Trying Out Figma
This week I finally sit down and got my hands dirty in design. I partially explored design systems, sketched some logos, colors, and typography in Figma. Then I tried a slight re-design of my website's home page:
A version of the https://mangoumbrella.com design in Figma.
Figma is really intuitive. When I first saw others' cursors moving in real time, it blew my mind. But for me as a one-person shop, its intuitive interface is the reason I love it. I tried Photoshop, Illustrator, and Sketch. They all failed me. Figma is the first tool I felt home-ish. I still struggle with it, but I do see its potential in my workflow.
I know the design I did today isn't great. It's not even good. It's the worst thing I will probably come up with. And I'm not updating my home page to be exactly what I have designed.
However, the design did improve the website in some areas. And I just incorporated them in the latest build.
Separating code and design does make the product better. I will spend more time on dedicated design sessions.
∞ Flutter 1.9's Support of macOS Catalina and iOS 13
Chris Sells, PM for the Flutter developer experience, announced on Google Developers Blog:
Supporting macOS Catalina and iOS 13
As Apple prepares to release Catalina, the latest version of macOS, we’ve worked hard to make sure that Flutter is ready for you to upgrade. We’ve updated the end-to-end tooling experience to ensure it works well on Catalina and with Xcode 11. This includes adding support for the new Xcode build system, enabling 64-bit support throughout the toolchain, and simplifying platform dependencies.
With iOS 13 on the way, we’ve also been working to ensure your Flutter apps look great on the latest iPhone release. Flutter 1.9 includes an implementation of the iOS 13 draggable toolbar, with both long-press and drag-from-right, and supports vibration feedback. Work on iOS dark mode is also well underway with a number of pull requests already merged.
Finally, in the latest development builds, you can now turn on experimental support for Bitcode, which is Apple’s platform-independent intermediate representation of a compiled program. Submitting your app as Bitcode allows Apple to optimize your binary in the future without resubmission, and opens the door to Flutter potentially supporting platforms like watchOS and tvOS that require Bitcode for app submission.
I have been seriously looking into Flutter lately. And this is the moment I was sold to it. Timely support of latest macOS and iOS versions are critical for my projects.
Every time I used a credit card then immediately received a receipt from Square, I was reminded how all the credit card companies are selling my data.
Every time I realize there is no built-in cgPath method on NSBezierPath, but on UIBezierPath, I am reminded that macOS development has been really a second-class experience. Good thing it's changing since WWDC19.
Catalyst will affect nothing about macOS’s game landscape, since most of the games are built with either Unity or Unreal, and they both have a Catalyst-like check box called ☑macOS.
∞ The Volkswagen Beetle Says Auf Wiedersehen
RIP Volkswagen Beetle. Does that increase their resell values? Asking for a friend.
I’m still not sure how I feel about the FaceTime Attention Correction in iOS 13. Is it creepy? Probably not. But how far it can go until it’s creepy? Not too much.
Accessibility is for Everyone
In this episode of @ParallelPods, @shelly interviewed Sarah Herrlinger of Apple. It’s all great, but this clip in particular reminds me how accessibility is for *everyone*. https://t.co/zi4dqYhWtEhttps://t.co/tEVgtU6ARe pic.twitter.com/rie01d8eJQ
— Casey Liss (@caseyliss) June 12, 2019
Exactly the reaction I had when hearing the iPadOS mouse support feature could be turned on in Accessibility. It’s for everyone, so everyone can turn on.
This also infers that the desire to use a mouse on iPadOS is just like any other need like to use Voice Control. It can't be more normal.
Those who skipped adopting storyboards and autolayout for whatever reason, well you no longer have to look back.
One thing will inevitably happen: CoreData DSL in Swift.