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Lynx Desktop - what to expect

Lynx Desktop - what to expect

9/17/2020

 
A few days ago, I revealed some more information about my first Electron app on Twitter. If you saw that Tweet and have been following the site for a while, you were probably able to guess what my upcoming Electron app is: a new version of Lynx.

That’s right! I’ve been working hard on a new program, called Lynx Desktop, that might just be the beginning of a new era for the entire Lynx project! However, I’m getting ahead of myself. In this post, I’ll be talking about the history of Lynx and what to expect in the future.

Some history...

To fully understand Lynx Desktop, I think we need to go back to Lynx for Windows v1.0. Released a few months into 2019, Lynx for Windows was truly a turning point for Tectra.

How come? Well, it was the first program that I truly got super invested in. There was a time when I was literally releasing a new major update every week!

However, Lynx for Windows wasn’t perfect, and around the release of version 2.0, it was really starting to show. It was pretty finicky, and I really felt like Windows wasn’t the right platform for Lynx. As a result, I started working on the Lynx Online Editor.

I released the Online Editor in August of 2019 and updated it from time to time over the course of the next year. Though it became more of a side-project, I never gave up on it. However, it wasn’t until I started looking into Electron that I figured out what I wanted to do with the Lynx project.

Electron and the Lynx Online Editor

As you might have guessed (if you are familiar with Electron), Lynx Desktop will be based on the Online Editor. However, despite this, I still am working on a lot of new features. Here’s what to expect:
  • Undo/Redo: One of the biggest shortcomings of Lynx has been the lack of undo and redo functionality. However, I’m pleased to say that I have been able to successfully implement these features, and they work great!
  • Insert Images: That’s right! You can now insert images to help make your drawing look nicer. The possibilities are infinite!
  • Saving Work: This has always been a bit of a rough point for Lynx. Saving work has been possible, but never convenient. Thankfully, I have implemented a saving feature that allows you to easily save your drawing as an image file!
  • New UI: I’ve designed a beautiful new user interface for Lynx that makes drawing a lot more convenient. There’s a lot less scrolling required and overall clutter now.
  • Much, much more: Believe it or not, those are not all of the improvements coming to Lynx soon! I’ll continue to reveal what’s new in upcoming posts.

Wrapping things up...

I’m pretty excited to see what’s next for Lynx, and I hope you are too! With any luck, Lynx Desktop should be ready very soon.

Until then, stay tuned for more updates!

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