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Wireframes for Desktop release notes

Here are all the release notes for Balsamiq Wireframes for Desktop, ordered by release date (most recent first).

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06 November 2024 release

Version numbers:

Hello friends of Balsamiq!

We just did a Balsamiq Wireframes release. Here's what's new!

  • Windows and Mac: We fixed a crash when importing new templates.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed a crash when using the documentation.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed a potential crash when using the find feature
  • Windows and Mac: We improved the handling of projects that failed to open.
  • Windows: We fixed an issue with some property inspector comboboxes not displaying their current value.

19 November 2024 release

Version numbers:

Hello friends of Balsamiq!

We just did a Balsamiq Wireframes release. Here's what's new!

  • Windows: We fixed an error when you switched controls while the text editor was still open.
  • Windows: We fixed the redo operation for text size, state and selction changes.

24 April 2024 release

Version numbers:

Hello friends of Balsamiq!

We just did a Balsamiq Wireframes release. Here's what's new!

  • Windows and Mac: We improved the filter for Quick-Add and Transform control.
  • Windows: We fixed an error that triggered when you used the left or right arrow when you had the focus on the navigator.
  • Mac: We restored the Quicklook feature on the latest version of MacOS.

17 October 2023 release

Version numbers:

Hello, friends of Balsamiq!

We just did a Balsamiq Wireframes release. Here's what's new!

  • Windows and Mac: We reenabled two keyboard shortcuts for changing layering that were wrongly disabled.
  • Windows: We fixed an issue with the scrollbar in the Navigator.
  • Mac: The transform control menu now searches also the control alias names. Thanks, Cory for reporting it!
  • Mac: We fixed an issue with the list control causing an error when you removed an icon.

10 July 2023 release

Version numbers:

Hello, friends of Balsamiq!

We just did a Balsamiq Wireframes release. Here's what's new!

  • Windows and Mac: We updated the Font Awesome icons to version 6.4.0 and added additional search terms.
  • Windows and Mac: We reenabled two layering buttons to be always available.
  • Windows and Mac: The find and replace now correctly handles text with bullet points.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue with overwritten properties in deeply nested Symbols not being applied correctly.

04 May 2023 release

Version numbers:

Hello, friends of Balsamiq!

We just did a Balsamiq Wireframes release. Here's what's new!

  • Windows and Mac: We fixed issues with the overwritten properties not being indicated in the corresponding Inspector.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue during undo of removing overwritten symbol properties.
  • Windows and Mac: Image controls with a selected asset can be transformed to an Icon once more.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue in the Linkbar control when you had a selection and removed the whole text.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue with deleted comments causing a project not to be opened.

07 March 2023 release

Version numbers:

Hello, friends of Balsamiq!

We just did a Balsamiq Wireframes release. Here's what's new!

  • Windows and Mac: We removed the Balsamiq Cloud integration. We explain the change in detail here.
  • Windows and Mac: The icon search in the inspector and icons in text received another improvement.
  • Windows and Mac: We addressed a rendering issue in the Treepane.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue with the link area.
  • Windows and Mac: Invalid web links can no longer be clicked.
  • Mac: The "Used in" section displays the names again.

06 February 2023 release

Version numbers:

Hello, friends of Balsamiq!

We just did a Balsamiq Wireframes release. Here's what's new!

  • Windows and Mac: We redesigned the link hint feature. Check it out!
  • Windows and Mac: We reduced the number of appbar icons, to simplify the UI.
  • Windows and Mac: Searching for an icon will now return best matches first.
  • Windows and Mac: We improved the change layering feature.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed a text measuring issue with bold and italic styles.
  • Windows and Mac: Changing links in the inpsector while editing text closes the text editor now correctly.
  • Windows and Mac: When you export wireframes with alternates the branch name no longer gets added twice.

01 December 2022 release

Version numbers:

Hello, friends of Balsamiq!

This is a bug fix for an issue that sneaked in the Windows release.

  • Windows: The presentation mode closes again properly.

