sparkenstein wrote:
         | Submission url is incorrect. https://konty.app/anything works.
        
       | donatj wrote:
       | Are people still using Balsamiq?!
       | 
       | I haven't heard that name in literally forever. I used to use it
       | and love it like fifteen years ago when I fancied myself a
       | designer and not just a backend dev.
        
         | Brajeshwar wrote:
         | I remember was using an old version around the time just before
         | the recent Pandemic. Balsamiq went with the current trend and
         | is focusing on subscription/saas model targeting businesses.
         | Peldi also seem to have retired or is semi-retired.
        
           | toyg wrote:
           | I've not heard that nickname in 20 years! I went to his same
           | highschool ( _liceo_ ), he's two years older, and I was
           | always pretty amazed by the guy - including how he took what
           | was effectively an offensive slur against him ("carrot hair",
           | _pel di carota_ ) and claimed it as his nickname. Doing that
           | as a teenager takes balls. Great to know he's sorted for
           | good, I wish I was (lol)...
        
           | cstuder wrote:
           | The desktop version of Balsamiq with a one-time-payment is
           | still available, but you have to hunt for it a little.
        
         | ilt wrote:
         | I am still using Balsamiq for low-fi wireframes and low-fi
         | prototyping. Mostly for desktop application development these
         | days. Absolutely love it. Desktop version is still mostly on
         | par with its subscription model counterpart, only major
         | difference being collaboration thingies.
        
         | berkes wrote:
         | I use it a lot.
         | 
         | Figma, penpot etc, aren't for me. I often need something in the
         | phase where we're deciding on "what's on the page at all. And
         | what screens do we have". Way before there's need for styling
         | and layout, which I'll leave to skilled designers.
         | 
         | I need something with libraries. "This is where a map goes" and
         | "we have a modal here", and I can just plop in a thing that
         | communicates "this is a map of some country" or "a large
         | modal". Again, without styling, shadows, animations or even
         | proper layout .
         | 
         | And I need something that I can share with coworkers.
         | 
         | A pen and paper (with grids), or whiteboard works best for me,
         | but has no libs and is hard to collaborate on (in a remote,
         | hybrid environment).
        
         | pqdbr wrote:
         | I'll bite: what are people using instead of Balsamiq?
        
       | thuhien2621 wrote:
       | I'm a Business Analyst, so I find your tool quite interesting.
       | I'll definitely give it a try. However, I would like to ask if
       | your product includes sufficient notation to draw according to
       | BPMN standards.
        
         | Jolter wrote:
         | I think it's not a tool for business analysts but for UI
         | designers.
        
         | porker wrote:
         | Wrong tool for this - I'd recommend https://bpmn.io/ instead.
        
       | JakaJancar wrote:
       | Love it!
       | 
       | I always liked Balsamiq, it really forces you not to obsess about
       | the pixels too much, but it was so slow/bloated/buggy, like
       | something from the Java on desktop era. This is much smoother!
        
         | Brajeshwar wrote:
         | Well, yes, it was from the Flash era. It started in Flash/Flex.
         | I love it and used it for a very long time. Huge respect for
         | Peldi (Balsamiq founder).
        
           | hermitcrab wrote:
           | IIRC the desktop product was rewritten and is still being
           | updated.
        
       | Brajeshwar wrote:
       | For those who love this type of tool, you will also love Kinopio.
       | I've no affiliation. https://kinopio.club/
       | 
       | I've seen the founder, /pketh answer questions here on HN.
       | 
       | Update/Edit: The other open-source alternative to Balsamiq-ish
       | tool is https://excalidraw.com
        
       | porl wrote:
       | No Linux support :'(
        
         | berkes wrote:
         | I don't understand these decisions.
         | 
         | This is a collaborative tool. So you cannot say "only 5% of the
         | audience is Linux users", but instead you'll rule out any team
         | where at least one member is Linux user. Which is a far larger
         | group.
         | 
         | If I discount myself, that's 8 of 9 teams and startups I worked
         | in last years where we needed wireframing.
         | 
         | But I hope the Konty team has better numbers on this. I presume
         | they know more than my anecdotal numbers.
        
