Working with Components

parseJson gives no error message

parseJson is.a very useful and powerful function, but it doesn't do all you might expect of it (yet, hopefully).

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.

Use Variables

Variables are very powerful simplifying tool and they do not seem to have any impact on Protopie's performance.

Sending and receiving mismatched messages

You can send messages in different ways, but Protopie requires you to receive them in the matching way. A common (and easy) mistake is to send a message to a 'parent' while wanting to receive it from the current scene.

Why use Protopie?

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

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 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.

Origami Studio, Figma and others

How do these other popular platforms compare?

Using the wrong mental model for Protopie

parseJson gives no error message

Use overridable variables in components

Keep trigger and response names visible

Sending a message to another scene

Rough, Rapid, Right