Steve Troughton-SmithWith all the buzz about Final Cut, it sure would have been a good time for me to have had my clapperboard app ready to go, huh? 😒
I think I can take a sprint at this before WWDC, might make some progress. I have Freeform prepped, Xcode open. I have a bunch of things to do before I can get this to a shippable 1.0, including changing the core navigation & library structure, and removing all the SwiftUI I added in the early days. Fortunately, past-me was smart enough to port the whole project to Swift already, so it’s ready for me to pick up and run with it
Since I started this project in 2019, the design language I use in my apps has shifted a bit — and that of iPadOS, too. Restructuring it is kinda fun
If I'm to cut features to get to a ship target, it’ll primarily be by not including iPhone & Mac support at launch. Even so, I'll be progressing all three platforms at the same time as I go, as iPad still needs multiple resizable windows and compact/regular size class switching.
No platforms means I don't have to have a sync strategy out of the gate, too… 👀
Working a little on my editing modes and interactions, reducing the gesture overload I had in earlier versions and splitting them out into distinct states (rearranging vs text/field editing, etc)
Fewer mystery meat gestures and weird animations, more buttons
Finding the right SF Symbols for my use case is impossible, so I think I'm going to use this form instead
My module library was a UITableView, of all things. Well that had to go
As I flesh out the rest of the UI, I'm starting to see ways for this to make sense on macOS, even if the use cases are very different to iPhone or iPad — I didn't get that impression from the last two development sprints I did on this (in 2019, and 2020)
Quick UI roundup; I can see a path towards completing and shipping this app before WWDC, on iPad. I don't know that I'll be able to hit that target before distraction comes knocking, but it's worth a try. I've made quite a bit of progress in the past day, and it's starting to look good
Doing away with the context menus frees up some confusion with Pencil usage. Trying out a dashed line pattern too, though it might still need some tweaking. I also cleaned up the @takeoneapp Mastodon profile a tad
Here's a bunch of screenshots from the early development of @takeoneapp, in June 2019, since I haven't posted them over here. That’s before I'd started work on Broadcasts or Pastel, in a very different era of iPad app development. In hindsight, the improvements to the iPad SDK vis a vis UIKit & Mac Catalyst have been tremendous in the past 4 years. All of that effort is going to pay off for an AR headset built around the iPadOS app platform, if the rumors are true
Reimplemented the stripes color picker as a collection view, works nicely 👌
Those popovers adapt to my favorite sheet style on iPhone, custom title and close button included 😄
Very easy to add new palettes too — I can copy paste them into the codebase directly from @pastelapp 😄
End of day 2! @takeoneapp is starting to look so good that if I don't ship this at the end of this sprint, I will be so mad at myself. Apart from the major areas I have yet to implement, I think the UI is nearly at a production-ready level — you'd easily mistake it for a shipping app. I maaay do a TestFlight run of this before release, but no promises. I expect pricing to be very similar to Broadcasts and Pastel, so free to try + $5 ish IAP to make more than one board (or something like that)
Instead of struggling with PencilKit for the rest of the day, I went ahead and built a template picker instead. Another item checked off the todo list ✅
One way for me to punt the PencilKit scaling issue down the road a bit is to ship with UIRequiresFullScreen=YES 🤔 It would mean explicitly opting out of splitscreen and Stage Manager resizing for the time being, but that actually might be OK in this case? It's a very fullscreen-centric app, and that changes a release blocker to minor user annoyance. May just be the way to go
Just because the individual windows need fullscreen doesn't mean I can't still do multiwindowing — it actually works quite nicely in Stage Manager
I was out today, so didn't get much work done — but I refactored @takeoneapp’s data model to let me create and save to folders. Part of that involved wiring up the templates store so I can create/edit/delete templates too
Unifying a little bit of the design language with Pastel, I’m going to use the same Reminders-style sidebar on iPad for @takeoneapp. Also injects a splash of color into a very black & white out-of-the-box experience
I don’t have complex development notes for this app, but I am enjoying Freeform as an infinite canvas to dump images onto so I can annotate and do a basic bit of mind mapping. It really makes me yearn for an iPad mini Pro with an M-series chip and ProMotion, though — what a fun desktop companion that would be
It’s always nice that the iPhone version picks up everything I’ve been working on for iPad without me thinking about it. Universal development is my jam
Got some odds and ends done today; worked on keyboard focus, styled the 'new folder' button as per @pastelapp, and do a bit more lazy thumbnail generation. It is looking increasingly likely that I actually finish this app this time, which has me extra motivated to work on it 🤓
Also pretty confident in the post-launch roadmap, too, since I know I'll need to ship iPhone+Mac, iPad splitscreen, and sync, and most of that work has already been done
I'm pretty happy with the two basic screens of @takeoneapp; it looks modern and fresh, without entirely sacrificing the skeuomorphic elements that made the original so pleasant. The splash of color in the clappers and sidebar makes all the difference. I think I have the balance right?