           | niklauslee wrote:
           | Yes, we'll also consider Linux distributions.
        
           | melicerte wrote:
           | In the meantime, wireframesketcher[1] seems to do the same
           | than Konty and runs on linux. I'm not related to them in any
           | way but use this solution for years and I'm very happy with
           | it (paying customer).
           | 
           | [1] https://wireframesketcher.com/
        
       | 8mobile wrote:
       | Hi, Balsamiq is one of my favorite products, I have already
       | downloaded konty and I stress it a lot. Congratulations for the
       | idea and for the product, how did you come up with it? After the
       | beta will it be paid? I will give you some feedback soon. Thanks
        
         | niklauslee wrote:
         | Thank you for your feedback. I'm thinking of the paid version.
         | I would like to offer it much cheaper than balsamiq, probably.
         | Additionally, we'll be offering strong discounts for early
         | users.
        
           | tyrw wrote:
           | Balsamiq is already so cheap. We use it for our business and
           | every time it renews I just think they could be getting 5-10x
           | what they are. That in turn helps drive a better business and
           | product.
        
             | jonwinstanley wrote:
             | Balsamiq is a per month subscrtiption isn't it? Personally,
             | I need a tool like this once per year or sometimes even
             | less. So if Konty was a one off payment of $20-30 I'd be
             | more inclined to purchase.
        
               | quantisan wrote:
               | Balsamiq offers a desktop version with a one-time license
               | fee at $149 per user
               | https://balsamiq.com/wireframes/desktop/
        
           | nprateem wrote:
           | You should consider a one time, lifetime payment. As a solo
           | dev working on occasional side projects I just wouldn't even
           | consider something on a subscription, and $140 (balsamiq's
           | one time fee) is about $100 more than I'd pay. My alternative
           | is a graphics app I already own.
           | 
           | Follow what Affinity did (cheap and one-time) and you'll sell
           | to a lot of people like me who would otherwise give it a
           | miss. Save your subscription tiers for businesses needing
           | more collaboration, SSO, etc.
           | 
           | With that strategy as well you'll build brand awareness which
           | will probably ultimately lead to more sales as those solo
           | devs advocate for its use in teams in their day jobs.
        
             | GordonS wrote:
             | IIRC, an age ago Balsamiq also offered one-time payments
             | for lifetime desktop access.
        
               | quantisan wrote:
               | it's still available
               | https://balsamiq.com/wireframes/desktop/
        
               | nprateem wrote:
               | $140
        
             | hermitcrab wrote:
             | Do not give free upgrades for life. You will almost
             | certainly regret it. Many people have made this mistake.
             | https://successfulsoftware.net/2008/09/08/should-i-give-
             | free...
        
               | thinkloop wrote:
               | I personally don't trust products with "lifetime" tiers
               | will be around in the future, so that would be a negative
               | flag for me.
        
       | nreece wrote:
       | Looks good!
       | 
       | I wonder if there's a way to combine a simple tool like yours (or
       | Balsamiq, which I've used for many years) with generative AI to
       | create plain HTML/CSS pages from mockups/wireframes. Figma seems
       | bloated, v0 is React/Tailwind only.
        
         | yoz wrote:
         | TLDraw Make Real - which was initially thrown together by a
         | Figma engineer who added GPT vision to an open source
         | whiteboard app - is remarkably good at this.
         | 
         | You can find it at https://makereal.tldraw.com/ but the guide
         | there doesn't explain how to get the best out of it. I
         | recommend this article by the TLDraw team which goes into some
         | of the remarkable tricks you can use, and what people have done
         | with it: https://tldraw.substack.com/p/make-real-the-story-so-
         | far
        
           | rnavi wrote:
           | Make real tdraw is just amazing. Love it.
        
