Check if your other pie is present

Arrays and multiple parameters

Protopie seems limited since a message can be sent using only one value as a parameter. However, arrays (written as text strings and manipulated by parseJson) can be used for contexts where multiple parameters need to be passed.

Sending messages to two places

Whilst it is important to be careful in sending messages to the right places, it is also very powerful to send a message to two different places at the same time (or maybe with a small delay).

Why use Protopie?

There are many prototyping tools out there, so what makes Protopie special – how is it different?

Check if Protopie Connect is present

If you are building a prototype that depends upon Protopie Connect then it is a good idea to start by checking if Connect is actually present.

How to inspect variables inside a component

Even all-Scenes variables are not accessible inside a component. And this can lead to hard to find errors when a variable with the same name is used in a component, but its value is not sync'd with the scenes.

Sending a message to another scene

This is a very easy mistake to make – sending a message to be picked up by a component, but one that you have in fact placed into a different scene. Although you can send to a different pie, you can't send to a different scene.

Put code inside components

Protopie code can get complex and hard to follow surprisingly quickly. Putting as much code as possible within your components can keep your main scenes simpler and cleaner.

Using the wrong mental model for Protopie

Most prototyping tools for designers use the frame-by-frame, or multiple dartboards model. But Protopie is much closer to a developer's object-oriented model of an application UI.

Sending and receiving mismatched messages

Playing with time

Origami Studio, Figma and others

Distinctive initial variable values

Rough, Rapid, Right

Moving between Figma and Protopie