This was also the first thing I thought. Sketch is a well-known (artistic) design tool. I'm sure you fellas already know that but decided to stick with it anyway. In reality, it really doesn't associate with your product all that well, definitely not when compared with the photoshop-Sketch and what it's for.
Agreed. Honestly, when I first saw it I got excited because I thought it converted Sketch files to RN files (what it is is pretty cool but the name totally threw me for a loop)
Not to mention the numerous results from Google SketchUp and Autodesk SketchBook that popup when you're searching for "sketch <help-me-with-something>"
I'm a designer at Twitter and our design team has been using Sketch for UI design for the last few years. I believe the same situation occurs at FB and many other design teams unless doing very particular photo work or iconography/illustration.
I think between Sketch and Create-React-Native-App, you guys are solving the single biggest problem in React Native right now: getting started. The relatively complex environment setup really discourages newcomers. Once they try it in the browser first, they're sure to love it :) After that, Create-React-Native-App makes setting up a breeze.
I plan on using both of these things in my React Native classes, since they're going to save a lot of time and effort!
Sketch, create-react-native-app and React Native Express are a great combo I think ;)
(for people who aren't aware of it, React Native Express is a fantastic site for getting your bearings with React Native: http://www.reactnativeexpress.com/)
I really don't understand how this product can be called Sketch in good conscience. Sketch is already a disruptive gorgeous product that has changed ux and digital design. It should be respected and given room to breathe. Change the name of your product.
Agree 100%. All the names out there, and you chose the one of the industry standard for UI/UX design. For the uninformed, this would be like naming Expo Sketch "Photoshop" (at least in spirit) 5 years ago.
That argument might make sense if the announcement were titled "Expo Sketch: a Playground for React Native". The name they're going with here is clearly "Sketch" not "Expo Sketch"
Another vote for prioritizing a name change. Why create continual confusion and awkwardness for the thousands of people who will want to use your product alongside Sketch the design app? (That's me saying this is an awesomely useful project, BTW.)
I'm just imagining describing the Sketch/Sketch workflow to a non-technical manager... ;)
How about calling it "Expo Studio" or "Expo Easel", which have similar connotations?
Thanks, naming/branding is a bit of a hobby of mine.
One thing about the name, however, that for me now rules it out as a recommendation, is that the two words are not articulated by a consonant; the ending vowel of "Expo" blends into the beginning of "Easel".
An unfortunate pairing, at least to my ear, that when spoken quickly sounds like "Expo Weasel" :)
Both tools are even solidly in the same niche (web design/development)... Sorry but no. No one wants to have to say "Sketch (the design tool)" and "Sketch (the RN tool)" every single time either one comes up.
I came here to say this also. As a dev & designer, sketch is a technical term like all the other technologies you refer to. I'm having global name space conflict issues as I attempt to pass your sales copy. I'd suggest you quickly change this, as currently a poor naming choice is overriding your others good work. Might give you a chance to hit the front page again too.
Changing the name now will be quite a bit easier than later, plus the discussions around the product won't be centered around how it's using an already well known name.
EDIT: "but if it turns out to be a problem, we'll figure something out." It really seems to be that it is currently a problem unless your definition of a problem isn't public reception but instead a C&D.
To answer this I suspect you need to know a bit about Stewart Butterfield, who founded Slack.
A very very long time ago, SB created a social game called GNE (Game Neverending). The game (and it's participants, of whom I was one) were somewhat whimsical.
I'm aware of the Church of the Subgenius, but I think anyone who was aware of Bob's teachings would probably already be aware of Slackware, the Linux distro commonly referred to as Slack, which popularised the same.
That's a different discussion and type of argument than the author of the reply means to introduce here. It is not a naming conflict because of another product that is too well known to use its name (for both legal and other reasons).
On your slack comment: I do understand it. Chatting is traditionally seen as not working. I'm thinking IRC times when I was young(er). Mostly social, not so much project related. It is more seen as the coffee break but online. The fact that both are often used to discuss business matter does not alter this. For me, Slack is well chosen, even though I use it mainly for work related communication nowadays.
