Catching up with neat-o fancy apps of web | app UI design, with universal or hybrid platform code bas

For first-time web | app (website-derived apps, or even in-page call stack coding “miniatures,” if you will) - somebody (like, myself), who is a “basically” amateur open-book sort of web app developer | aspirational type of approach to coding (except for Linux stuff, which has only limited-scope usefulness and portability, in this consideration of a use case scenario):

• Many people, I imagine, simply draw a blank, as to what to do, in a case like this, since it was all just some imaginable “great” internet-borne experience.
• Consequently, the urge to come up with something ingenious and worthwhile (worth talking about, perhaps) comes to mind.
• The mind comes to consider that somebody else had already come up with this great idea.
• A search on the Google Play Store or Apple’s App Store commences / newbies might, alternately, opt to try to break in to / subvert their devices security measures, and pursue some sort of disassembly of their device and or it’s operating system, for the sake of coming upon something “better.”

• Ugh.

• Personally, I stopped doing the self-hacking of the device and the disassembly thing, several years ago, since I was always at odds with coming up with something innovative, or productive. 

   To be certain, 

  most decent development ideas have already been derived and established, of an organic nature, independently - just as an offhand fleeting assertion; the notion could extend to as much as that we are always, it may seem, and from here on out - aside from the expectation of that novelty, as a general premise in development, and in discovery; perhaps, innovation, per se, we now have some recent seminal works on the limitations of novelty, given some development task. For example, in the recent years, leading up to this point in time, we have some of the formative rhetoric and ideological and logistical backdrop established, as to what can be attained and wrought, from out of an intersection between novelty and the influence of creative works, from the study:

  Park, D., Nam, J. & Park, J. Novelty and influence of creative works, and quantifying patterns of advances based on probabilistic references networks. EPJ Data Sci. 9, 2 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjds/s13688-019-0214-8

  “Also, there are implications for the psychological study of novelty as well. It has been known in optimal theory of novelty that the positive acceptance (also called the “hedonic value”) of novelty follows the so-called Wundt curve that increases initially but decreases after a peak, indicating that too much novelty can be off-putting to humans…”

  which includes references to information derived from yet other works:

  Berlyne, D. E. (1969). Arousal, reward and learning. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 159(3), 1059-1070.

  and  Berlyne, D. E. (1970). Novelty, complexity, and hedonic value. Perception & psychophysics, 8(5), 279-286.

  Both, simply for a quick flash of the context’s potential subject areas, which could, or ought to be considered, in this case. 

  Essentially, the topic, in and of itself, supposes that novel ideas are limited, in their usefulness and in their longevity, yet, as we may observe, from the initially-cited article, 

Figure 3

• From: Novelty and influence of creative works, and quantifying patterns of advances based on probabilistic references networks

  

  The H-novelty (left) and P-novelty (right) of the piano compositions (top) and the composers (bottom). (A) The cumulative distribution of the H-novelty scores νH of the works. The median and mean values are (4.80,4.78) for the Baroque, (4.38,4.40) for the Classical, (4.73,4.729) for the Transition, and (4.82,4.78) for the Romantic periods. (B) The cumulative distribution of the P-novelty scores νP of the works. The median and the means are (4.90,4.86) for the Baroque, (4.69,4.66) for the Classical, (4.88,4.87) for the Transition, and (4.97,4.94) for the Romantic periods. (C) & (D) The novelty NH and NP of the composers (defined as the mean of νH and νP of their works). A composer’s position on the x-axis (year) is the midpoint between his birth and death years. One should note that the conventional pool of elements is smaller for baroque composers, which could skew the H-novelty to look higher. However, the P-novelty does not suffer from limitation, and Bach and Scarlatti still have high P-novelty values.

  novel methods and creative developers - here, with music as the context, whereas music “could,” still, potentially be the creative force behind a development project, or, for that matter, it could be, ostensibly, any subject area of learning and of intelligence, yet “newness,” or novelty, in and of itself, has a limited and time-constrained degree of effectiveness. In essence, pursuing more rational and technically-fine, or well-disciplined methods and practices in pursuing development, of our own mind’s and life’s expression, would be better well-to-do, if appropriate tools were in-hand, and would that the goal, in development, which might, in any case, already be a pipe-dream; perhaps some fleeting, or forgotten, inspirational moment, whereas good development tools are the more rational solution, in supplying some needed grounding and basis for establishing a structure, with which, we can effectively, some day, create our own functional work of novel (or, other than such) means, for a user base or for an audience.

  My goal, on this day, was to set out and, uh… 🙄 well, I guess i don’t really recall, off hand, at this point (it’s been hours), in any case; yet, I did find some tools -

  
  

  

  
  

  Oh, yeah!

  Haha. I’d forgotten, but, upon considering the tools (apps) that I did grab, for my iPad Pro, off of the App Store, in this case - once I fully bring, in to the forefront, in my development mind’s time, both the familiarity and interface (UI features) of each of these particular apps I had chosen, I do recall that I wanted to develop some neat-o animated website graphics, for choosing various and future, or developing, perhaps, user experience and navigation visual effects, with an eye towards interactivity, with A.I. tools being all the rage, in many news article publications, which I encounter, on my news feeds, lately. 