         | niklauslee wrote:
         | Yes, we are thinking about integrating with AI!
        
       | fleaaa wrote:
       | Fantastic job!
       | 
       | EDIT: No linux support :(
        
       | the_arun wrote:
       | Looks really cool & easy to use. In Mac, we cannot delete a frame
       | or other objects with "Delete" key after selecting it. We have to
       | right click & select "delete".
        
         | niklauslee wrote:
         | Oh! I'll check it.
        
         | jonwinstanley wrote:
         | Backspace works for me
        
       | __bax wrote:
       | Balsamiq still rocks !
        
       | juliushuijnk wrote:
       | If you want to do this kind of thing on your phone, you can try
       | my TinyUx: https://www.tinyux.app/
       | 
       | It has a non-standard UX itself, because of the small screen.
        
         | albertgoeswoof wrote:
         | So cool!
         | 
         | Do you have an iOS version?
        
         | aloisdg wrote:
         | nice! Is it FOSS? Can I contribute to it?
        
         | antisthenes wrote:
         | Why is this on a phone?
         | 
         | Are you supposed to draw the UI with your finger or something?
        
       | steve1977 wrote:
       | > Don't spend a lot of time and effort creating low-fidelity
       | wireframes.
       | 
       | Modern software development in a nutshell
        
       | pcranaway wrote:
       | I love how I just downloaded this, and had the wireframe of my
       | app's main screen built within 3 minutes of me knowing about this
       | piece of software
        
       | steveharman wrote:
       | Would be nice to see a "push to Figma" option - where a lot of
       | high fidelity work will probably be started, based on wireframes.
        
         | niklauslee wrote:
         | Good point. Added to our backlog.
        
       | eashish93 wrote:
       | I like it, it's better than other apps. Reason is it present you
       | a list of all components of left sidebar so we don't have to
       | think of creating it from scratch. Just drag and drop and your
       | work is done.
        
       | monkeydust wrote:
       | This is cool, fan of Balsamiq. What I would really like is some
       | alignment/snap feature similar to what you have in MS power point
       | when you put some shapes together and it overlays some lines to
       | help with spacing and gaps.
        
       | pabe wrote:
       | Looks nice, like excalidraw fine tuned for wireframes. However,
       | I'm on Linux so I'm not able to use the app.
        
         | aloisdg wrote:
         | love excalidraw btw
        
         | melicerte wrote:
         | wireframesketcher[1] seems to do the same than Konty and runs
         | on linux. I'm not related to them in any way but use this
         | solution for years and I'm very happy with it (paying
         | customer).
         | 
         | [1] https://wireframesketcher.com/
        
       | saagarjha wrote:
       | Psst...you have a typo on one of the images, where it says
       | "Delete from Shopping Card" when it should probably say "Delete
       | from Shopping _Cart_ ".
        
       | probablybetter wrote:
       | no Linux build? (appimage or snap etc? not expecting distro
       | support for proprietary small-shop software)
        
       | olivierduval wrote:
       | Something always bothered me: why using "sketch-like hand-drawn
       | pencil" like style for that kind of tools ?
       | 
       | I understand that "wireframing" is some kind of "brainstorming"
       | tool, so it is used with a pencil and a whiteboard in a meeting
       | room and require to draw/erase fast iteratively... so it's the
       | "right" tool for this job...
       | 
       | But as soon as you use a computer instead of a pencil, why not
       | have a "realistic" and "clean" look instead of this kind of
       | quick-and-dirty sketch-like style? It's an honest question
       | 
       | Is it because designers are most used to this style? Is it
       | because it make more clearly appear the essential points (for
       | example: a list) and avoid discussion like "is this text exactly
       | in this color ?"
        
