March 8th, 2013· All versions: fixed issues with selecting Arrow controls when zoomed and when inside groups.
· All versions: fixed alt+drag on Arrow controls. Thank you Justin Hernandez for reporting it!
· All versions: fixed text and icon alignment in geometric shape controls.
· All versions: fixed Kerning pair for periods and commas in these pairs: P. T. F. Y. P, T, F, Y,. Thank you Benjamin Wan for reporting it!
· Mockups for Desktop: fixed an issue with creating a new blank mockup with the UI Library showing the Project Assets tab.
· myBalsamiq: fixed an issue with pressing the CMD keys on OSX triggering a zoom operation (fixed a few days ago).
· myBalsamiq: fixed timeout issues when saving or exporting large projects to PDF (fixed a few days ago).
· myBalsamiq: fixed a problem with staff members cloning projects (fixed a few days ago).
· Mockups for Google Drive: fixed an issue with pressing the CMD keys on OSX triggering a zoom operation (fixed a few days ago).
· Mockups for Google Drive: "Save as new mockup" now properly saves the new mockup in the same folder as the original mockup.
· Mockups for Google Drive: Selecting images from the image pulldown now works properly.
· Mockups for Confluence: the configuration page had the "is about to expire" and "has expired" messages backwards. Fixed.
· Mockups for JIRA: fixed an error when saving empty mockups.
January 21st, 2013· We changed the code that draws our custom mouse cursor to a more modern flash API. The result was not only a MUCH more responsive mouse (it no longer lags behind), but also a big performance improvement of the application overall. Try it out, it should feel noticeably snappier, especially in the in-browser versions.
· You can now link to URLs! As pre-announced in December, you can now specify Web Addresses (URLs) - http://, https:// and even mailto: - as link targets in all controls that support linking. Here's how it works. There's a new "Web Address..." menu item in the Link property inspector. Notice that we gave web URLs a different icon so that you can spot them easily.
· We switched to a more modern text rendering engine (Adobe TLF), which finally allows us to support font kerning in our Balsamiq Sans font. If you're someone who knows and cares about kerning, the difference is staggering. If you don't, just know that your eyes will thank you after a while.
· We now have automatic fallback for glyphs that are not included in the font. You'll no longer need to turn on "Use System Fonts"
· We added EXTREMELY LIMITED RTL (Right-To-Left) text support. As we said in the pre-release announcement last month, we're pretty ignorant when it comes to right-to-left support in software. We have received a long list of TODO items from some of you (thank you!), and we'll attack them slowly but surely. In the meantime, this release goes from "RTL characters don't even show up" to "I can type RTL characters and see them". Not exactly "full support" by a long shot, but a step in the right direction, right? :)
· Editing text (adding or removing lines of text or even reshuffling them) will now maintain the correct selection and links! Thank you László, Jeron, Andy, John E. (via Email), Roman Florian for reporting this annoying bug which we've wanted to fix for a long time.
· Added support for ~this notation~ for strikethrough text, in all controls.
· Added support for {size:40}this notation{size} for setting the absolute size of part of your text, in all controls. {size:+2}relative size{size} will come in the future (it's a lot harder than you'd think!). Thank you Jenni and Win7Guru for the requests.
· Added multi-line support via \r to the following control types: Alert box, Arrow, Breadcrumbs, Button Bar, Callout, Checkbox, Checkboxgroup, Field Set, Geometric Shape, Icon and label, Image, Link, Linkbar, Multiline Button, Pointy Button, Radio Button, Radio Button Group, Search Box, Subtitle and Title.
· Made some performance improvements when UI Library is visible - and we have further improvements planned for the next release.
· Fixed a bug with the "treat as markup" right-click menu not working for small controls. Thank you Anders for reporting it!
· Fixed the "property inspector becomes huge if controls have long text lines" bug. Thank you Joe for reporting it!
· Fixed the "couldn't drag controls in the top 20 pixels of the canvas" bug.