30 November 2022 release

Version numbers:

Hello, friends of Balsamiq!

We just did a Balsamiq Wireframes release. Here's what's new!

  • Windows and Mac: We added three more brand icons. Thanks Pluwen for your request!
  • Windows and Mac: We improved the rendering speed of the Tree control.
  • Windows and Mac: We corrected the link area in the Tree control.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue with text being treated as icon when it shouldn't be an icon. Thanks Lukas W. and Rob W. for the reports!
  • Windows and Mac: We continued with our pruning and removed the Thumbnail Grid View for wireframes and assets.
  • Windows: We improved the responsiveness when resizing the Icon Library.

For the record, today’s version number is 4.6.4.

11 November 2022 release

Version numbers:

Hello, friends of Balsamiq!

We did a small bug fix release.

  • Win: When using the image inspector and font size inspector you can use again the arrow keys for navigation.
  • Mac: On macOS Ventura we fixed an error when you tried to export several wireframes to png. Thanks Andrew M. for reporting it!

07 November 2022 release

Version numbers:

Hello, friends of Balsamiq!

We just did a Balsamiq Wireframes release. Here's what's new!

  • Windows and Mac: We redesigned the Trash to a modal dialog.
  • Windows and Mac: The Symbol View is now accessible from the Edit menu.
  • Windows and Mac: You can now use the bold markup within a word. Thanks Emil M. for the request!
  • Windows and Mac: You can now use the icons in text right after any text.
  • Windows and Mac: When you open the Icon Library it now scrolls to the currently selected icon.
  • Windows and Mac: The comment link icon gets correctly rendered once more.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue when you tried to select a symbol control with a lot of elements.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed a race condition when editing a symbol control and switching back to the wireframe view.
  • Windows: In the Link inspector you can now type to jump to the starting character in the list.
  • Windows: We fixed some issues with the settings dialog when opening a new project.
  • Windows: The alternate panel always highlights now which version you currently working on.
  • Mac: We fixed an error that triggered when you selected an App Bar control.

October 2022 release summary

Hello, friends of Balsamiq!

It’s fall again in the northern hemisphere, and that means sweaters and sugar-filled coffees are the soupe du jour for the next few months. It also means that we just closed out summer, a season of vacations and slow development for our team. But, in spite of that, we have just released a bunch of big features (and written a lot of code) this quarter. So get bundled up, start a fire, and let’s chat about the last 3 months of Balsamiq Wireframes.

Font Awesome 6 comes to Balsamiq Wireframes

Internally we called this the “ICONic update” because we are old and have to make jokes accordingly. But, yes, you read that right - for the first time in almost 6 years, we are updating the icons in Balsamiq Wireframes.

With 6000+ icons, we knew we needed to do a little work on the icon library, so we made it resizable. Folks with really large screens might even be able to see the whole library at once.

The wildest thing about this update was how much work it took. You would think that adding icons wouldn’t be that big of a deal, especially since we already used Font Awesome’s library, but that turned out to be not the case. Not only has the format evolved over the last five years since we implemented new icons, but we recently released our Icons in Text update, which threw a wrench in all of the gears. Our dev team wrote thousands of lines of code to make sure that the new icons fit seamlessly into the app. It was a big day when they were able to merge it into our master branch.

I wanted to shout this out because our dev team did such a good job that you would have no idea how much work went into this “iterative” update. The whole thing works exactly how you would expect it to, and that’s largely because they spent hundreds of hours making sure that it did. A big thanks to them for the work they put in on this.

Goodbye project info panel. Hello project properties

It may seem strange to celebrate removing features from the app, but it’s always a win when it simplifies things for our users. So, keeping that in mind… the Project Info Panel is no more - long live Project Properties.

We decided, with this latest update, to move what once lived in the Project Info Panel into the Project/File menu of the editor. It’s not a huge change from a feature perspective, but it’s going to help our users a lot.