         | olivierduval wrote:
         | (to be honest, I find this "pencil-like" look a bit like MS
         | Comics for fonts, ugly and unprofessional... so I really don't
         | understand why designer tool use it so much)
        
           | toyg wrote:
           | Anybody who's ever been in a few meetings that try to put
           | together stakeholders, designers, and developers, know how it
           | will inevitably descend in painful back and forth about a
           | shade of hue or an icon size. People get distracted by colors
           | and graphics, and fail to provide actual feedback on
           | functionality and layouting - which are the hardest bits to
           | change later.
           | 
           | The point of this style is to communicate that it's a rough
           | draft, so that people focus on the essential implementation
           | and functionality requirements, the hard stuff. It's easy to
           | give it a lick of paint later. (It also keeps expectations
           | low, so that the final result will feel like you're
           | overdelivering. But that's just bonus.)
        
           | olivierduval wrote:
           | For those "downvoting" this comment, please: I wrote it right
           | after my initial post, before any answer, to make my initial
           | post clearer. I certainly should have added this to the main
           | post.
           | 
           | Now that I have all these answers, I understand better. But
           | cant delete or modify this comment. So sadly it's here for
           | eternity :-(
           | 
           | Thanks a lot for your insightfull comments to the original
           | post. Actually, I now think that I will use these method to
           | help getting more feedback from users
        
         | ramraj07 wrote:
         | If I draw something in balsamiq, I'm typically "forgiven" for
         | how basic the design looks. Try and do the same in let's say MS
         | paint and you could be called unprofessional and lazy. But this
         | style seems to communicate strongly that this is a basic
         | barebones wireframe.
         | 
         | Honestly it also looks better.
        
         | estsauver wrote:
         | The reason that I've heard used repeatedly is that a shocking
         | percentage of folks who aren't Technology producers can't
         | separate visual quality from "doneness" of a project. If you
         | show some business folks something that looks like it works,
         | they'll mentally update the project to "Nearly done!" and then
         | everything else after that becomes "Unreasonable delays."
        
           | dspillett wrote:
           | This is unfortunately very true. You also have to be very
           | careful with word/phrase choice in discussion about future
           | work: people often hear "what we could do, is..." as "there
           | is already a full feature that allows you to configure the
           | tool to do...".
           | 
           | You really have to drill home that ideas and possibilities
           | are just that, and not concrete features that they could
           | start using tomorrow.
        
             | edmundsauto wrote:
             | Why is this unfortunate? If it weren't true and people
             | could separate the things, would we really be better off?
             | 
             | I ask because this guy s a common lament, but I've never
             | figured out why. It shouldn't be a surprise or (to me)
             | disappointment that the fidelity of a communication also
             | carries signal about the status.
        
               | mionhe wrote:
               | Unfortunate because it's relatively easy now to mock-up
               | the pretty part well enough to be mistaken for the real
               | thing. Which people who don't have experience in this
               | field then do, and get often get confused or upset even.
               | 
               | Example of this from another industry: working in
               | manufacturing, a client wouldn't listen to our
               | explanations about why their part wasn't ready to be
               | molded in plastic. (lot's of design issues that would
               | make it impossible to get out of the mold or lead to
               | extreme cosmetic imperfections). To prove their point
               | that their part designs were ready, they held up a 3d
               | print of their part and said, "See? It's right here! You
               | just have to do this!" This led to a half hour of
               | answering questions before they started to understand
               | that the two fabrication processes were very different
               | and had different requirements.
               | 
               | I think the unfortunate part is really the time you have
               | to sink into helping someone understand that's often
               | unpaid, in my experience.
        
           | duggan wrote:
           | This is also what I've heard and experienced.
           | 
           | Actually I don't think "technology producers" are entirely
           | excluded from this bias either. I've assumed more complexity
           | than there was in reality (possibly due to my background in
           | infrastructure and backend), but other developers I've worked
           | with certainly fall more into the trap of "there's a UI? now
           | it's just a simple matter of CRUD."
        
           | Lio wrote:
           | I think Kathy Sierra used to wrote about this quite a bit.
           | She's actually referenced by Balsamiq I think.
        