· We fixed literally hundreds of little visual bugs in how the controls draw themselves at different sizes: the skins have never looked so good.
· The menu control now supports using the checkbox or radio button, the label and the keyboard shortcut, all in the same line. Thank you Stu (via email).
· We fixed the graph paper background when zoomed in or out. Thank you Shannon (via email).
· We now deal with corrupted bmmls more gracefully.
· The image inspector pulldown now correctly shows which image is selected.
· Removed a bug which looked like an easter egg. Thank you Andrew Rowe and Patrik Boström for reporting it.
· All versions that support Symbols: you now can see which symbol library a control comes from when hovering over it in the UI library and when selecting it (in the property inspector title).
· All versions that support linking: we now show a "broken link" icon for files that are no longer found. Thanks Erik, robin and Matty Sallin for requesting it.
· Bumped app requirement from Adobe Air 2.5 to 2.6 (which still runs on linux don't worry).
· Added links to Local Store and Documents folders in the About box. Handy for debugging!
· Fixed support for AltGr+S and other keys in some keyboard layouts. Thank you gk.klimek , sergeySafonov, Tomasz and Andi for reporting it.
· Fixed several file name encoding issues on Windows.
January 21st, 2013A new editor look and feel:
· As a programmer, I have always cared more about making my software SOLID rather than having it look pretty. When I was back at Adobe, my friend and colleague Nigel Pegg would spend hours tweaking the speed of an animation tween and working with our designer Tim Allen to make sure that everything looked beautiful and pixel-perfect. The three of us made a great team.
· When I started Balsamiq, I was on my own. I did my best to make the Mockups skin look OK, but I clearly never made the look and feel a top-priority. Just like a wireframe, I wanted to make sure the app worked well before spending time and money making it pretty.
· It's been four years now, and it's time for Mockups itself to grow up. We have a world-class graphic designer on our team, and it's time we start using his skills to the fullest. Mike started by redesigning myBalsamiq while still in beta, and now we're taking his gorgeous, minimalistic design sensibility to Mockups itself, and it feels great. In fact, it's making me appreciate how important graphic design is, even early on. We live and learn...
· Our goal with the new look and feel was to make something that is beautiful, professional, incredibly intuitive, all the while staying out of your way as much as possible.
· Since we run on Windows, Mac, Linux and the Web, we needed a look that didn't try to mimic the native look and feel of the controls, but also one that didn't scream "Look at me, I'm a Flash application!"
· We think Mike did an amazing job with this new look, it's truly gorgeous and does its job extremely well.
· It makes working in Mockups for hours and hours an even smoother and fun experience.
An additional skin for your wireframes:
· The fact that wireframes created with Mockups look hand drawn has been one of our best ideas yet. It makes it obvious to everyone that the design is NOT final, and encourages people to give honest feedback, which is what it's all about. It also has an instantly-recognizeable, playful character that makes everyone who uses Mockups a little happier at their job every day.
· We love our sketch-like skin and are very proud of it, but over the years we've heard from many of you that it doesn't fit every situation.
· The first person to raise the issue was famous British designer Andy Budd, back in 2009! In his My First Impressions of Balsamiq article, he argues that our skin had TOO MUCH character, it distracted stakeholders from looking at the structure of the wireframe. I think his criticism came mostly because we used Comic Sans as a font back then (we've since switched to our own, hypoallergenic font), but his point was valid, the playful look and feel didn't fit all situations.
· Over the years, as Mockups became mainstream, we have heard the same argument from many of you: you love Mockups and want to use it on every project, but sometimes its playful character didn't help, your awesome wireframes weren't being taken seriously by your boss / your graphic designer / your client.
· We even heard from someone who did all the thinking in Mockups, but then had to painfully re-create each of their wireframes in a different tool just to present them to their clients. Ouch.
· The Sketch skin is the one you know and love, only cleaned up a little bit. It is still the default and what we recommend people use most of the time.