The problem we are solving is this:

Before this update, the right panel of the Balsamiq Wireframes editor could have one of 3 panels showing. The Property Inspector (which controls the properties of selected controls), The Project Info Panel (which controls the properties of the project), and The Comments Panel (which is where the project’s comments live). The main problem was confusion between The Property Inspector and The Project Info Panel. Namely, one would be selected where the user expected the other and was unsure how to get it back.

We would hear about this in support on a pretty regular basis. The mistake we made was saying, “ahh, well, this is how it is,” and (for most of the team), “how it has always been,” which is one of those answers that feels bad to give and feels bad to receive. That should have been a red flag for us, but we missed it because “that’s just how it is.”

The funny part of this story is that when Peldi suggested changing it a few months ago, he totally expected a lot of pushback from us. Instead, it was met with nothing but unbridled enthusiasm, and that enthusiasm continues today. We (support) really think this will make the experience better for veterans and newbies alike. We could not be more excited to remove a feature from the app.

And hey... now that we have the scissors out.............

Now that’s what I call Summer 14 (for Balsamiq)

A pretty productive summer, if I do say so myself. So what’s next?

  • We just added 6000 icons to the app, so we are starting to think about what we are going to do with the UI Library to make it more manageable.
  • We are working on re-doing the trash view to make it more friendly
  • We are making link icons more obvious and readable
  • What does a free version of our app look like? We are trying to figure that out too.

So yes, summer was a lot of fun. But now comes fall, and the work continues.

Onward.

-Brendan for the Balsamiq Team.

10 October 2022 release

Version numbers:

Hello, friends of Balsamiq!

We just did a major, no, ICONIC Balsamiq Wireframes release. ;)

  • Windows and Mac: MAJOR UPDATE! We updated the icon set to Font Awesome 6 (both the Regular and Solid sets). You now have over 6,308 icons to choose from, and they're all nicely categorized! That's almost 10x as many as before!
  • Windows and Mac: To make room for all the new icons, icon library is now bigger by default, and resizeable.
  • Windows and Mac: We now use the new icons inside our controls as well, instead of our old home-grown ones. It's more consistent and clean!
  • Windows and Mac: The default size for icons now is small (because it's more common than the previous large size).
  • Windows and Mac: We added the icon pop-up to the search field in the find text dialog.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an error when an icon inside text didn't fit within a control.
  • Windows and Mac: We renamed "Skins" to "Style", and renamed the Wireframe skin to "Clean".
  • Windows and Mac: WE REMOVED ONE OF THE RIGHT-SIDE PANELS! You can now change a project's style, font, colors and description from the Project menu instead.
  • Windows and Mac: We made internal and external links throughout the app have a consistent look.
  • Windows and Mac: Clicking on a link in the wireframe notes will no longer trigger an edit even in addition to following the link.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue with the hierarchy not working properly on mobile devices.
  • Windows and Mac: The sticky note control now supports the {mockup-name} tag.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue with the color tag values getting clipped in some cases.
  • Windows and Mac: We improved the usability of image links
  • Windows: We fixed an issue when adding images from the windows photos application.
  • Windows: The icon library now always loads the icons in the size that the current select control has.
  • Windows: Using the size slider in the icon library will go to the correct size in one go.

04 August 2022 release

Version numbers:

Hello, friends of Balsamiq!

We did some bug fixes this time around.

  • Windows and Mac: We added the option to transform the text input control to a text area with Crtl/Cmd + Enter while editing text.
  • Windows and Mac: We now suggest icon names replace field of Find and Replace.
  • Windows and Mac: We improved the performance of opening projects with nested symbols.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed a few issues when transforming a label control to a text one while editing the text.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue that could cause some keystrokes to no longer be recognized. Thanks Albert H. for reporting it!
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed a regression in the selection handling of the combobox control.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed a rendering issue with the dashed style of arrow and rule controls.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed several rendering issues when using icons inside text.
  • Windows and Mac: Some assets files were not being displayed in the assets view.
  • Windows: On a Hungarian keyboard you can type [ in text elements again. Thanks László D. for reporting it!
  • Windows: We fixed an issue that could occur while editing text.
  • Mac: We fixed an export image issue in connection with Dropbox folders. Thanks Zack G. for reporting it!
  • Mac: You can now mentions people in the middle of comments again.