           | dmje wrote:
           | I presented a wireframe to a curator at The Science Museum
           | once years ago - even after lots of "please bear in mind this
           | is just a prototype" type disclaimers, his first response was
           | "surely it'll have more colour and pictures than this?".
           | 
           | So. Yeh.
        
           | appendix-rock wrote:
           | Yes. This is precisely it. There aren't two sides to this,
           | just people that haven't themselves experienced this
           | absolutely inevitability. These sorts of inexact-looking
           | tools are worth their weight in gold for that reason alone.
        
           | viraptor wrote:
           | While this is likely true for designs, I believe there's more
           | to it. I switched from straight to cartoon lines for my
           | architecture / planning diagrams and suddenly started getting
           | more unprompted comments about how they're clear and
           | approachable.
           | 
           | Personally I also prefer the hand-drawn style, but can't put
           | my finger on why. There's something about the uneven lines
           | filling out the space better, while still defining the shapes
           | well.
        
             | llamaimperative wrote:
             | I think you're pointing to the positive case of the same
             | effect, which is that people use "hints" from the level of
             | detail of something to determine the level at which they
             | ought to inspect something.
             | 
             | Lower fidelity puts the viewer in a more conceptual mode of
             | assessment, and there they can more easily perceive the
             | clearness/approachability of your concepts.
        
           | mhuffman wrote:
           | I have had prospective clients do it from non-interactive
           | graphic mock-ups -- just pictures! They assumed that was the
           | hard part and just "wiring up the buttons" would be a short
           | simple task. Those were frustrating discussions.
        
             | com wrote:
             | Devil's advocate ... why shouldn't this be true? That's how
             | HyperCard worked, right?
        
               | ted_dunning wrote:
               | Well, sure. If all you want is buttons.
               | 
               | But if you want reasonable portability of the interface
               | across different devices, and scale, and connection
               | quality there's more to do.
               | 
               | Even just getting an interface that responds cleanly to
               | resizing can be trickier than it looks because what is
               | important changes as aspect and scale change. How you
               | present things may categorically change.
               | 
               | And this doesn't even start on talking about how to get
               | the backend to where it matches the implied functionality
               | of the front end.
        
               | mhuffman wrote:
               | In this particular case, there were user accounts,
               | listings of items per user, calculators of various sort,
               | multiple API integrations, and on and on. They understood
               | by the end of the discussion, but seeing an image of
               | something that looked complete was enough to trick their
               | mind into thinking a lot of development work had occurred
               | when, in fact, none had occurred. Only preliminary
               | graphic design had occurred. This was earlier in my
               | career. I typically use wire-frames or zoomed-in detail
               | images now along with starting the discussion by letting
               | them know that these are just graphic ideas, there has
               | been no development yet, we are just at the stage that we
               | want to be sure we are matching their vision.
        
           | mguerville wrote:
           | And criticize the colors, shading, exact sizes of UI
           | elements, etc. instead of the underlying holistic UX
        
           | netghost wrote:
           | A slightly different take.
           | 
           | If everything is either an obvious sketch, or pixel perfect
           | you can get decent feedback, but a design that is just a
           | little off in jarring ways will distract people from the
           | functionality or design intention.
        
           | Groxx wrote:
           | There is definitely this, but also: if it looks "refined",
           | people start getting attached to what they see, and it
           | affects how they react to the final product.
           | 
           | Any change from that haphazard throwaway _with nice colors_
           | is suddenly a change they have opinions about, because it
           | feels like _a change_.
           | 
           | If you show them something that's obviously not what will
           | ship, they don't get as attached.
           | 
           | ---
           | 
           | This is also partly a "most people don't understand the
           | design process" thing, and just how much reworking and
           | restarting is generally necessary to get an actually-good end
           | result. If they see hundreds of mockups (or even sketches),
           | they'll wonder why you haven't made hundreds of products,
           | rather than those being merely tools used to think along the
           | way.
        
