Flow website

Micro Design Systems + Figma

Mon, 13 Dec 2021 08:00:00 +0000

This is a huge release for exports, with 5 new exports you can use to bring your design systems to life. We also hit a home run with our Figma integration, making it faster than ever.

Design System Exports
With today’s release you’re able to export 5 new types of interactive, animated components as fully-functional iOS code.

Refresh Control - that little animated bit when you pull down on a scrollview
Text Field - an animated text field that responds to touches, and content
Progress Bar - easily customize an otherwise dull progress bar
Slider - an elegant way of customzing an iOS slider
Press Button - simple button that triggers an animation when a user presses it

Figma
This will hot up your experience working with Figma.

Creating a new timeline from a previously linked file is ultra-fast
Add a re-sync button to catch up with any changes you make to your designs in Figma
Update the layout of windows and notifications when syncing with Figma
Fix crash when pasting from Figma

Core Animation
With our new templates comes some sophisticated new code for working with Core Animation.

Implement new approach for handling timing of CAAnimations - per feedback from Apple DTS
Properly set times for all animations
Reset animations completely after animationDidStop is called

Apple Silicon / M1
We got our hands on a new M1 Max, and resolved some critical bugs that popped up.

Fix text alignment issue from Sketch (new api changes from Apple)
Prevent crash with WebKit on Apple Silicon

Flow
Here are some lovely little fixes to Flow that we handled along the way.

Resolve some new layout issues
Properly validate export menu options
Add a new helper for pasting SVG data
Paste from Adobe XD
Fix timeline header view layout issue
Fix misplacement of arrows in timeline hierarchy
Fix visible offset between hierarchy and track outline views
Fix misaligned splitviews on opening document
Fix additional font reference when exporting

Micro Design Systems + Figma

Mon, 13 Dec 2021 08:00:00 +0000

A huge release for exports, with 5 new exports you can use to bring your design systems to life. We also hit a home run with our Figma integration, making it faster than ever.

XD + Figma

Mon, 01 Nov 2021 08:00:00 +0000

As of today, you’re able to export your Flow animations to Lottie and import them into your Adobe XD prototypes. We’re also shipping a much needed improvement for importing images from Figma.

Adobe XD / Lottie
XD recently launched a Lottiefiles plugin, which required some tune-up on our exports.

Fix masking bug in Lottie exports
Make Flow Lottie files compatible with Adobe XD

Figma Import
Flow now gives you the option importing images as… well, images! Rather than as shapes with image fills (which is how Figma actually treats images).

Add convert images option during import from Figma
Add progress indicator when re-syncing a Figma file
Properly import text and text properties

XD + Figma

Mon, 01 Nov 2021 08:00:00 +0000

As of today, you’re able to export your Flow animations to Lottie and import them into your Adobe XD prototypes. We’re also shipping a much needed improvement for importing images from Figma.

Flow 1.12.1

Fri, 22 Oct 2021 08:00:00 +0000

Content Links

We added direct access to our great content including our Basics videos (which you should watch btw), Flowcasts (where you’ll really learn to animate), and more. To date, we’ve got over 75 videos for you to watch, over 20 tutorials, and 30 docs. That’s tons of resources for learning how to animate.

Export Image Sequences

There’s a new option in Flow for exporting your animations to a sequence of PNG files. Simple, elegant, and a solid tool to help you in all your production adventures.

Import Animated Animated Images

You can now import animated PNG and GIF files into Flow. When you do, Flow will create an image layer and an animation track with all of the frames from your file. Superb for helping you recreate animations.

Animated Fonts in Lottie

Here’s a cracker, for all the Lottiephiles out there. You can now animate font changes when exporting your animations to Lottie. This means font family, and subtypes, as well as font sizes will all animate nicely. Getting the ascenders to play nicely was a gig.

Image Sequnces, Lottie, and More

Mon, 18 Oct 2021 08:00:00 +0000

Today we’ve got a great bunch of new and fixes.

