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[Release] "Resize To...", New Combo Box, Arrows Improvements, Easier Project Maps, and More!

Hello friends of Balsamiq!

We hope you all took a refreshing break during the holidays, and wish you all a fantastically creative and productive 2016!

We have a small release for you today, and we hope you'll like it!

New "Resize To" Feature!

You can now select multiple controls and resize them to match the widest, narrowest, tallest or shortest in the selection. This is SUPER-handy when creating sets of Buttons, for instance.

resizeto

Thanks for those who requested this over the years; last but not least, ArticMe.

Much Improved Combo Box Control!

You can now change the text color, you can set a pulldown item as selected, you can set it to focussed mode (both when in Open and Closed state), it's now the same height as the Text Input control in the wireframe skin, you can use the x and o notations for checkboxes and radio buttons, the - or = notation for separators, you can add a scrollbar to it...it really is very powerful now.

newcombobox

Thanks to all those who requested these improvement over the years, here or here or here or here or here or via email.

Arrow Improvements!

The new Arrows have been universally very well received.

As with all major updates to a feature, some minor issues came up, which we're fixing today.

We fixed an issue with arrow resizing and padding in groups, improved how arrows resize when near the canvas edges, made arrows markup again (we had inadvertently changed this in 3.3), made it possible to revert overriding arrow positions and fixed an issue when exporting them to BMML.

We also made it possible to hold down SHIFT while dragging an arrow end-point to snap at 45 degree intervals. This also makes it very easy to draw straight horizontal and vertical lines, a request by sgiroux and harjeetgulati.

arrowsnap

Easier Project Maps!

You can now create a Site Map control based on the contents of the project with just one click!

sitemap

Other Fixes and Improvements

  • Made \r line breaks work in the Alert control.
  • Changed the order of menu items in the right-click menu: now Select is above Lock).
  • Fixed the color of the scrollbar in wireframe skin (it was too dark).
  • We now make sure we save all updated thumbnails in the BMPR on project close or exit.
  • Fixed an issue with exporting when markup was hidden.
  • Fixed an issue with CTRL+TAB also indenting mockups on Windows. Thanks sgiroux for reporting it!
  • Improved the quality of cropped images. Thanks grebe for bringing it up!
  • Fixed an issue with mockup scroll position not getting restored properly when going from Symbols to Mockups in some cases.

How do I update?

If you're using the Web Demo or Mockups for Google Drive, you're already updated.

For Mockups for Desktop, simply install from our download page on top of your current installation. You won't have to re-register.

As always, if you hit any snags with the new build let us know immediately and we'll fix it right up! 🙂

For posterity, today's release is build 3.3.4 3.3.5 (we updated real quick to fix a few little regressions).

What else is going on?

We released yearly subscriptions on myBalsamiq! We'll write a separate post about it soon, but you can already find them on your Site Settings page.

We are also hard at work bringing all the v.3 goodness to myBalsamiq. It's a big project, thanks for your continued patience.

We also published these four blog posts:

Onward!

Peldi for the Balsamiq Team

Leave a Comment

Comments (5)

  1. Hi Rover!

    You’re right, the latest changes we made to improve the ComboBox control are not yet available in myBalsamiq since it uses a different version of the editor for now. We are actually working hard on going native and by doing so, we’ll bring the new editor features to our web version. More details can be found here: https://blogs.balsamiq.com/team/2016/02/05/looking-back-at-2015/

    Please let us know if you need anything else in the meantime, we’re here to help.

  2. Do the ComboBox improvements work for the online-only (mybalsamiq) version? Doesn’t appear to on my end.

  3. Tomas, you can solve many of those problems by searching for elements rather than picking them out of the UI Library. Just hit the / key and start typing “table”—it’ll suggest the Data Grid.

  4. What i hate
    1. when changing icon of icon+text element, the icon size changes always to the 3rd, instead staying the same. Sometimes it also changes the position of the icon to top!
    2. It is not possible to change type of element – especialy again with the icon and icon plus text – i need to have option to change icon+text to icon only or icon only to icon+text, or any of them to text only. Or text element to change to multiline and vice versa. Or horizontal to vertical rule.
    3. not possible to autosize of multiline elements – should be possible to autosize verticaly or horizontaly
    4. missing “transparency” for many elements that have backgrounds. Every element should have the option to have transparent background!
    5. I hate the new horizontal bar with elements. I have wide short screen, i want the elements on the side!
    6. Tagcloud versus text – they look almost the same and are next to each other in the text group, and i often select one instead of the other
    7. button bar – horizontal only! There is Menu, but it is not web style type of vertical button bar. There is accordion, but it is has that stupid sizing, where an empty space appears after selected element, instead of resizing of the vertical size or padding of the elements.
    8. very limited size of the area – i cannot create verticaly mid to big size pages (news, blogs …, it is limited to cca. 3000 pixels or so!)
    9. breadcrumbs and link bar – the separators are fixed, i would prefer option to select my own
    10. datagrid (i would prefer table as name) – header row is aligned as defined with the {0R} … It should stay as defined in the text definition
    11. datagrid – missing header column
    12. long mockup names – it is not possible to see it – it should appear on hover over mockup
    13. it is not possible to split project into multiple projects, create new project from selected mockups, and/or move mockup to other project (you have to copy and then paste, one by one)
    14. alternate version – it is not possible to promote one into the official without copying it. So every changing of the official it creates a copy. akward
    15. alternate version – it is not possible to create a new mockup from the alternate.
    16. Line is a stupid group – with one element only. Put it to layout or ad e.g. horizontal/vertical rule to it.
    17. it is not possible to change vertical size of input! only by text size but i want to change the padding, not the font size! The same for e.g. search box.
    18. it is not possible to set up vertical alignment of any element! (e.g. for tables)
    19. when editing block of text (stupid name for curvy lines), it converts it into text! I should have option to convert any text into block of curvy lines (change the look of font so that every character would look like a curvy line, preserving color, position, size…). The same with Line of text
    20. it is not possible to have