A lot of people have great ideas in mind, but visualizing such opportune designs involves a lot of guess work, sketching, wire framing, and a bit of code. Imagine if you had an application that could not only help you mockup your next application, but provide you with the ability to export your product into native SDK Objective-C source code? Dapp for the iPhone allows developers to do just that.
Dapp allows developers to easily create multiple pages of application designs via multiple projects, the ability to add objects, and manually build their application via a drag and tap of the finger. It’s quite powerful, and I decided to whip up what a MacStories application might look like.
Given so much control over a variety of SDK objects, it only took me about fifteen minutes of designing until I what wanted. Being close enough, I only included three objects for the first page simply for demonstration.
When you create a project, you’re asked to provide a project name and owner information. Of course I can’t take the credit for Federico’s masterpiece, though a sidekick can dream right?
As you edit an object, you can through various settings (including position and size) so that everything is perfect. While I didn’t bother to change the object names, I did carefully select ‘decent’ settings for a rather basic design. I think it came out well.
In the view mode you see here, you can get an idea of what your application will look like in that particular view. You can see some items in the tab bar aren’t associated with particular custom items, which can later be defined in code. Double tapping an objecting or on the ‘view board’ will let you edit or add objects. In terms of editing, you can position objects however you wish; good alignment is indicated by a green panel. However, there really isn’t any snapping or alignment bars, and I’d like to see those features implemented so developers can quickly lock their objects into place.
Dapp is a seriously powerful application which makes editing rather simple. With various export options that allow you to share designs with clients or prepare it for code, Dapp should be an essential part of every developer’s toolkit. Make sure to visit Dapp’s homepage to learn more on how to use this application, and be sure to check it out in the iTunes App Store for a complete list of features. For only $9.99, that’s a relatively minor cost once you’ve published your app and start raking in the dough.