Flow
This list looks short, but each entry took a lot of bs&t.

You can once again copy from Sketch and paste into Flow
Paste with Keyvalues bug (this was a deep one) @Joe
Paste shapes from XD @Talha
Missing font bug with font panel
Adds a Learn menu item links to pages on our site (basics, flowcasts, docs and tuts)
Add Rubik as a default font (nice.)

Image Sequence Exports
Here’s a handy little feature for you.

Export your animations as a set of png files.

Animated Image Imports
By popular request, you can now load an animated image into your animations.

Import an animated png or gif
Flow creates a new image layer with keyvalues for each frame of your image sequence

Lottie Exports
Oh, Lottie, you’re such a delicate little one. This update was a tough cookie to wrangle, but we were able to significanly improve text exporting, minifying, and update the version.

Animate font changes
Properly minify Lottie files
Properly compute ascender
Add fontAscender property
Handle font ascender animation
Properly set font variables
Update bodymovin’ version

Web Exports
If you want to send your devs a bit less code than usual, the new driverless export is just the ticket.

Create new driverless export
Update Player documentation
Update Driver documentation

Common Web Updates
We took a bit of time to think through the documentation and classes going into our open-source Common Web approach for using WAAPI.

Handle undefined callback
Update inline documentation for Player
Add generic timeline class

Image Sequnces, Lottie, and More

Mon, 18 Oct 2021 08:00:00 +0000

Today we’ve got a great bunch of new features, exports and fixes. Short list includes: importing animated images, exporting animated text to Lottie, a new driverless web export, and squashin’ some deep bugs.

A Bucketful of Exports

Mon, 23 Aug 2021 08:00:00 +0000

New export options include Dribbble, an iOS Spinner, a Hover Element and Image sequences. Loads of fixes for a lot of existing exports like HTML, SVG, and especially Lottie.

Expressions
Expressions can now be used in number format property cells.

Want that rotation to be 2x higher? Just multiply it.
You can now use expressions like +, -, /, * and much more in number property cells.
Handy.
Thx Tim K

Reverse Media
Flow can now add the reverse of an animation to itself when exporting media formats.

Add capability to append a the reverse set of frames to an exported animation.
Thx Super Rachek

Lottie
Some great fixes for Lottie exports.

Custom font embedding
Fix Lottie iOS text offset
Fix Lottie text animation changes
Thx Matej

SVG & HTML
Pattern fill images needed some TLC in both SVG and HTML exports.

Properly export shape fill type to SVG and HTML
Fix SVG clipping to bounds (i.e. overflow)
Fix HTML clipping to bounds
Thx Marco

iOS Custom Activity Indicator
A hearty new export for you.

Generates a UIKit compliant ActivityIndicatorView that plays your animation.
Spinners for everyone!

Web Hover Element
Another hearty new export for you.

Generates an HTML element that plays forward on hover, and reverse on exit.
Take that, Mailchimp logo

Dribbble Exporter
A lovely option for framing your scene in a 4:3 layout and exporting to a Dribbble-optimized video.

Adds your scene to 4:3 frame
Options for changing background color, adding shadow, rounding corners
Multiple options for choosing frame size, scene scale
Exports a formatted video that is compressed and compatible with Dribbble’s standards

Flow
General app updates

Shapes now clip properly when you turn on the mask to bounds property
Fix stroke bug in Stage renderer for Gradients
Fix hard crash when importing poorly formatted masks (Figma)
Thx James T

A Bucketful of Exports

Mon, 23 Aug 2021 08:00:00 +0000

New export options include Dribbble, an iOS Spinner, a Hover Element and Image sequences. Loads of fixes for a lot of existing exports like HTML, SVG, and especially Lottie.

Small Bug

Wed, 21 Jul 2021 08:00:00 +0000

This is a quick one, because we found a small / critical bug fix for our release earlier this week.

Flow
A crafty little bug slipped into Flow earlier this week.

Fix license validation bug