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Aren’t there too many design formats?

5 years ago from Vu Hoang Anh, CEO & Co-founder at Avocode

  • James MatchettJames Matchett, 5 years ago

    Sounds like we've got a 15th standard!

    Making it free and open doesn't mean everyone will use it, you're asking people to potentially rewrite entire segments of their software for your standard. Hasn't sketch's file format been open since sketch 43?

    So to bring up Daniel's question again, what are you going to do to keep OCTOPUS from being another standard?

    6 points
    • Robert Salazar, 5 years ago

      It makes you wonder if we just got lucky with things like USBs or JPGs or PDFs being standards..or if there was some secret sauce in the 90s that we're all missing.

      0 points
      • James MatchettJames Matchett, 5 years ago

        As for USB hardware standards are a lot easier it seems like because of the manufacturing process. Also it was created by 7 of the largest tech companies at the time, so of course it's going to be common.

        File formats are a bit different. JPEGs came from the ISO and a standard group within the UN from a quick google search. PDFs were proprietary for the longest time but now are open and an ISO standard.

        Maybe that's what it takes, we need some universally recognized group or for all the design tools to come together to create in. Instead of this situation where one company says they're creating a new standard and we get just another "standard".

        0 points
        • Vu Hoang AnhVu Hoang Anh, 5 years ago

          Thanks for your reply James. You’re right. Sketch will probably not rewrite a significant part of their software just because our design format is free and we do not expect them to do so.

          What we’re trying to do with this SDK is to offer an already established technology for teams that would like to build something that involves design files. They simply would not have to start building everything from scratch and they could build on top of an existing technology.

          The octopus file format itself isn’t that innovative. But combining it with our parsers and rendering engine really makes a huge difference.

          For new tools that means that they don’t have to come up with a new design format.

          For Sketch it could mean that they could easily open and edit other design files. Not just Sketch but also XD or PSD. We’ve already made it possible with our design converter - https://avocode.com/convert-psd-to-sketch

          Sketch definitely made their format more readable so developers could integrate with Sketch easier. But everything they build is going to be closed within Sketch. And what want is to make everything a little more open.

          I’m not sure if Octopus is going to become one format that everyone uses. But it’s a necessary part of our technology that could help design tools creators build things faster.

          Our parsers can parse most of the design formats and convert them into the Octopus format. The Octopus file already contains all the information from all these other designs formats. That’s what we meant by “Universal design format”.

          3 points
    • Ranit Sanyal, 5 years ago

      Valid point.

      0 points