Please be aware that this release also increases the minimum requirements for the Mac version to MacOS 10.15.

July 2022 release summary

Hello friends of Balsamiq!

It is July and that is kind of wild… We are at the halfway point of 2022, and I’m still writing 2021 on my meeting notes. Time flies when you’re having fun (and sometimes when you’re just hanging out). It’s been a while since we talked, and we have a lot to cover, so I won’t waste time with more bad jokes. It’s a lot of big features, so I am not even sure where to begin...

Find and replace

After we finished the Nested Symbols feature late last year, Find and Replace became the most requested feature, making it the next logical thing to implement. Funnily enough, like Nested Symbols, Find and Replace is another feature we tried to implement in Mockups 3 for Desktop, but couldn’t due to framework issues. Now that we are on our own homegrown codebase, we can do whatever we want.

Find and replace works exactly as you would expect it to, finding all instances of a word or phrase in your wireframes and allowing you to replace it. It does not yet work with Wireframe names (as that is a harder thing to implement) but it’s something we want to do.

It feels really good to be knocking out these big requests one by one.

Split image

I teased this one back in our last Dev Update, but it’s now live! This can be really useful if you want to wireframe on top of an existing UI to add a new element.

There isn’t much more to say about this because it does exactly what it says it will. But, with that said, it looks like magic when you use it on animated gifs. :)

Extract text

Speaking of magic, this next feature got some wild responses when Peldi first demoed it for us.

Like Split Image, if you have a piece of UI that you want to wireframe over, Extract Text will make that much easier.

All you need to do is select your image and click this little button. The app will do some thinking and then, voila, all the text on your image is now editable.

A Note for Balsamiq Wireframes for Desktop Users: because this feature uses some internet magic to make it work, you do need have a free Balsamiq Cloud account with an active internet connection.

Let me stress that: you do not need to have a paid Balsamiq Cloud account to use this feature.

A registered account with no active Spaces will totally work. Make sure you link your Balsamiq Cloud account to your Balsamiq Wireframes for Desktop installation.

Unfortunately, due to the firewalled nature of Atlassian Server and Data Center, this feature is not available on those platforms.

A new export dialog

On the surface, that sounds really boring, doesn’t it?

“A New Export dialog? Oh boy, I’m sure that was a highly requested feature!”

So, funny story about that...

We have had a half dozen miscellaneous export stories in our backlog for a while now. None of them were in the top ten of the most requested features, but they had plenty of requests...so we just decided to do all of them.

The new export dialog has all of our exports built into a single window, and they all share a bunch of the same options. So, for instance, let's say you want to export a subset of the wireframes in your project to high res PNGs. Now you can.

Or let’s say you want to share a version of the project that only includes specific wireframes. Done!

The exporter is a lot more powerful now, and I think you'll be really pleased with it.

Icons in text

This is something that we just shipped, so if you don’t see it in your version yet, make sure you are up-to-date.

There are a couple of controls in our app that allow you to add our custom icons to, and folks have been asking for that to expand to any of our controls - so that’s what we did. :)

You can now add icons to controls using the familiar (if you use slack) :icon: nomenclature. We even give you a little help finding the icon you’d like to add.

Speaking of icons...

Coming soon: Font Awesome 6!

We haven’t done a full Font Awesome icon update since the late days of Mockups 3 for Desktop, so this was overdue. We are hoping to have Font Awesome 6 icons in the app by the end of the summer! I know folks have been waiting for this one, and (if all goes according to plan) the wait shouldn't be much longer. :)

That's all for now

And here we are, at the end of another dev update. It’s summertime in these parts, so things will slow down for a bit while we go on holidays, but fear not, there are a lot of exciting updates in the pipeline.

I’m not sure which one would be the most fun to tease here. Maybe a couple of UI redesigns we are doing? Maybe the image 2 wireframe project? There are a lot of good options - picking one is difficult! :)

Until next time, friends.