           | gadders wrote:
           | I remember in the early 00's this book suggested literally
           | prototyping on paper first. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Paper-
           | Prototyping-Interfaces-Intera...
           | 
           | I think this was then expanded to be "paper-looking".
           | 
           | But yes, for the reasons you state.
        
           | johnchristopher wrote:
           | I almost got burned out from this, this year. Never again
           | will I use clean and production-ready assets for prototypes
           | submitted to decision makers.
        
         | niklauslee wrote:
         | Psychologically reduces obsession with the perfect drawing.
        
         | Beretta_Vexee wrote:
         | This style says 'it's a draft' 'it's an idea'. This is very
         | important for communication within the team. It also allows you
         | to concentrate on the essential points and not on the details
         | (I don't like this font, the centring isn't perfect, etc.).
         | 
         | To my great surprise, even for training courses, this style
         | encourages questions and interaction with the students. There's
         | a whiteboard feel to it which suggests that the presentation
         | isn't set in stone.
        
           | specialist wrote:
           | Right. The more polished a rendering is, the more people are
           | emotionally attached to it. Keeping it rough enables
           | brainstorming, whatifs, etc.
           | 
           | Ages ago, when CAD was new, architects would show customers
           | tracings (of plots). For all the same reasons.
           | 
           | The practice was so common that my buddy (also an architect)
           | created a "hand plot" driver for AutoCAD. "Messy" hand drawn
           | look instead of precise line work. The driver was huge
           | popular.
        
         | ashildr wrote:
         | It's an abstraction that makes people focus on the part that is
         | relevant for the discussion at hand, and not on implementation
         | details.
        
         | rpastuszak wrote:
         | A) Make it easier to focus on the core aspects of the problems
         | instead of obsessing with details (applies to both designers
         | and "reviewers")
         | 
         | B) An "unfinished" messy design is an invitation for critical
         | feedback. If you give people something that looks too polished,
         | they might be afraid that they'll break it, that they don't
         | understand it, that they can't give feedback that is "good
         | enough".
         | 
         | In short: if it looks like a toy people will play with it.
         | 
         | * C) The reason many of these tools look like Balsamiq has more
         | to do with the tech of the late 00s/early 10s. This specific
         | style of vector art was pretty easy to achieve in Flash.
        
         | victorbjorklund wrote:
         | I usually dont use wireframes like this but one benefit is that
         | it clearly communicates "this is NOT a finished design". Way to
         | many times you bring a figma/mvp to get feedback on the "big
         | picture" like the user flow etc but people get stuck on "the
         | margin on that box is wrong" or "can we use another font?" when
         | they see a design that looks like a "finished" product. You
         | dont have that issue with wireframes.
        
         | veenified wrote:
         | Sometimes the pixel perfect details don't matter for a use
         | case, so why set the hi-fi expectation for both the designer
         | and developer. The designer can get caught up in choosing
         | colors and pixel-perfect layout, and similarly the developer
         | implementing on that design might unnecessary time attempting
         | to match the hi-fi design.
        
         | adastra22 wrote:
         | Because the final product will require tons of details to have
         | been thought through, which can quickly become bike-shedding
         | derailments. How many times have you had to say "this is just
         | example styling--we can tweak it later"? The hand drawn sketch
         | conveys that implicitly.
        
         | codegeek wrote:
         | Exactly. I feel the same way. After lot of research, I settled
         | on Whimsical for doing mockups/wireframes. Good Balance between
         | Simplicity and Power. Only complain is clickable prototyping
         | which is not available. If they add that, I would never leave
         | Whimsical for prototyping.
        