· Our goals with it were to make a skin that still conveyed "this is not final" while also disappearing in the background as much as possible, the goal was for it to be "totally vanilla".
· After experimenting a while with some product design skin in the style of sketch-a-day, we landed on a clean, straight-lines look that we feel is timeless because of its simplicity.
· Switching from a skin to the other should be totally painless, most things won't move around at all. We think most of you will do all the thinking in the Sketch skin, and only switch to the Wireframe skin when it's time to present your work, when you're trying to "sell" your designs to other stakeholders.
A personal note from Peldi:
· On a personal level, these two feature were a bit painful for me to work on, which partly explains why I postponed them for so long. Let me explain.
· My fear was that a cleaner look and feel and a cleaner skin would make Mockups lose too much of the character that has made it so successful. I didn't want it to look like "just another pro design tool", boring in its similarity with all the others.
· Well, I have been using Mockups 2.2 for weeks now, and I gotta say, I can't go back. The new look and feel of the app doesn't feel boring, it just feels RIGHT. Whenever I have to use 2.1 to debug a customer's issue, my eyes hurt and I can't believe we've been so successful with such an ugly app.
· The new wireframe skin is actually REALLY FUN TO USE, darn it! :) It totally grew on me. My wife Mariah drew all the controls of the original sketch skin, so falling in love with a skin that she didn't draw feels a bit like I'm cheating on her! You understand my internal conflicts here, right?!?!?
· Another thought about these two features: I built and launched Mockups in 2008 as a programmer who had developed a passion for UX, but was totally self-taught and didn't really know anyone in the IA / UX industry. We can safely say that Mockups has come out of left field in the UX industry, mostly introduced by developers and product managers.
· We have never marketed Mockups directly to UX professionals, because in some way we didn't feel that it was good enough for them. With the 2.2 release, four years after the original launch, I think we are ready to start changing that perception. We know lots of UXers who already rely on Mockups, and we think that today's release elevates Mockups to become a first-class citizen in the UX professional toolbox.
· We hope those who considered Mockups a toy will give it a second look now, it has really come a long way since we first started, Comic Sans and all...
A new Site Map control:
· While we were at it, Paolo threw in a new, highly requested control type: the Site Map!
· It's super-easy to use and helps you make site maps in a snap.
· Each page is linkable, easy peasy. Try it out.
What else is new:
· All versions: changed the size of the background grid to match our 10px - 20px shift+nudging dimensions.
· All versions: reduced the bottom padding of the sticky note control so that you can make smaller stickies.
· Mockups for Desktop: fixed the "Copy to Clipboard doesn't copy transparent PNGs when transparentBackground is true." bug. Thank you Nathaniel Boehm for reporting it!
· All versions: fixed a long-standing issue with links being offset while full-screen presentation mode. Thank you Peter Baker for reporting it and sorry it took us so long to fix it!
· All versions: we now hide the property inspector while panning with space+drag.
· All versions: when ungrouping the z-Order of the ungrouped control was wrong in some cases.
· All versions: Fixed Tab bar control spacing when right-aligned
· Mockups for Desktop: fixed more erroneous "the file is read only" errors.
· Mockups for Desktop: the DMG file on the downloads page no longer gives the Gatekeeper error on OS X Mountain Lion. This was crazy hard to do, thanks Marco and Paolo for figuring it out.
· Mockups for Desktop: we now use the native menus in Linux. Thank you Jonta for spurring the change.
· myBalsamiq: if you use "Use System Fonts" in your mockups, the generated mockup images will now properly show your text.
· myBalsamiq: fixed an issue with using images in symbols.
· myBalsamiq: improved handling of JPEG assets. Thank you Sophie G. for reporting it.
· myBalsamiq: fixed caching for mockup images and implemented an improved caching strategy.
· myBalsamiq: fixed an issue with the editor displaying real-time notifications for other projects in the same site. Thank you Bartosz J. for reporting it!