-Brendan for the Balsamiq Team

07 July 2022 release

Version numbers:

Hello, friends of Balsamiq!

This time we have something nice and highly requested. Icons in text.

  • Windows and Mac: You can now use icons in text! Try to type :smile-o: in any text element.
  • Windows and Mac: We adjusted the size and positioning of the text editor.
  • Windows and Mac: You can link to wireframes with parenthesis in text links.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue with text links breaking during copy and paste.
  • Windows and Mac: Adding a weblink via the link inspector will not encode the url if it has already been encoded. Thanks for the report Uma S!
  • Windows and Mac: We improved the performance when you use the same image with the sketch option.
  • Windows and Mac: The close button in the support dialog works again.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed a reconnecting issue when you had been offline and working on the Balsamiq Cloud project. Thanks Cory for reporting it!
  • Windows and Mac: Escaped characters will be correctly rendered in the wireframe notes and project description.
  • Windows and Mac: Reopening the find menu will immediately search for the last term you searched for.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed a highlighting issue in the arrow and circle button control.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an error in the highlight of find when the match is at the end of a line.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an error in the radio button group control.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed a potential issue in the drag to select function.
  • Windows: We fixed an issue in the formatting of the release notes.

08 June 2022 release

Version numbers:

Hello, friends of Balsamiq!

Another little bug-fix release for you this month.

  • Windows and Mac: We improved the performance of the UI Library on project load. This will let you start editing earlier!
  • Windows and Mac: When you reopen the find and replace dialog it will preselect text in the search field.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an error during the rename operation of wireframes and other resources.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue in comments that prevented a project to be loaded due to incomplete data.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed a rare error when using icons.
  • Windows and Mac: We improved the number of redraws for the canvas when a change is applied.
  • Windows: You can now specify where you want to install the application in the installation wizard.

11 May 2022 release

Version numbers:

A little bug-fix release for you, mostly around the new "Find and Replace" feature.

  • Windows and Mac: It is now possible to find text in lines with a bullet point. Thanks Dirk for reporting it!
  • Windows and Mac: Arrow controls with text no longer return multiple matches in Find after you moved the arrow.
  • Windows and Mac: We corrected the shortcut in the tooltip for the fullscreen presentation mode.
  • Windows and Mac: You can open web links in unsaved projects once more.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an error when deleting text in an Accordion control.
  • Windows: We fixed a focus issue with copy and paste after you edited the text of a control. Thanks Māris N. for reporting it!
  • Windows: We fixed an issue with detecting if the computer is online or offline. Thanks Markus W. for reporting it!
  • Windows: We fixed an issue in the find and replace not searching for the right term. Thanks Mikael T. for reporting it!
  • Mac: We corrected a label in the export dialog to correctly reflect the option.

13 April 2022 release

Version numbers:

Today we have the pleasure to bring you a feature many have asked for, Find and Replace! Can you believe we survived 14 years without it? :)

  • Windows and Mac: We added Find & Replace for text in controls! You can "find it" in the Edit menu, and via CTRL/CMD + F.
  • Windows and Mac: The keyboard shortcut for switching into Fullscreen mode changed to CTRL/CMD + SHIFT + F.
  • Windows and Mac: You can now export a subset of Wireframes to a BMPR file.
  • Windows and Mac: We improved the handling of text after a linebreak.
  • Windows: We fixed a rare double-cursor issue. Thank you Gilbert W. for reporting it!
  • Mac: You can copy a Wireframe as image again and paste it in browser-based applications. Thank you Chris W. for reporting it!
  • Mac: We fixed a crash that potentially triggered when importing Wireframes, Assets and Symbols. Thank you Josephine Y. and Erica G. for reporting it!

15 March 2022 release

Version numbers:

This is releases a regression that we found in the previous release.

  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue with Nested Symbols, which prevented affected projects to be loaded.

09 March 2022 release

Version numbers:

This is mainly a bug-fix release with some additional improvements to the export feature.