  On one hand, it’s the evolution of the on-device “Assistant,” which we have, in all of the major developer and hardware platforms, particularly, in mobility design, on our portable and smartphone devices, and which extend out to wearables, automotive, and home technology, all of which have different design challenges, which are suited, well enough, through richly-established code bases, coding language and syntax, all with unique (mostly) and, as is common, platform-constrained, as custom scripting language and content and programming interfaces, which are designed, per se, for each of the parent, or “hosting” or hosted development platforms, i.e. Google Play, the App Store, etc. 

  The challenge is, for some sort of beginner, such as myself, that I would, imaginably, desire to develop for each, and, over time, for all of the major hardware manufacturers, with their individual app store (or something like that) being an ostensible goal to aim for, in development. These days, with the Assistant archetypal development foundation, of a premise of an app, interactivity and user experience both play heavily in to the usability and accessibility of the app; hence, I wanted some design tricks and neat-o treats for the eye, with some sort of intelligent assistant, or interactive Artificial Intelligence compute and modeling plug-in, or modular feature of a larger website design structure, to host such a thing as a modular in-page website applet.

  Here’s what I found:

  Fabula

  Coming across this app made me feel like I was in the right place at the right time; I happened upon this app through contextually “app” and web app “design” sorts of searching around on the App Store, when I discovered this developer’s  (PoeticBytes, Inc. is the developer) other apps, Ayecon, which features go-to solutions for resizing app and website logo images, in to the standard sizes requested by Apple’s App Store, for developers on all of Apple’s hardware platforms, which include iOS, iPadOS, WatchOS, macOS, tvOS, and CarPlay, as well as Allegory, which caught my eye, as a note-taking platform, with what seemed like interesting features, such as automatic content mood analysis: useful, in case I’m not quite feeling like myself, while composing notes, since my writing plays a large role in how I feel I portray myself, whereas I try to keep ethical considerations close at hand, at all times, in communicating through writing. 
  
  
  So, Fabula. It happens to sit upon a crowded namespace, as far as app names are considered. I looked up Fabula’s Google Search reputation, as an app, or, potential reviews on the app, rather, and I found that there are various other Fabula apps that have been published, even on the App Store, itself: I just checked, again, and there are three “Fabula” apps available, just on Apple’s App Store, itself, not to mention even yet another Fabula app on the Google Play Store, I believe. 
  
  
  For that matter, the second Fabula app, (the last one I had linked to, in the previous paragraph), has to do with app design, as well, in a really cool manner, in that it features a nicely-laid out gallery of SwiftUI development code compositions, such as graphical imagery which can be described and animated via code, or / and UI (user interface) code “materials” or compositions which construe demonstrable and usable app codes. Here’s a quick video of some of the apps’ features. Try it out, it’s free! (at the time being). 
  
  
  Moving forward, the initial Fabula app, which had caught my attention, is a simple web design module, of an app: made to create slight, modular features, perhaps, of web page, or app design - either one, or both, within the context of things such as bouncing balls, as far as animations: the app is an animation-to-code sort of idea, come to life. I’ve yet to test it out, yet it felt very compelling for me, as far as that I felt that it could assist me in realizing some of my finer coding and design aspirations, as far as web page user experience, in that it starts with what is traditionally known, in an offhand sense, in this case, as Object-Oriented Design, or OOD, which uses visual elements, per se, rather than textual coding, as the more traditional alternative. For example, I could imagine splash pages becoming far more simple and accessibly designed, somewhat as a motion graphics storyboard, rather than some sort of algorithmic, or arbitrary, design, wrought via coding, scripting, and syntax, whereas this solution, found in this app, Fabula, felt like it would be a great viable workflow go-to, for my GTD (getting things done). I’ll update, when I get to test it out. I just wanted to share about having discovered this app, to inform some of my audiences.
  
  
  Updating…
  
  
  Someone unfamiliar with the Fabula app might wonder what the user interface looks like and how it runs. 
  
  

  

  (Most of) the Fabula app’s interface. The canvas features a spinning object, of various shapes offered. The features, as far as animating the object, are that duration of the spin, hold and delay of the spin, shape of the object, reversibility, looping, and color of the object can be customized. The other feature, which is significant for developers, as well as that it is the primary selling point of the Fabula app, is that the translatable code of the animation, in both Swift language, as well as CSS, are options included. The animations can then be placed within a script, in an app or website development workflow.

  
  

  

  Some of the advanced options available are physics models of curves by which the object in the canvas will spin. Neat stuff!

  
  

  What’s next?

  From this point, in this latest Apple Search (App Store Search) project ambition, seeming to come to light, with previously undiscovered apps such as Fabula(s) having been revealed to me, thus uncovering a light in the distance, for having been in the dark, I consider my position, within coding development, and my current skill sets and needs which would be relevant to seek App Store fulfillment, thereof, which could be satisfied within a $15 or less budget au jour. 
  
