Drag and Drop UI - updates coming this week!

[jane]

Hi Thunkers!

This week we have some exciting changes coming for the new Drag and Drop UI.

You can preview these updates right here:

Project as it currently exists in Thunkable’s Drag and Drop UI:

The same project in the updated Drag and Drop UI, before components are repositioned/resized:

The same project in the updated Drag and Drop UI, after components have been repositioned/resized:

Here are the details:

Increasing the size of the phone wireframe in the DND Design tab.

This will make creators who are more accustomed to other design tools feel more at home designing with Thunkable.

The larger screen should also lead to mobile web apps looking more similar to apps as viewed on Android and iOS devices.

And of course, it is easier for any creator to design the UI of their dreams on a bigger canvas!

Is there anything I need to do?

If you have existing DND projects, you will need to adjust the size and position of your components to better suit this larger screen.

Adding a pop-out window for previewing apps on the web.

This will allow you to have a live web preview of your app side-by-side with the Thunkable project as you work on it.

The Refresh App button will allow you to see your changes on the web in real-time. Just like the current Preview on Web feature, clicking the Refresh button will bring you to the screen of your project that is currently open in your Design tab.

Tidying up the Components tree and the Properties panel

Just a little reformatting to make the components tree and the properties panel look better.

Will this affect my published Drag and Drop Web Apps?

If you have previously published a Drag and Drop project as a web app, this update will not change these web apps by itself. Your web apps will be resized when you publish an update to your web app, so you will have the opportunity to resize and reposition components as needed.

When are these changes coming?

These changes will go live on Thursday March 18.

[jared]

This is a nice change! Hoping for the best.

Can you give us an update of the bug tracker (known issues tracker) you’ve mentioned in the past?

[jane]

Hi Jared,

Thunkable now has a status page at https://status.thunkable.com/.

If there is an ongoing issue with any of the fields noted on this status page, you will see a notification on the Thunkable home page. Here is an example:

[jared]

Thanks for the tag. This is nice and appreciated. I am more wondering along the lines of a known bug list instead of a known server issue observer.

The sentiment comes from the idea that uncle bowl is a community driven project. I just feel like the community would like to know that their issues are being heard and properly addressed by the thunkable team. Likewise if something is not an issue it would not go on that bug tracker and should be settled with an answer in the forum from the community!

The tags on issues in github are helpful. Is there a way to view that as a concise list?

[tatiang]

@jared

uncle bowl

“uncle bowl” Is that our new nickname for Thunkable? I knew we needed a way to say “new drag-and-drop interface” without using so many words…

Now the Thunkable team can use it in their marketing: “Thunkable, rhymes with ‘uncle bowl’…”

I may have not gotten enough sleep last night.

[jared]

Hahaha . I used voice to text and did not review the output. Maybe it’s my case causing interference or my Midwest accent, but voice recognition on iPhone sucksss