  • Windows and Mac: You can now export PNGs at 1x or 2x resolution.
  • Windows and Mac: On Desktop, you can now export PNGs as individual files (like in our older versions), instead of a single zip file.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed a few issues with copying parts of a Nested Symbol not maintaining the properties of the controls correctly. Thank you Andreas F. for reporting it!
  • Windows and Mac: After adding a control with the Quick Add, you can use the arrow keys immediately to move it, as long as the Quick Add is empty.
  • Windows and Mac: The Open Balsamig Cloud project dialog sorts the projects in alphabetical order.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue when renewing image links quickly several times.
  • Windows and Mac: Exporting a PDF with notes no longer causes an error when the notes contain a link.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue during undo of a "cut wireframe" operation with comments.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue when changing an image property while cropping it.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed a rare issue with the selection handles of the arrow control being missplaced.
  • Windows and Mac: Transforming a group control to a rectangle will now maintain its size.
  • Mac: We fixed an issue in the single line text editor not supporting undo and redo.

09 February 2022 release

Version numbers:

This is mostly a bug-fix release, with 1 new feature, and 3 fewer ones!

  • Windows and Mac: We redesigned and streamlined our export functionality! We unified PDF, Images, and BMPR export in the same Export dialog. You can now choose which images to export, and more is yet to come in this area!
  • Windows and Mac: We decided to remove the "Project Members Chat" feature. It wasn't being used, and everyone already has a chat system these days. :)
  • Windows and Mac: We removed the onboarding pop-ups. They were annoying and made the app feel more complex than it is.
  • Windows and Mac: We removed the export and import JSON dialogs. You can do the same with copy and paste already!
  • Windows and Mac: We increased the resolution of the thumbnails in the navigator, and in Wireframes to Go.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue with Nested Symbols when you cut a Symbol control in a library and paste it in another. Thanks Paul G. for reporting it!
  • Windows and Mac: Transforming a control to an unnamed Symbol control now displays the correct default name. Thanks Paul G. for reporting it!
  • Windows and Mac: You can now use \ to escape commas in the iOS Menu control. Thanks Adam M. for requesting it!
  • Windows and Mac: The Navigator no longer expands all collapsed hierarchies when you add or remove a wireframe. Thanks Les A. and Roland W. for reporting it!
  • Windows and Mac: We addressed a potential error in the hierarchy of wireframes.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue with the hide/show option for the List inspector.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue when link hints were added for invalid links.
  • Windows: We fixed several small rendering issues in the UI.
  • Windows: We fixed a rare error when using a project stored on Balsamiq Cloud.
  • Windows: We fixed an issue that triggered after performing a registration.
  • Mac: We fixed an issue when you tried to change the displayed image of an image a control.
  • Mac: We fixed an issue that prevented the application to run on Mac OS High Sierra.

19 January 2022 release

Version numbers:

Another small release to address an issue on some Windows computers.

  • Windows: We reverted an update for the Clearscript library to address the issue on launch.

14 January 2022 release

Version numbers:

Happy new year everybody! This release focuses on two issues that prevented Balsamiq Wireframes for Windows from starting properly for some users.

  • Windows: We addressed two application signature issues.
  • Windows: We addressed a concurrency issue that could occur when you opened several projects at once.

15 December 2021 release

Version numbers:

The final release for 2021! We bring you some improvements and bug fixes for our newly added features. On that note, we would like to thank some of our community, who worked with our research team on the Nested Symbols feature. Thanks Martin K., David K., Paul H., Drew F., Olof G. and Jill F.!