…and here's the current state of all the auxiliary screens and modes. I still have to design editors for the various module types (numbers, date, etc), so I'll work on that this week
Jan@stroughtonsmith @takeoneapp Looks really cool. Wish I had a use case for it 😅
Small remark: the color of New Collection is different from the tintColor.
DΛNIEL TʘMΛN@stroughtonsmith @takeoneapp I think it looks very good! I looked around for free film slate iPad apps a couple years back and I didn’t find anything this nice, definitely.
Julien@stroughtonsmith I love your work on this app! 😍 - Congrats! 👌
Warner Crocker@stroughtonsmith That’s the dream iPad.
ᴿᴵᴷᴿᴵᴾᴾᴱᴿ@stroughtonsmith I don’t know what I would like more than an iPad mini Pro. I’ve been wanting one ever since the mini got updated. It’s so good and could be made incredible with ProMotion and M1.
Dave Robeson@stroughtonsmith Apple doesn’t currently have the ability to take my money fast enough for a Mini Pro. Didn’t expect this thing to be the device I use the most. Poor 2021 iPad Pro sits there, lonely.
Andre Moore@stroughtonsmith I want to love Freeform but something about it just doesn’t work for me quite yet. If they can pull in more of the FigJam tools and ease of use I think I’d use it much more.
Would also love for them to add more easy text formatting tools/UI like they’ve done with Notes over the years. It feels hard to format things.
danny_wonglh@stroughtonsmith +1 for iPad mini Pro
Bicky Bhullar@stroughtonsmith @takeoneapp it is a lovely sidebar 🙂
Albert Kinng@stroughtonsmith @takeoneapp What this app is about? I mean, does it has more features or it’s just literally a digital clapper board? I think is cool!
@Albertkinng @takeoneapp just a casual, no-pro clapperboard
Tyler Stone 
@stroughtonsmith But how does the actual clapping work? How does it lift off the top part of an iPad?
@tylerstone like any other clapperboard app 🤨 It animates
Clarko@stroughtonsmith 100%
I dunno who’s using a windowed clapper
WTL@clarko @stroughtonsmith Agreed; should be full screen.
@clarko a TikToker who has Final Cut or Filmic Pro open at the same time? Somebody doing a screencast or audio recording? Lots of places I want to be, eventually, but I can sacrifice them for now
@stroughtonsmith 100%
I dunno who’s using a windowed clapper
Josh Wold@stroughtonsmith @takeoneapp This looks so cool!
sirshannon@stroughtonsmith I’m still sad from when the last TestFlight version expired.
@sirshannon that was a different app record, too, so old testers will not automatically be invited and will have to sign up again for this one
Pierre@stroughtonsmith @takeoneapp this is fun to follow along :)
Jelly@stroughtonsmith bee movie, except it's a digital clapper board
@stroughtonsmith which font are you using for the digits? I’m using a similar font for https://www.railcontrol.pro, but digit one doesn’t render as nicely as yours 😇
@jncn it was a font once, but they’re PNGs now with some Photoshop effects
@stroughtonsmith Thanks! That's the one I’m using too. Unfortunately it's not monospaced and 1 is not aligned to the right, but smaller and centered.
Your solution to convert it to an image is pretty smart. Will try!
Your solution to convert it to an image is pretty smart. Will try!
@jncn must be because it was all aligned to the unlit lcd segments in the image. Image is your best bet, unless you fancy redrawing in PaintCode or something
@stroughtonsmith Plain image it will be 😅
Trevor Kay@stroughtonsmith Have them sync between Take One and Pastel :P
tarasis@stroughtonsmith looks really nice
Andre Louis@stroughtonsmith would love to know what 'This App' is, but sadly, no alt-text in your images so I can't get excited about it. Mind adding some alt-text for those of us who are optically challenged?
Adam Overholtzer@stroughtonsmith Please make the clapper break out of the NSWindow frame. This will be a good use of your time 😅
@adam I refuse 😂