For anyone who does not understand why it always shows a QR code and a "Download from app store" buttons, there is a close button on top right corner to close that modal.
Not sure it was a great idea to always show that modal, it took me a while to figure out that I can close it, I thought it's an ios app...
I totally disagree with the previous commenter. The real wow with your app comes from installing it, and the barrier is fairly low. Granted it crashed somewhere in the setup between installing expo and sketch, but wow the real time updates on the phone are pretty mind blowing. I say stick with it and don't listen to everything everybody says =).
I'm not against using QR codes. I just didn't realize that I could close the modal window, and thought that I had to jump through hoops to try out Sketch.
Given the amount of crap that can be found on the internet, I have a very low threshold for losing interest.
A better approach would have been to remind me later than I can scan a QR code to access the page on my mobile device.
The thing is that you need the Expo app on your phone to even try it out. Just closing the modal will show you the code but nothing else unless you installed the app and scanned the QR code.
I understand your point though. I suppose they can improve it.
1. People want to preview the app once they have something to preview. That would probably be a more appropriate time to remind them they can see it on their phones.
2. QR codes are scary (at least for most in the American market; other countries could be different). Instead of a QR code, show a random string the user has to input. We are all used to inputting random numbers/string when doing 2-factor.
1. The point of this is it happens in real time. It starts setup with an actual working demo. Connecting it to your phone first shows that real time update
2. This is an app for developers. Developers are not scared of QR codes.
Here's a fun example of a pretty common UI pattern -- the header transitions into another as you scroll, and the hero image scales / fades depending on scroll position too: https://sketch.expo.io/SyVvB3Hjx -- it uses React Native's native animated driver with ScrollViews :)
I will grant you the initial QR code bit was a tad confusing (might be fixed with messaging), but when I made my first change and saw it reflected immediately on my phone I was instantly floored. This is really incredible guys keep it up!
I imagine an integration with Appetize[1] would be very useful, as well as an opening for a possible revenue stream. Being able to build an RN app and then run it right in the browser removes another barrier for sharing RN code easily.
That's how the original React Native Playground from the same people (Expo) worked. Google react native playground and go try it today. It's slow with appetize. But if they are still using it for sharing links to ur creation, they are still using it and have found the perfect use case: linked demos. But it would never be fast enough for updates as u type.
Yesterday, I played around with CRNA (and it was amazing). This is even more useful. You can get started here, do quick prototype, and as things start to get more complicated, move to CRNA project. Do rest of the stuff in CRNA, and when CRNA cannot handle it, do an eject!
Expo is awesome and Sketch looks like the best way to get started. Great work!
In my opinion Expo and GraphQL is a power combo and it so happens that we just released a new cli to generate hosted GraphQL apis (also on the frontpage) so that would be a really easy way to get started.
My team usually checks out each other's branch and runs the mobile app in simulator during code review. I see this tool being incredible addition to dev teams if instead of checking out a dev's branch and running the app on reviewer's simulator, the reviewer could just play with it using expo. Is this a use case you are considering?
Ah, so you have an app that links to the "fiddle" and downloads the RN JS bundle and runs it for you, instead of an emulator. Nice!
I'm still trying to figure out whether it is possible to run RN directly in the browser using an interpreter instead of an emulator, along with something like emscripten (might have to run an emscripten-compiled JVM, too haha). Sounds really tricky, for one thing, any Android or iOS SDK calls would need intercepted and re-written for the browser, much like what WINE does.
There's this project: https://github.com/necolas/react-native-web that's similar to what you're describing. The downside is that you don't have access to any of the native APIs. Since we have an actually app we're able to support contacts, camera views, geolocation, etc.
I've written a little game in React Native, and I was really surprised when react-native-web just worked almost out of the box. If you don't have many native libraries, then it's really easy to write an app that works in a browser.
