Storyboard

When you run an embedded application, screens are dynamic and change in response to data and animations. However, you can't see those dynamics during design time, so you're left with blank screens until you simulate or test the application on a device. If you've ever had to work with content that you could not see by default during the design process, you probably had to make that content visible while working with it, and then return it to its invisible state when finished. This workaround is cumbersome and prone to user error.

In this post, we’ll tackle the challenge of designing content that reacts to changes at runtime, the problem with the traditional workflow, and a better way to visualize content throughout its modalities.

Challenges with working with dynamic content at design time

Traditionally, this has been the workflow:

1. Toggle the visibility of the layer (and all those that are obscuring it)
2. Work with the content on the layer to make desired changes
3. Restore the visibility of all the changed layers

This workaround is error-prone because all it takes is forgetting to restore the visibility of a single element to leave things in a bad state. Also, it's tedious and time-consuming because these additional steps aren't providing any additional feedback to the developer when they restore the layers.

Check out the following video to learn about a better solution to working with dynamic content and making it faster and easier to build up your GUI screens.

If you're creating applications for MCU platforms and constantly challenged to reduce your costs without compromising performance, then we know you’re going to be excited about the capabilities we've added in Storyboard 6.0. 

The following video gives a quick overview of the performance-enhancing features we’ve added to our release that make building remarkable applications of all sizes an achievable reality.

If you visited our website over the past month, you might have noticed that we look a bit different. Actually, we look a lot different. Like, burn the internet down and start over different. We overhauled our website from top to bottom, from both a content and an aesthetic perspective. In our website tear down, we took stock of the what we wanted to keep and update, what content required a refresh, and which pages no longer sparked joy. Yes, we Marie Kondo'd* cranksoftware.com, and we are now overflowing with all of the joy, and none of the clutter.

Speaking of joy, check out the happy faces in our awesome new video that we created to provide a quick answer to "Who is Crank Software and what is Storyboard?"

A revolution in embedded GUI design and development (video)

Ottawa, Canada - Monday, May 20, 2019 - Crank Software, an innovator in embedded user interface (UI) software and solutions, announced today the launch of a new brand identity. The move reinforces the company’s position as a dominant market leader in the embedded UI industry with a unique value proposition: to deliver brilliant touch screen experiences on an accelerated schedule, yet with a fraction of the resources typically required.

In Q1 of 2019, the company announced it had closed its highest quarter to date, on top of having seen an increase in 50% revenue growth the year prior. With an increasing number of Fortune 500 companies such as GE Appliances and Coca Cola taking their products to market with Storyboard-created UIs, Crank Software is enabling embedded device manufacturers to deliver immersive, digital displays at an unprecedented rate.

NXP and Crank Software are teaming up again for the second webinar in our 2-part series on embedded UI development for the industry's first crossover processor series - the i.MX RT Series.

How to build your next supercharged embedded UI on the i.MX RT1060 (live demo)

• Thursday, May 23
• 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM EDT
• Hosted by NXP and Crank Software
• Register here

Crank's upcoming release (ssssh!!) features Storyboard Lite, which has been designed specifically to support the convergence of low-power applications processors and high-performance microcontrollers, such as the RT Series. A memory footprint reduced version of Storyboard, Storyboard Lite enables the creation of highly responsive GUIs on resource-constrained (memory and flash limited) embedded target hardware platforms.

If you're looking to embrace growing consumer demand for enhanced user experience in smart, yet secure high-performance products, and support next generation IoT applications, then this webinar demonstration should definitely be on your calendar!