Mondrian

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

Try it at mondrian.io.

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.

Installing

There's nothing to install; it's a static site. You can access the latest stable build at mondrian.io or run it locally:

git clone git@github.com:artursapek/mondrian.git
cd mondrian
./server

Then, open localhost:3000 in your web browser.

Contributing

Editors like Inkscape and Adobe Illustrator tower over Mondrian in their features and abilities. While a big goal in Mondrian is to avoid feature creep and keep it visually bare, it's definitely still missing a lot. Contributors are encouraged to develop new tools and utilities they feel are missing as well as optimizing the performance of those that already exist. All significant contributions will get credit in the meta window within the app.

Building the app

Run the build task to compile all of the files into the executable build.js:

cake build

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

> cake build
Compiling 16455 lines
[██████------------------------] 14 seconds remaining

Todo

If you want to help, there's a lot that can be done.

• Set up a good unit test suite with Phantomjs or another headless browser
• Add support for missing SVG elements
  • Quadratic bezier (convert to cubic with two matching control points)
  • Elliptical arc
• More file format import/export abilities (will probably require converter on backend)
  • PDF
  • AI
• Refactor the monolithic ui/ui.coffee into smaller files
  • UI states
  • Mouse event routing
  • Tool management
• Clean up hacks and rushed features
• Pathfinder shape manipulation (union, subtraction, overlap)
• More tools for manipulating bezier curvers
• Guide lines, a more solid grid system
• Responsive layout for smaller screens

However I'm open to Pull Requests dealing with any part of the app. It's a fun project in general.

Source

The build 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

Supported Browsers

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

License

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

Contact

You're welcome to contact me at me@artur.co.