We just deployed a change to make the modal overlay more transparent. Hopefully this will make it more obvious that there's an editor underneath the modal.
We thought it was such a different product that people wouldn't be confused at all. But if it turns out to be a problem, we'll figure something out. Thanks for the feedback!
It sounds like you're turning a deaf ear to the fact that it is a problem. Both apps are used for designing applications (even though the functionality and what kind of design is different). I wouldn't be surprised if your mentors at YC have already advised you to change the name. And more people in this thread have commented on the name issue more than your product itself. "If it turns out to be a problem"- It's a problem alright.
One suggestion, I didn't notice the first time I visited the page that the modal window prompting to open the app was a modal, I thought that it required an app download. It didn't even occur to me to click somewhere else on the page and so I just closed the tab. It wasn't until I read the article that I realized you could use it on a desktop.
Or remove it entirely... You don't need to "scan" anything to "get started". So it's not even an accurate piece of guidance for the user. Or am I missing something?
Well you either need to scan or click the "Preview" button to open up Appetize. We thought it'd be good to push people towards the mobile apps since they have better performance.
Small suggestion: it would be awesome if the sketch homepage listed examples and had a quick screenshot or two. most people go to react.rocks and it looks like crap. https://react.rocks/tag/ReactNative
I totally understand why you need a "download the app before viewing" flow, but that requirement is now such a pervasive and hostile UX pattern for growth marketers that I bet many new visitors will just bounce before even clicking through.
Maybe you can show the live preview sidebar by default and also have a button that says "See live on your device" which prompts for download+QR
Right now the "Scan with Expo" landing page doesn't even make it clear there is code behind there! :)
ps: the openGL demo is crashing via Appetize for me within nothing in the logs
Those are all really good points. We wanted to push people to download the apps because the performance is so much better than Appetize, but maybe that's not the right tradeoff.
Thanks for letting me know the OpenGL demo is crashing, I'll take a look at that.
edit: It looks like we have a bug with our iOS simulator build. We'll update that but for now Android Appetize works.
Hey, so I tried it out and wanted to see how well it functions as a "stand alone" app - I closed the expo browser tab and loaded the demo from the Expo menu, but it wasn't loading. Does the browser window need to be open by design, or is it a bug?
Also, is there a way for general expo apps to get their own launcher (on Android at least)?
The browser communicates with the device via PubNub to send the code. So it needs to be open when previewing the app. But being able to view it on the phone without the browser is useful. Thanks for the feedback.
I just downloaded the iOS client, scanned the QR code on my computer, and the client briefly flashed up what I think matched the sketch's code, then took me to a camera screen displaying 'open up sketch.expo.io and scan the QR code to get started!'
The problem was that my computer was on a corporate Wifi that wasn't allowing pubnub to work. Perhaps a more helpful error message is worth considering? Anyway, thanks for creating this tool, will enjoy checking it out.
I have been using Exponent (Expo) on a side project for 5 months and love it.
Can I ask what editor this is built on? I've been considering for another project having a "live editor" for writing extensions, and this is the best ES6 + linter I've seen!
This is history! Being able to write native apps from anywhere, from chromebooks, from any random computer, and shareable, etc.! This is extremely great!
So now if something like this gets integrated into the OS and gets deeplink support and some OS-wide back button on the desktop [0] I think we actually may be one step closer to interlinked, insta-updateabble, native apps!
Maybe we'll someday see the browser dethroned after all...
Those examples are using this library: https://github.com/necolas/react-native-web. It's really fast but the downside is that you can't use any native APIs, so things like gyroscope and push notifications won't work. Since we have an actual app we're able to support all those APIs.
So, when you came up with the name, did you look in the mobile space to see if, maybe, there was another popular tool with the same name that might be confusing?
Not the way Expo, Microsoft Code Push, and myriad other tools work that have been doing it for years now. In short, updating the js is not against the tos. No new native code is updated over the wire.
