The Power of Templates
・Travis
One of the more subtle aspects of Flow is our code template engine. It allows us to very easily update and maintain or create new export formats.
When we released our React export in December, it had taken us less than a week to produce, test, and ship it… Which is nuts, because our team is small and adding code export to a tool should be really really hard. For us, it’s not… and this is because of Flow’s amazing code template engine.
A few key releases from last year show what I mean:
1.5.1 (Jun 27)
- iOS (w/ Custom Easing Curves)
- HTML (w/ Custom Easing Curves)
1.5.2 (Jul 09)
- iOS
- iOS - Launch Animations
- HTML
1.5.6 (Jul 17)
- iOS
- iOS - Launch Animations
- iOS - Onboarding Animation
- iOS - Custom Button
- HTML
1.6.7 (Nov 5)
- iOS
- iOS - Launch Animations
- iOS - Onboarding Animation
- iOS - Custom Button
- HTML
- HTML – Button
1.6.8 (Dec 10)
- iOS
- iOS - Launch Animations
- iOS - Onboarding Animation
- iOS - Custom Button
- HTML
- HTML – Toggle Button
- HTML - WebComponents
- HTML - WebComponents Toggle Button
1.6.9 (Dec 20)
- iOS
- iOS - Launch Animations
- iOS - Onboarding Animation
- iOS - Custom Button
- HTML
- HTML – Toggle Button
- HTML - WebComponents
- HTML - WebComponents Toggle Button
- React – Toggle Button
As you can see, in June we added 3 new exports in less than a month.
From November to December, we added another 4 exports in just over 5 weeks.
Our team is small, so to be able to achieve this kind of production timeline is a very real testament to the power of Flow’s code template engine.
It’s easy for us to bring new export languages to Flow.
Flow Pro
We are working on a Pro version that will allow you to do this kind of thing as well.
Don’t like our style? You can modify a template to generate software exactly how you would have written it.
Need a language we don’t support? You’ll be able to write one yourself.
This is going to be a killer feature that truly puts Flow in a class of its own, so stay tuned.
