Hey Matthew, glad to hear you like Auto-Code. Let's have a look at your questions.

1. Different tools serve different purposes, they all have pros and cons. I like that the design tool landscape finally offers alternatives. Try them all and see what works best for you. In terms of benefits vs other tools, learning curve vs flexibility comes to mind. Framer has a bit of a learning curve (code) but has virtually no limit as to what you can achieve. Invest a bit in it and you’ll get greater results back as you progress in coding. Other tools offer a lower learning curve, but are limited by the UI as to what you can build.

2. Hell yeah! The Framer Library is what drives everything, but you’d miss out on Auto-Complete, Auto-Code, Direct Manipulation, Docs, Error Handling, the list goes on.

3. Not entirely. But we do think that it offers a nice alternative to the very basics of those tools. Quick example: if you want to design a mobile lay-out, you should probably consider how that looks across devices. That’s relatively easy with Framer. You’d just set the width of an object to the width of the screen. And then switch devices to see how it looks.

4. We’re solely focussed on Framer.

5. Assuming you want to do design: make as much as you can. Figure out what you love doing and then do that, forever.

6. Nope. The only thing that counts is your work and what you can do.

For sure! I did end up answering all of them. Hope its insightful for you.

Also for 5, my favorite tip is: start many side projects and at least finish some. Preferably with other good people.

In addition to #5 — surrounding yourself with the right people who can (and are willing to) help you grow can be tremendously valuable as well. :-)

Re. 3, we think that code is a very powerful tool in the hands of designers, but tweaking plain layer and state properties is much easier when done through direct manipulation, or using a property panel. So it felt like a natural next step to start exploring this direction further, trying to merge the best of both worlds.

I support this question.

https://media.giphy.com/media/xTiTnkFneD1je4rPOM/giphy.gif

Hey Florian,

Thanks man, happy to hear that you like what we're making!

We haven't launched a TextLayer Component in the Auto-Code release because we want to make Auto-Code better one step at a time. Doing text editing right is pretty complicated and it is definitely something we want to get totally right once it's in there. It is on the roadmap and up soon though, so it won't be long until you can easily edit and use variable text in Framer.

Thanks Josh!

1. We have some plans for this. We won't be as optimized as InVision for this anytime soon, but we do think we can get a lot better at it. And we think the combination of simple flows and specific hi-fi interactions can be very powerful.

2. Yes. I can't really announce anything, but we're basically looking at the most popular modules people make and slowly adding them to Framer if they're useful to enough people.

3. It's 8 active hours of actually using the app (in the foreground, Mac active). But it's pretty arbitrary and we're happy to change it if more people feel like it's too short. You can also alway email us if you need more time (or even can't afford it).

4. We will introduce a way to better organize your code fairly soon. But probably not like you expect :-)

5. We did, but moving a community is though and the one on Facebook works really well. But I can totally understand if you don't want to use Facebook for it (or at all). You can always lurk at the public archive.

I know what you want to hear, and you totally deserve it too George: people like you.

We get this question a lot, and it's easy to answer, but unfortunately not a silver bullet. You just start a community, build something people like, and hang out there every day to answer every question.

Your answers will help foster a culture that will attract people like George and many others who happen to enjoy talking about design innovation and helping out others.

Also, seeing people go from not understanding programming to using it everyday with a few weeks is very rewarding.

Be kind, patient and helpful. And have GK3 by your side.

Heya Kenny, cheers!

Well, the short story is: we didn't have a logo, only an app icon that we repurposed. So we set-out to start exploring a logo that we could use in more varied contexts (think prints, shirts) and translate it to an app icon later.

As for how it turned out: we wanted it to feel modern, and to resemble an "F". Playing with geometric shapes made sense, and we figured we could use the primary colors of our previous app icon in the logo too. As for the new app icon, we like that it feels a little like an evolution of our previous one, while being a tad fresher. :-)

Hey Alec! Thanks — this is always nice to hear. Let's see..

1. We initially chose CoffeeScript because we believe it has a lot of advantages for people new to scripting: its syntax is relatively flexible, you can omit curly braces, brackets etc. which can make it easier to scan and learn. Writing things like functions and loops is also a little simpler. Basically, we hope it makes it easier for people to start with.

