Mondrian

Mondrian is a smart and easy-to-learn vector graphics web app.

UNMAINTAINED REPO: I wrote this in college for fun and am keeping it up for posterity.

Original HN thread

Features

Basic

Mondrian offers all the tools needed to create, modify, and export simple SVG files.

• Basic editing capabilities
  • Strict drawing with the pen tool
  • Loose drawing with the crayon tool
  • Shape manipulation (scaling & rotation)
  • Individual point manipulation with bezier controls
  • Basic typography
  • Zoom, eyedropper
  • Smooth, efficient tools & operations
• File import (via FileReader)
  • SVG
• File export
  • SVG
  • PNG (via canvas API)
• Clean UI
  • Minimal "flat" aesthetic with little visual distraction
  • A smart UI that shows only utilities that can be used at that moment
• Layout
  • Basic dot grid with snapping for layout

Innovations

Mondrian also supports undo/redo through a (somewhat rough and unstable) file history API that

• stores operations, not states
• is tiny and JSON-serializable, so it can be persisted to a server and loaded back up in another session
• can visually reconstruct a file's entire history step-by-step

There are no tests written for this system. It's a big todo.

Running the app

Mondrian is a simple static site.

To run it locally for the first time you have to clone the repo, install the dependencies, and build the source files.

git clone [email protected]:artursapek/mondrian.git
cd mondrian
npm install
cake build
cake server

Then, open localhost:3000 in your web browser, and there you have it!

You can also access the latest stable build at mondrian.io.

Installing Dependencies

npm install

Running the local server

cake server

Building the app

Run the build task to compile all of the JavaScript, HTML, and CSS from /src/ into /build/.

cake build

It features a dumb progress bar that's based off the last compile time. It's actually pretty accurate.

> cake build
[██████         ] 14 seconds remaining

The entire app is written in Coffeescript. You have to manually compile the app every time you make changes.

The source files are specified in an ordered map in build.yml. They are nested under their directory names. You can specify a different directory name using the _dir: key. null means no directory.

For example,

src: !!omap
  - setup:
    - _dir: null
    - settings
    - setup
  - userInterface:
    - _dir: ui
    - selection
  - geometry:
    - posn
    - line-segment

refers to

src/settings.coffee
src/setup.coffee
src/ui/selection.coffee
src/geometry/posn.coffee
src/geometry/line-segment.coffee

Contributing

There's a lot to do! Read CONTRIBUTING.md for a list of what you can work on, context around the project, and guidelines.

Supported Browsers

Mondrian officially supports only the latest desktop stable versions of Chrome, Firefox, and Safari.

License

All of the Mondrian code and documentation is available under the MIT License.

Contact

You're welcome to contact me at [email protected].