  
  I traced back to my standard search model (Google Search), and, although I can’t quite discern, offhand, what preceded my discovery of where PoeticBytes, inc., had done, since Fabula had been released, I suppose that I recall that I happened upon what I believed was PoeticBytes’ new company identity, PNGuin. Their site features really nifty, hot, and trendy kinds of app delights; snacks, of the iPadOS multimedia designer’s appetite, if you will.
  
  

  

  I picked up the Veil and Vinyls apps from PNGuin.app - a couple of cutesy little apps that serve a micro purpose, for each of them.

  
  

  

  Upon revisiting the site in my tabs, I uncover that I’d identified that the app developer is the same developer that created the Fabula Object-Oriented Design  (OOD) app, from the visual information (app logos) in the lower right-hand corner.
  

  For that matter,
  
  
  I also purchased a subscription to Allegory, by PoeticBytes, which is a mood contextualizer and metrics-laden app, feature-wise. I liked the content analysis tidbit about it. I haven’t tried it out, just yet, but I felt comfortable and well-accommodated enough, with PoeticBytes’ app offerings, and hip design aesthetic, in their app delivery and marketing, as well as the cool PNGuin.app establishment that had come since the days of keeping up PoeticBytes, the company, which seemed, to me, to have halted new work, under the company name, in 2020.
  
  

  Moving forward, 

  I had a nice start to a night’s take, in a development kit set, or folders, or whatever they are, in the iPadOS desktop screen. People who know me, through my online publishing work, going back a while, at least, know that I’m big in to orderliness, tidiness, and efficiency, when it comes to user interface, desktop, and filesystem navigation. I like to be quick, when it comes to moving around, and, in general the iPadOS, and 11-inch iPad Pro form factor and design suit my pace of compositional development workflow pace well enough, I figure, since I can do things such as type at the pace of relaxed dictation, and I can zip, drag, and swipe around, with many cool functions and nested features of the operating system in place, to make things seamless and functional. I suppose that I’d been continuing my Apple Search, on the App Store, and the recommendations led me to MermaidJS, which aligns along the context of OOD, with the added theme of getting a sharper focus in to my use case scenario ambitions in scripting website functionality; in this case, with a JavaScript basis. I’m completely useless, essentially, at JavaScript, at this point in time, just for reference, but I felt that perhaps MermaidJS’ OOD interface, in process flow / node style arrangement. Check out the concept, live!, in fact - on the web, at mermaid.live.

  
  

  

  Pretty cool, right?
  

  
  

  Updating…

  People might think:

  “Well, okay, MermaidJS is a cool way to look at programming, but I want to design and develop code more intricately, to suit my project’s needs, and set a tone for the aesthetic, but I see the basic colors, of the most standard notions of colors; perhaps, akin to a box of crayons, in terms of simplicity, in this Fabula app. I want to be able to perhaps script some kind of transition, in my animations, with a pre-defined palette gradient concept, with at least two colors, or something.”

  On that end,  

  I imagine that scripting the transition could happen in MermaidJS, and that colors could also be defined, within a workflow. There is yet another PoeticBytes app, which services defining the colors’ individual values, in various encoded forms, as well as several varieties of programming code, such as Swift, objective-C, and CSS, with all of the necessary annotations included; ready to pop on over, in to a JavaScript code pipeline - as I’d mentioned, I’m not JavaScript-savvy, but as far as procedural thinking goes, I’d say that this concept would suit JavaScript, and vice-versa.

  The app is called Aurora. Take my word for it - this particular article’s app reviews laundry lists are prime real estate on a designer | developer’s device. I happened to land myself in to an auspicious plop of good fortune, in some ethereal marketing serve, perhaps, in serendipity, whereas many other attempts, in Apple Search, leave me feeling not quite as fulfilled, not all that willing to spend my money on app budgeting allotments, and without even further drive and inspiration filled hopes and roadmap outlooks, in my development pipeline - prior this stage, I’d been disillusioned, to the effect of that I felt like the tools necessary for an app enterprise developer, such that I broadly aspire to, in long-term goals to see through in becoming fulfilled, now seem, by far, much more within reach, and readily accessible, given that the apps’ design aesthetics and logos, for that matter, are well-designed, and appealing - both factors contribute to positive support for establishing a memorable App Store shopping trip, for my business. 

  On a different type of development end, 

  I’ve just discovered holon.ist and holonic.systems, both backed by App Store apps, Holon, and Holon.ist. Off of my first impression, they appear to be the first well-integrated platforms for city-embedded interactive IoT | sensor | environmental | iBeacon | mobile device audio experience creation. Together, with InstrumentsOfThings.com and other sites, as well as apps, it appears that we now have the capability to create site-specific, activity-specific, movement-specific, etc. audio experiences and synchronized music events, on a stable and well-designed platform.