2. Well, we're exploring SVG layers, yeah — and there's already a lot you can do with SVGs in Framer. This is something that could happen.

3. Hehe, this is a tricky one to answer. In general, there's still so much more we can do to improve Auto-Code. Everything from making it easier for people to start with Framer, to implementing more advanced / future design tools and components, to improving the sharing experience, etc... there's a lot left to explore. And 3 years is a long time! :-)

Hey Rhys — thank you! Much appreciated. Let's see.

There is definitely more we can do in terms of exporting to production or to different platforms. Things like animation values (spring curves) and the like. This is definitely something we'll explore further, yes.

That is very hard to predict, but we have a few ideas:

• We're betting that code is a great tool to efficiently express interaction, animation, physics, etc. But we'll have to invent new ways to use code, make it even more accessible, and find a balance with things that are easier to do with for example direct manipulation.

• We think that the above will also naturally occur. In design, but any profession really, applying code won't make you 10% better/more efficient, but 10x. Especially younger designers don't see this whole code/design argument and will just pick both up. Also see Josh's milkshake tweet.

• Just like a division of tools emerged for print with Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign, a division of tools will emerge for interactive. It is hard to predict how this exactly will play out, but I think interactive is going to be a bit more, and visual a bit less important then today.

• But honestly one of the easiest predictions is that the meaning of being a designer will change faster and faster. We're still trying to figure out how to do interactive and animation design, but the VR goggles are already shipping. And if you thought going from visual design to interactive design was a jump, brace yourself for VR design or whatever other platform that will arrive faster then you think, changing everything we know about design.

• I think Deco and Nuclide are awesome tools and pretty similar to Framer, but trying to solve things from the production perspective. There is a lot to do between Sketch and XCode, so I'm happy they are here to innovate.

There are tons of resources out there. To get up and running with Framer I recommend starting with our learn pages. If you want even more, browse our collection of handy resources. Lastly, make sure to visit our Facebook group regularly, there are a lot of smart people there who’ll happily help you out. You can also find a lot of shared prototypes here, I’ve personally learned a lot from skimming through other peoples’ code.

Yes. We have plans to add more functionality to shared prototypes and improve their presentation. But we'd also love to offer companies a way to host them themselves with their own security standards, while still keeping it as easy as a single click.

That said, the current url's are completely random and very hard to guess. Dropbox links work the same way.

Hey Erik! Ah, yes, this is on our roadmap.

Also, you can already add states for them using Auto-Code.

Hey Sadok — a fix is already in the works! Should be out late this week or next week, if all goes well. :-)

It actually just landed in beta: http://framerjs.com/beta

I feel like this question sort of misses the idea of Framer.. Code is what makes Framer so much more powerful than any other prototyping tool. Of course it would be great to have something more 'user-friendly' so that many other designers get into using Framer, but in doing so they would sacrifice so much of the power that using code gives.

I feel like Framer shouldn't be apologetic about the learning curve for designers who are 'afraid of code'... They seem to be going above and beyond to help facilitate this by having Auto-Code, as well as Smart Autocomplete.

Designers who are afraid of code will eventually come to see how achievable using Framer is, so I hope that the guys at Framer do not sacrifice the power of code simply to make it a bit easier for designers to learn how to use it.

Hey Raphael, as someone who was introduced to Framer with almost no experience with code or programming, I totally get the concern about learning CoffeeScript. Continuing to remove barriers to getting started in Framer is a major goal of ours. Auto-Code was a first step, but we will be continuing to work toward this in future updates. We will, however, always be big believers in code over here. The good news is that with a little time, Framer is not all that hard to learn...I’m living proof :)

Regarding your question about adding tutorials and tips and tricks on Framer, this is in the works! We’re hoping provide you guys some really helpful content in the near future. Stay tuned! Are there any tutorials that you find particularly helpful, from other companies or products?

We're starting to look into it more and more. If you know a great Windows developer, let them get in touch via jobs@framerjs.com

Hey Minnix - chances are slim that we'll start rolling a custom scripting language unless it would become a technical necessity at some point (maybe to further auto code or something alike).