  • Windows and Mac: We improved the handling speed of Nested Symbols. Thanks Paul G. for reporting it!
  • Windows and Mac: In Nested Symbols we solved an issue where you could create a reference loop. Thanks Benedetto for reporting it!
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue in Nested Symbols that could malform a project. Thanks Heather T. for reporting it!
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue when you removed the override properties of a Symbol but one of the override controls no longer existed in the definition.
  • Windows and Mac: We solved an issue when you removed overwritten Crop properties.
  • Windows and Mac: You can no longer add a Symbol into itself with the UI Library.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue during Crop and Split Image, if the image gets deleted during the operation.
  • Windows and Mac: Extract Text no longer replaces the image if no text has been detected in the image.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue with changing text color.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue with a loop reference in the hierarchy of wireframes.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue in the Trash view, when you tried to open the comments panel with a keyboard shortcut.
  • Windows and Mac: We solved an issue that could occur during reopening a project or opening a different project in Wireframes to go.
  • Windows and Mac: We corrected the tooltip of the Extract Text button in the image inspector.
  • Windows and Mac: We made the need for a Balsamiq Cloud account clearer in the Extract Text dialog.
  • Windows: The navigator will not display a wrong image for a wireframe while loading the project.
  • Windows: The action links in the warnings for big projects are working again.

16 November 2021 release

Version numbers:

This month's release is a big one! It has the following 3 new features:

  • Windows and Mac: Nested Symbols! That's right, our #1 most requested feature is finally live. You can create symbols inside other symbols. New power, unleashed!
  • Windows and Mac: Split Image! Very useful if you've ever had to "make space" for a new feature inside an existing UI.
  • Windows and Mac: Extract Text from images! This one's kind of magic: it converts text from screenshots to editable Balsamiq controls.

Here's a quick demo of Split Image and Extract Text: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoUxAIReRVs

We also fixed the following bugs:

  • Windows and Mac: You can give a group a name once more, if it contains a symbol.
  • Windows and Mac: If you break a cropped symbol apart the crop property now gets correctly applied to the new group.
  • Windows and Mac: When you cut a symbol control in the navigator then the new focus gets correctly reflected in the symbol navigator.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an error that could occure when you send a support ticket for a project you saved for the first time.
  • Windows and Mac: When you crop a control within a group or symbol we only display the crop floating bar.
  • Windows and Mac: If you change a property while cropping the crop operation will be canceled.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an error that could occur during a lasso select.
  • Windows and Mac: The Quickadd shortcut now ignores / characters.
  • Windows and Mac: Back links work properly again.
  • Windows: You can drag and drop images from the explorer onto Balsamiq Wireframes once more, when the app is not in focus.
  • Windows: We fixed an issue when you tried to import an image from flickr and being offline.
  • Windows: We fixed an issue in the tooltip for the navigator sometimes displaying the wrong name. Thanks for reporting it, James R.!
  • Mac: The quicklook feature in the finder works for Balsamiq projects once more.
  • Mac: The action links in the warnings for big projects are working again.

Quarter 2 and 3 releases summary

Happy Fall/Spring, friends of Balsamiq. We hope that this post finds you well and as rested as possible.

Q2 and Q3 were a wild development time for us here at Balsamiq. We didn't get to ship everything we wanted, but we shipped a lot! That just means that Q4 is turning out to be a doozy of a quarter for features... But I'm getting ahead of myself! Let's first dive into what did ship in Q2 and Q3.

Support and docs built right into the app

Support is incredibly important at Balsamiq (as it should be everywhere). We say it's one of the main things we compete on.

One of our main tenets is to "meet people where they are at". When we came up with that principle, we were thinking of it as more of a mental guideline, not a "where they are in the physical space" guideline. But meeting where you where you're at in the physical space is still important and, as it turned out, we were pretty bad at it.

Previously, if you wanted to contact the Support Team, you had to either go through the website, or your email client - neither of which are in the Balsamiq Wireframes app. But that's where you are, right? You are in the app, you have a question, the only way to answer that question is to leave the app. That's you meeting us where we are at, and that goes against our philosophy, so we had to fix it. With Balsamiq Wireframes 4.3.1 (and its corresponding web apps) you can now contact support right within the app, allowing us to meet you where you're at.

And, what's even better is that the in-app Support Email includes a bunch of information like your OS and Wireframes version (things we would have to ask for normally) which allows us to dig in immediately, skipping 2 or 3 emails of "information gathering". It means better Support, plain and simple, and we couldn't be happier about it.