· myBalsamiq: fixed an issue with using quotes in staffer's names.
· Mockups for FogBugz: revamped the UI and fixed some bugs.
· ...and lots and lots more, either behind the scenes or to small to mention
September 14th, 2012· A new editor look and feel
· An additional skin for your wireframes
· A new Site Map control
· All versions: changed the size of the background grid to match our 10px - 20px shift+nudging dimensions.
· All versions: reduced the bottom padding of the sticky note control so that you can make smaller stickies.
· Mockups for Desktop: fixed the "Copy to Clipboard doesn't copy transparent PNGs when transparentBackground is true." bug. Thank you Nathaniel Boehm for reporting it!
· All versions: fixed a long-standing issue with links being offset while full-screen presentation mode. Thank you Peter Baker for reporting it and sorry it took us so long to fix it!
· All versions: we now hide the property inspector while panning with space+drag.
· All versions: when ungrouping the z-Order of the ungrouped control was wrong in some cases.
· All versions: Fixed Tab bar control spacing when right-aligned
· Mockups for Desktop: fixed more erroneous "the file is read only" errors.
· Mockups for Desktop: the DMG file on the downloads page no longer gives the Gatekeeper error on OS X Mountain Lion. This was crazy hard to do, thanks Marco and Paolo for figuring it out.
· Mockups for Desktop: we now use the native menus in Linux. Thank you Jonta for spurring the change.
· myBalsamiq: if you use "Use System Fonts" in your mockups, the generated mockup images will now properly show your text.
· myBalsamiq: fixed an issue with using images in symbols.
· myBalsamiq: improved handling of JPEG assets. Thank you Sophie G. for reporting it.
· myBalsamiq: fixed caching for mockup images and implemented an improved caching strategy.
· myBalsamiq: fixed an issue with the editor displaying real-time notifications for other projects in the same site. Thank you Bartosz J. for reporting it!
· myBalsamiq: fixed an issue with using quotes in staffer's names.
· Mockups for FogBugz: revamped the UI and fixed some bugs.
· ...and lots and lots more, either behind the scenes or to small to mention
February 4th, 2011· All versions: a great little QuickAdd improvements, courtesy of Eric and Matt McNamara: hitting ENTER when there's no text (and no list) and one editable control selected on the canvas will send focus to the canvas and start editing. Hitting F2 when there's one editable control selected (even if the list is up) will send focus to the canvas and start editing. It's hard to explain but super-handy to use, try it!
· All versions: fixed a bad bug with going fullscreen when you had something selected and the Property Inspector docked. Thanks so much Kenny Saunders, Jon Boardman and Tom Zeppenfeldt for reporting it!
· All versions: fixed issue with changing font size to ComboBox. Thanks so much Eduardo Vila for reporting the bug!
· All versions: we now fix some corrupted BMMLs on load (an older version of Mockups had a bug which created controls with enormous x and y coordinates. We now handle these files properly). This would have taken care of JayneHilditch's files.
· All versions: Added "/" and "+" to the Quick Add tooltip, a @maxkir idea (via Twitter).
· Mockups for Desktop: fixed link position in PDF export. Thanks Ben Norris for reporting it!
· Mockups for Confluence: we made some improvements with how we deal with version numbers. This should make Florian Guttmann happy! :)
· Mockups for FogBugz: Do not cache bmml and pngs from the server. Thanks Reuben S. for reporting this problem (via email).
January 12th, 2011· All versions: fixed a bad bug when using Checkbox Group and Radio Button Group controls without specifying any text next to each checkbox. Thanks to Paul Campbell for reporting this via email.
· All versions: improved UI Library performance, which makes the whole app feel snappier, especially when switching from one Mockup to another. Try it!
· Mockups for Confluence: added the ability to disable the plugin without uninstalling it. This helps our friends at Atlassian and their JIRA Studio customers.
· Mockups for JIRA: same as above, you can now disable the plugin by using a special key.
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