New gallery view
Often when browsing through the pattern database for a suitable pattern for my next project, I just want to have a closer look at the photos to decide if it has the look I'm after. Clicking into each pattern to go through some photos and read some details is fine, but sometimes I just want a more visual browsing experience.
To make this happen, we've introduced a new type of viewing experience in the pattern database: the gallery view!
To make this happen, we've introduced a new type of viewing experience in the pattern database: the gallery view!
The gallery view allows you to browse patterns with large images you can swipe/click through. The cards are quite minimal, with the main focus on the images - which is quite helpful if you're looking for something specific. To see more details, use the default detail view - this includes more info like star rating, if it's free/new/unavailable, what type of pattern it is, etc.
What's next?
For a while now, we've been looking to improve or switch our rich text editor. A rich text editor is any text field on the platform where you can format text (bold, italic, bullet list, etc) and embed images or videos, like comments in the discussion. Ideally you won't notice much of a difference, except for some usability improvements (like pasting a URL turns it into a clickable link, more ease moving photos around, etc). We're currently working on this, so you might see some small changes to how the rich text fields look and work once we decide exactly what we're going with. With this change - we might be able to offer direct messaging (!) as well. More on this soon.
Additionally, we're also exploring the feasibility of native apps. In other words: being in app stores. Threadloop is a web app (PWA), which means it is browser based and works on any device. This is super convenient for us in terms of development - we can get new features out to your in seconds, and we don't have to build and maintain multiple apps, which would be quite hard for us as a team of two. However, a lot of people are not familiar with the concept of web apps, and go looking for us in the app store, which is understandable. But this means we lose a lot of users to.. confusion.
So we are currently doing some practical research into what it would take for us to be available in app stores (first off: iOS) as well as in the browser (we won't change this). We don't want to compromise on the speed of development and user experience, so we're trying to figure out if we can do this in the most lean way possible, as to not put a big maintenance burden on our small team. Initial testing looks promising, but some more time will show if this is something we want to do. We'll go into more detail on this as we progress, but for now we just wanted to give you a little insight into what's going on behind the scenes.
Additionally, we're also exploring the feasibility of native apps. In other words: being in app stores. Threadloop is a web app (PWA), which means it is browser based and works on any device. This is super convenient for us in terms of development - we can get new features out to your in seconds, and we don't have to build and maintain multiple apps, which would be quite hard for us as a team of two. However, a lot of people are not familiar with the concept of web apps, and go looking for us in the app store, which is understandable. But this means we lose a lot of users to.. confusion.
So we are currently doing some practical research into what it would take for us to be available in app stores (first off: iOS) as well as in the browser (we won't change this). We don't want to compromise on the speed of development and user experience, so we're trying to figure out if we can do this in the most lean way possible, as to not put a big maintenance burden on our small team. Initial testing looks promising, but some more time will show if this is something we want to do. We'll go into more detail on this as we progress, but for now we just wanted to give you a little insight into what's going on behind the scenes.