Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 11th Feb 2008 22:41 UTC
KDE "Free/Open Source software has grown considerably from its roots in the UNIX tradition of the command line interface and early X Windows-based graphical environments. As desktop use has increased concurrently with advances in desktop development, serious user interface and experience issues have arisen. Celeste Lyn Paul of User Centered Design, Inc. and the KDE Project presented, 'A Quick and Dirty Intro to User Centered Design in Open Source Development', Saturday at SCaLE 6X. Her talk emphasized the importance of including designers in the development process."
Order by: Score:
OSS Acture alternative
by OpenGuy (4.5) on Tue 12th Feb 2008 01:26 UTC
OpenGuy
Member since:
2007-08-20
Fans: 0

"LW: Your own design stack, is it all Open Source or a mix?

CLP: For my work laptop, I run KDE. Image manipulation is a large part of my work, and there is GIMP and Krita for that. However, the one thing I just can't live without is Acture, a specialized interaction design tool. It's pretty new, but it's a .Net 3 application, and there isn't full .NET 3 support yet for Linux."

OK people. Can someone step up and help her out? Either a Qt or GTK app she can use; preferable Qt since she's primarily KDE user. I know nothing about this area of software, but am one of the hordes of folks who doesn't want .Net stuff on Linux. I'll put my money where my mouth is if someone is interested.

RE: OSS Acture alternative
by camo (1.68) on Tue 12th Feb 2008 03:18 UTC in reply to "OSS Acture alternative"
camo Member since:
2007-10-08
Fans: 1

the one thing I just can't live without is Acture, a specialized interaction design tool.


Never heard of it, anyone got a link?

Edited 2008-02-12 03:20 UTC

RE[2]: OSS Acture alternative
by leos (5.2) on Tue 12th Feb 2008 03:49 UTC in reply to "RE: OSS Acture alternative"
leos Member since:
2005-09-21
Fans: 5

Yeah I did a quick search and couldn't find anything about this program. Maybe it was misspelled.

RE: OSS Acture alternative
by tyrione (1) on Tue 12th Feb 2008 09:58 UTC in reply to "OSS Acture alternative"
tyrione Member since:
2005-11-21
Fans: 2

"LW: Your own design stack, is it all Open Source or a mix?

CLP: For my work laptop, I run KDE. Image manipulation is a large part of my work, and there is GIMP and Krita for that. However, the one thing I just can't live without is Acture, a specialized interaction design tool. It's pretty new, but it's a .Net 3 application, and there isn't full .NET 3 support yet for Linux."

OK people. Can someone step up and help her out? Either a Qt or GTK app she can use; preferable Qt since she's primarily KDE user. I know nothing about this area of software, but am one of the hordes of folks who doesn't want .Net stuff on Linux. I'll put my money where my mouth is if someone is interested.


Axure RP
http://www.axure.com/

RE: OSS Acture alternative
by MaxKlokan (1.8) on Tue 12th Feb 2008 11:16 UTC in reply to "OSS Acture alternative"
MaxKlokan Member since:
2007-12-04
Fans: 0

Can someone step up and help her out?


Why would you think she needs help? She seems happy with using Axure. Does she really need an alternative?

RE[2]: OSS Acture alternative
by righard (1.92) on Tue 12th Feb 2008 12:04 UTC in reply to "RE: OSS Acture alternative"
righard Member since:
2007-12-26
Fans: 0

In my opinion she doesn't need it at all. This is what I call "buzz-software". The discription says enought "a specialized interaction design tool". The movie on the site is worst. It's a buzzword machinegun with a deadly accent.

It seems that she thinks opensource software is important. So yes you whould help her by directing her to an opensource version of her last proprietary software. I know I whould appreciate it.

But if she doesn't care and is happy, you are right.

RE[3]: OSS Acture alternative
by BluenoseJake (3.72) on Tue 12th Feb 2008 12:21 UTC in reply to "RE[2]: OSS Acture alternative"
BluenoseJake Member since:
2005-08-11
Fans: 7

In my opinion she doesn't need it at all. This is what I call "buzz-software".


Don't presume to tell her what she needs or doesn't need. It's her toolbox, and she should use what makes most sense to her. Let her make her own choices.

RE[4]: OSS Acture alternative
by righard (1.92) on Tue 12th Feb 2008 13:13 UTC in reply to "RE[3]: OSS Acture alternative"
righard Member since:
2007-12-26
Fans: 0

The first three words and the last sentence make it clear that I'm not telling anybody what they ought to use. For some reason if there is an article about a good looking lady, people defend the person without a need. I don't care what she uses. I just think that this is one of those software pieces people get dependent on without a real need. But if some-one is happy with it, by all means continue.

I have a strong personal opinion on that matter. I think learning a special language or program to make a non working prototype of something that still has to be developed is a waste of time. Same goes for UML. Instead of turning a problem into code, it becomes.. turning a problem into a abstract problem using objects or what might not so it can be turned into code. In my opinion a useless step. But I don't care about people taking that step.

RE[3]: OSS Acture alternative
by Soulbender (3.44) on Tue 12th Feb 2008 14:33 UTC in reply to "RE[2]: OSS Acture alternative"
Soulbender Member since:
2005-08-18
Fans: 15

In my opinion she doesn't need it at all


And as a fellow professional designer you know exactly what tools she need, right?

RE[2]: OSS Acture alternative
by OpenGuy (4.5) on Tue 12th Feb 2008 20:34 UTC in reply to "RE: OSS Acture alternative"
OpenGuy Member since:
2007-08-20
Fans: 0

She'd like to run this tool on Linux. However, she currently can't.

Two choices:
1) We help her get it running on Linux
2) We help her find an alternative that works just as well for her.

Since I'm not gonna offer to help get .Net working on Linux I'm left with one choice to promote.

We really should be having this conversation with her rather than amongst ourselves, but oh well.

RE: OSS Acture alternative
by segedunum (3.08) on Tue 12th Feb 2008 16:01 UTC in reply to "OSS Acture alternative"
segedunum Member since:
2005-07-06
Fans: 20

OK people. Can someone step up and help her out? Either a Qt or GTK app she can use; preferable Qt since she's primarily KDE user.


You're not going to get it. This is a specialist bit of software that is not the sort of general functionality you're going to find in a piece of open source software.

If she wants this to run on Linux, then the normal prerequisites apply for an ISV to consider this:

1. An installed base large enough to be of interest.

2. Development tools and development libraries.

3. A way to easily install their software on customer machines.

Given the nature and feel of their web site, and especially given that their software is written for .Net 3 already, I'd say that non-Windows platforms, let alone Linux, are not exactly top of their priority list.

She could, of course, get creative and run VMware, or better yet, run the application on a Windows machine and run it remotely as a single application via Terminal Services, rdesktop and SeamlessRDP on her Linux machine. This means no annoying dual-booting.

Article Author Here
by jbianchine (3) on Tue 12th Feb 2008 22:00 UTC
jbianchine
Member since:
2005-10-31
Fans: 0

Greetings:

Yeah, it's true, I botched the application name.

Axure (http://www.axure.com/) is what it is.

Ciao!

Jeffrey Bianchine
Author & Journalist

RE: Article Author Here
by camo (1.68) on Wed 13th Feb 2008 02:45 UTC in reply to "Article Author Here"
camo Member since:
2007-10-08
Fans: 1

I tried a few var like Axture, ature, etc, then gave up. Good to know that it does exist. Thanks!