Pixate was a great UI designing tool from Google that was unfortunately shut down back in 2016. Many developers used to love this tool. While Pixate had flaws, it also had many benefits that made UI designing much easier a few years back. So, in this post, we’ll discuss some amazing features of the now-retired mobile app UI-designing tool, Pixate.
7 Reasons Why Developers Miss Using Pixate
Here are some reasons why developers loved using Pixate:
- For adding icons, views, buttons, or other visual elements to your app’s interface, you can simply drag them into Pixate. Here, every asset will end up becoming a layer. Then, these assets can be added to the assets panel and shared between two or more prototypes to ensure consistency among all prototypes. However, don’t forget to keep your layers in order. There’s no ability to highlight recently added assets. So, for example, if you have 1000 images in the assets panel, selecting a particular picture from this massive collection can be quite daunting.
- The assigning action makes UI designing a lot simpler. With Pixate, you just have to drag and drop actions to the layers. Piece of cake, isn’t it? The actions panel is divided into two categories – the animations and the interactions. You can assign any action an asset. For example, you can assign the double tap or long press action to a certain button and also assign an animation effect to complement the action.
- You can also find JavaScript animations on the actions panel in Pixate. Even though the action panels don’t scale individually, that doesn’t make them any less useful or relevant. Since the panel is connected to interactions, users can only view five actions simultaneously. This makes it much faster for users to find and choose the action they want to include in their app’s UI elements.
- After making new actions, you’ll find them located at the top of your page. But, as soon as you’ll refresh your page, all actions will be arranged in alphabetical order. Hence, now you can assign characters that can arrange your actions in order of priority. Considering that the Pixate app doesn’t allow users to organize actions in groups, it’s a great advantage for UI/UX designers and front-end mobile app developers. Pixate allows you to just add a character and find the action you require in an instant.
- While you might not be able to create groups of actions, you can group layers in Pixate. So, how can you do that? First, you’ll have to determine the parent layer (also known as the container). This layer will hold all the other layers you want in the group. You can simply drag and drop layers in the parent layer or container. Remember that consecutive layers will always inherit the characteristics of the parent later. Hence, ungrouping layers is not as difficult as it might seem. All you have to do is that you just have to drag and drop them between two layers.
- To test interactions, UI designers and testers often share prototypes. On Pixate, you can select the prototype you want to share and tap the share icon. If you want to edit the prototype, go to the share icon on the upper right corner of your screen and create the share link. It’ll be shared with the recipient via email. However, if the recipient doesn’t have the Pixate app installed on their device, they’ll be prompted to download the app from the Google Play Store or Apple App Store. After downloading the Pixate app, they’ll be able to review the prototype and make changes if allowed.
- With Pixate, you can create a list of layers used in your app’s UI. Also, you can delete, highlight, duplicate, and rearrange layers seamlessly. While previewing the prototype, you can see every layer and check whether everything is organized and designed perfectly to ensure a great customer experience.
Pixate was created to take your app’s UI to the next level. Front-end developers and UI/UX designers loved using this tool. However, after Pixate shut down, developers started using other alternatives. Companies want to create attractive and intuitive apps for their customers, investing heavily in a team of developers and testers.
However, suppose you’re a business executive who doesn’t have enough technical expertise or budget and wants to create a feature-packed mobile app for their business with a great front-end design and interface. In that case, you should opt for the best mobile app development company.
Our experts specialize in various UI development platforms. They have many tools at their disposal, which they use to add various exciting features to your apps and meet your design requirements.
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