         | shagie wrote:
         | > Something always bothered me: why using "sketch-like hand-
         | drawn pencil" like style for that kind of tools ?
         | 
         | https://napkinlaf.sourceforge.net (one of my favorites from
         | back in the day)
         | 
         | > The Napkin Look & Feel is a pluggable Java look and feel that
         | looks like it was scrawled on a napkin. You can use it to make
         | provisional work actually look provisional, or just for fun. It
         | is released under a BSD-style license
         | 
         | > The idea is to try to develop a look and feel that can be
         | used in Java applications that looks informal and provisional,
         | yet be fully functional for development. Often when people see
         | a GUI mock-up, or a complete GUI without full functionality,
         | they assume that the code behind it is working. While this can
         | be used to sleazy advantage, it can also convince people who
         | ought to know better (like your managers) that you are already
         | done when you have just barely begun, or when only parts are
         | complete. No matter how much you speak to their rational side,
         | the emotional response still says "Done!". Which after a while
         | leads to a later question: "That was done months ago! What are
         | they doing? Playing Quake?" A good article on this is Joel on
         | Software's "The Iceberg Secret, Revealed".
         | 
         | ... and that's the place that I remember where to find this
         | blog post:
         | 
         | Don't make the Demo look Done -
         | https://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/...
         | 
         | > When we show a work-in-progress (like an alpha release) to
         | the public, press, a client, or boss... we're setting their
         | expectations. And we can do it one of three ways: dazzle them
         | with a polished mock-up, show them something that matches the
         | reality of the project status, or stress them out by showing
         | almost nothing and asking them to take it "on faith" that
         | you're on track.
         | 
         | > The bottom line: How 'done' something looks should match how
         | 'done' something is.
         | 
         | > Every software developer has experienced this many times in
         | their career. But desktop publishing tools lead to the same
         | headache for tech writers--if you show someone a rough draft
         | that's perfectly fonted and formatted, they see it as more done
         | than you'd like. We need a match between where we are and where
         | others perceive we are.
         | 
         | The infographic in this post (
         | https://headrush.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/feedbackim...
         | ) is especially important because the how it looks changes what
         | type of feedback you get.
         | 
         | I had a project where I grabbed the stylesheet and header from
         | another similar project while working on it... and spent a week
         | discussing with management about what color blue it should be
         | when the questions I needed answering were "does this page flow
         | make sense?"
        
         | mitchbob wrote:
         | One of the most valuable things you can do with early
         | prototypes is have prospective users try them, to see whether
         | they're understandable and meet users' needs. When a prototype
         | looks unfinished, users understand that it can be changed, and
         | you can collaborate with them and explore ideas for making the
         | prototype better.
        
       | mkarliner wrote:
       | Very nice. I've been looking for a replacement hand drawn tool
       | for ages.
        
       | dewey wrote:
       | The submitted url links to this, still works but just fyi:
       | 
       | https://konty.app/http://localhost:4321/
        
         | niklauslee wrote:
         | Oops! Is there any way to fix it? I can't find edit button.
        
         | itslennysfault wrote:
         | It's weird everything after the slash seems to be ignored. You
         | can type anything and it still goes to the home page. funky.
        
       | trenchgun wrote:
       | Not sure if it would be out of scope to have support for PlantUML
       | etc programmatic generation
        
       | aloisdg wrote:
       | nice! Is it FOSS? Can I contribute to it?
        
       | wiradikusuma wrote:
       | FYI in Indonesian slang* it means penis.
       | 
       | * which is also a slang for another slang. Inception!
        
       | patafemma wrote:
       | Well done! Basic functionality feels pretty smooth and polished.
       | One thing that I found myself very quickly missing: being able to
       | snap shapes to each other or to the grid.
        
       | pentagrama wrote:
       | This is great. Let you know that your blog seems that doesn't
       | support RSS. I will like to follow the project there.
       | 
       | https://konty.app/blog/
        
         | mdaniel wrote:
         | and while fixing that: this markup is not helping
         | <link rel="canonical" href="http://localhost:4321/blog/">
        
       | wusel wrote:
       | I thought the connecting arrows were bugged at first, then I
       | realized it's a genius implementation. This alone makes me want
       | to use this more than Figjam.
        
