Geert's dashboard

I have lost a mockup I was working on too, although if I remember correctly, the "save and close" looked liked it work fine and I only noticed the save had failed because myBalsamiq loaded the project's mockups (instead of showing the saved mockup) and the mockup I was creating was not there. I now tend to export the mockup on a regular basis in case the save fails. The export and import are great and fast, I'd be happy if myBalsamiq did a regular auto export :)

Fully agree!

I'm with Cristian here as I too was very confused with the whole "contacts" which are not contacts at all really.

The only problem I find with a Powerpoint "master slide" or Visio "background page" type of solution, is that it is only a visual background and doesn't have working links. In Charles' example the "Search" or Logout" links will not work when used as a background. I don't know what the best solution is but it would be great if those links would work on all pages using that background.

I would actually prefer if Balsamiq sticks to trying to be the best mock-up tool on earth and only that. I do realise that if you look at Balsamiq as a general drawing tool like Visio or Omnigraffle that there are other possibilities but I am concerned that by doing that the tool will lose its focus. I am actually mainly interested in Balsamiq "because" of its mock-up only focus.

ps. if you want a flow chart tool have a look at http://www.lovelycharts.com which is a Flex application too. I reckon if Balsamiq need an additional programmer they should have a chat with the Belgian dude Jerome who is behind lovely charts :)

Yes, I did indeed add you to my "contacts" to ask you a bit more info off-line, but then I couldn't figure out how to send you an message via Get Satisfaction (maybe I have missed something?) ... which leaves me a bit baffled why they are called "Contacts" if you can't contact your contacts?

Anyway, back to the subject, I am unable to use (install) Axure RP at the customer site when I don't have admin rights on their computers - which is the case at most customers. Axure RP's "windows only" version doesn't sit well with me either and it also seems to me that is is a bit overloaded with features.

I mainly use Visio because it is installed at almost all customers and with the sketchy Visio shapes (combined work of Niklas Wolkert/Henrik Olsen/Jonathan Abbett) Visio actually serves me reasonably well.

Why am I considering Balsamiq then? Well (besides the fact that Visio is a windows only tool too) it is a general drawing tool and doesn't seem to cope very well for mock-ups/wireframes for a decent size software application. Visio does crash fairly frequently and besides the regular save, I now also need to backup the visio file as a crash has even corrupted my entire file.

The whole 'web 2.0" has made it very complex to mock-up an apps UI to give the users a good idea of what the system will be able to provide them. The main reason I seem to end up with so many screens (as I mentioned I have 70+ now) is not necessarily because there are so many completely different screens, but because I want to show different states within the same screen. They are often just changes in one "pane" but to depict that I have to duplicate the screen and change only parts of it. I don't necessarily mind duplicating as long as the tool would make it easier to manage a large number of mock-ups (grouping or something?) and this is where Visio lets me down too. In my view ideally a screen mock-up tool should have a knowledge about a screen and panes within a screen ... without losing the balance of features and complexity though. – Geert, on June 30, 2009 22:55

I also use Calibri on windows (see http://www.abbett.org/2008/05/27/upda...) and Consolas for form elements. Works very well and is much better than Comic Sans.

Thanks Peldi, I will most certainly check back in a couple of months then!

I also have Axure RP (current customer wanted Visio) and it is a great tool too, but I liked the simplicity and sketchy look of Balsamiq. One of the other reasons I am looking at Balsamiq to replace Visio/Axure RP is its platform independence ... and Axure RP is also Windows only - VMWare Fusion does get me around this but it's not ideal.

Anyway, I like what you have created so far!