       | chrisvalleybay wrote:
       | Just a question; I'm seeing so many tools pop up with these kinds
       | of advanced whiteboard functionality, all the tools on the top
       | and the tool palettes on the right. Is there a library or
       | something that's being used to implement all of this? They all
       | look the same.
       | 
       | Product looks good, though! Congrats!
        
       | tchock23 wrote:
       | This is great - thanks for making/sharing it!
       | 
       | I use (and like) Moqups, but the lo-fi nature of Konty is really
       | nice. Seems very easy to use and responsive so far.
        
       | jksmith wrote:
       | Dig it. I use Balsamiq all the time. Some challenges when using
       | Wine, so I have to open a cringey Klaus Schwab windows machine.
       | Would be great if this app showed Linux some love.
        
         | hexfish wrote:
         | > a cringey Klaus Schwab windows machine
         | 
         | Say what? haha
        
       | warthog wrote:
       | This looks amazing
        
       | daverobbins1 wrote:
       | Looks great. Can we get this on homebrew?
        
       | replete wrote:
       | Gomockingbird was the best at this (for my purposes), but they
       | decommissioned and didn't open source it like they said they
       | would.
       | 
       | Balsamiq was next best and I use it still, but has a cumbersome
       | user interface with enough friction that it gets in the way.
       | 
       | I tried using Excalidraw for a while, for my dislike of using
       | Balsamiq, but for wireframing even with libraries it was too
       | fiddly.
       | 
       | Just tried out Konty and it feels like an upgrade to Balsamiq for
       | sure, and is clearly inspired by Excalidraw. Great work
        
       | TuringNYC wrote:
       | I see the company is based in Asia. I highly recommend
       | considering some branding feedback from westerners. The name of
       | the app will raise eyebrows for many.
        
         | febeling wrote:
         | What are the eyebrow raising connotations you have?
        
           | jnsie wrote:
           | Replace an o with a u
        
           | esafak wrote:
           | It sounds like cunty (adjective) or cuntie (diminutive).
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Obagb7RQeYo
        
       | DonnyV wrote:
       | Looking into how this is built. I see they use something called
       | Squirrel.Window for managing installs. I can't believe I've never
       | heard of this until now!
       | https://github.com/Squirrel/Squirrel.Windows.
       | 
       | Fastest loading electron app I've ever seen.
       | 
       | As a long time user of Ballsamiq. This is FANTASTIC!! Everything
       | is super smooth, nice drawing styling, well thought out.
       | 
       | My only problem with Ballsamiq Desktop was the price. I just
       | don't use it enough to pay $150 for 1 license. Something like $60
       | for desktop would be better.
       | 
       | Good luck with the business. I will definitely be using your app.
       | 
       | P.S. I just noticed it groups things automatically....HOLY
       | SMOKES!
       | 
       | P.S. 2 As a map user. When switching to the pan tool (hand). The
       | scrolling up/down should zoom in/out.
       | 
       | P.S. 3 It definitely needs a pdf export option
        
       | groby_b wrote:
       | "Please download a random binary from a place that doesn't even
       | charge for the binary and seems to be set up yesterday" is...
       | raising my hairs.
       | 
       | I'm sure odds are this actually isn't malware, but - I'd think
       | about how to address that fear.
        
       | aosaigh wrote:
       | This is great. I'm a regular Balsamiq user but prefer the look-
       | and-feel and subtle aesthetic differences in Konty. I'd love some
       | sort of commenting or call-out system on drawings. The "stickies"
       | work well in some cases, but I regularly find that I need to draw
       | attention to certain parts of a design and don't want to have to
       | manually create an arrow with a sticky, or an arrow with text
       | etc.
       | 
       | Also, a small frustration, but when deleting items I reach for
       | "del" on the keyboard, which isn't implemented here ("backspace"
       | works though).
        
       | ted_dunning wrote:
       | This tool is distressingly delicate.
       | 
       | open text. type something. pop up a triangle. modal deadlock.
        
       | CR-MX wrote:
       | This is great! congratulations
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2024-09-12 23:01 UTC)