But that's not all. Sometimes you have a question, but you don't want (or feel the need to) email us, you just want the documentation. This can completely break any creative flow you might have, especially since it required opening your web browser, navigating to balsamiq.com, clicking search, and then searching. It's almost easier to just email us! With update 4.3.1, we have a solution for this too:

Now you can search our documentation right from the Help menu. Once you find what you're looking for, you can click the link, and we will take you right to the page in your web browser (we played around with accessing the page inside the search window, but it was too small to be useful, especially on small displays).

We know that updates like this aren't the coolest thing in the world, but I cannot stress how happy the Support Team is to have it. We pride ourselves on giving the best support possible, and this has streamlined the process of getting you the right answer quickly. Given how many folks have used it so far, it looks like a lot of you like it too. Don't hesitate to give it a spin yourself, even if it's just to say "Hi!". :)

Quick Draw support for arrows

Shipping the original Quick Draw implementation is really fond memory of mine. It was right after Virgin and I started at Balsamiq, and we were still acclimating to how things got done here. Peldi was at a conference, waiting for his hotel room to be ready, and got bored. He brought out his laptop and just whipped a quick and dirty Quick Draw proof of concept that he had been thinking about, right there in the lobby. We all saw it and were like "oh man, this is so simple and so cool!" Andrea got his hands on it and polished it up for the next release. It was fun to see how feature development worked at Balsamiq, and made me really excited for the future.

Adding arrows to Quick Draw has been one of the most requested features, and we would always say "When we are done with the new desktop apps, we will get this added." And, well, here we are. Desktop apps are done and maturing nicely. Balsamiq Cloud is humming along...it was time to add arrows to Quick Draw.

So we did. Now you can draw Rectangles, Blocks of text, Headers of Text, Image Controls, and Arrows.

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If you're running Balsamiq Wireframes 4.3.1 or later (or one of our web-based apps), holding A and dragging will quickly draw an arrow.

Quick Draw support on mobile devices

Hey, speaking of Quick Draw, we added a nice Quick Draw Ui on mobile devices, making it easier to use the feature!

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Nested symbols

While this feature isn't available quite yet, the release is imminent (and may be available as you're reading this).

Starting in version 4.4.1 of Balsamiq Wireframes for Desktop (and corresponding web apps) you'll finally be able to nest symbols - our most requested feature of all time.

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Nested Symbols is something we tried, a long time ago, with Mockups 3. It turned out that the feature was just too much for our little Flex app, so we shelved it, knowing we would have to return when our rebuilt apps were ready. When we were planning features for 2021, Nested Symbols was the very obvious elephant in the room. When Peldi suggested we take another crack at it, it was kind of a shock for us. It had been the feature for so long, it became something of a white whale for us.

But here we are, with Nested Symbols on the cusp of shipping. We hope you dig it!

Wait, version 4.4.1? That's a big version jump! Is there anything else?

Oh yes, my friends. There are a couple of other big features coming in 4.4.1 that we are wrapping up right now. I'm going to talk about them more in-depth in the Q4 wrapup, but for now, I will give you a little tease that Peldi shared with us a few weeks ago...

Watch this video on Youtube or accept marketing-cookies to watch it here.

And that's all I have for you now, friends. We sincerely hope that you had a safe and restful summer and that your fall is just as peaceful. We will talk again soon.

-Brendan for the Balsamiq Team

13 October 2021 release

Version numbers:

We have a small bugfix release, while we finalize work on some exciting features. If everything goes well, our November release should be a big one! :)

  • Windows and Mac: We improved the feedback when you cannot save a project to Balsamiq Cloud.
  • Windows and Mac: The {color} and {size} markup macros are now case insensitive.
  • Windows and Mac: We improved the labeling of duplicating wireframes. Thanks for reporting it, Scott B.!
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed a link issue when the link points to the current wireframe. Thanks Yossi O. for reporting it!
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed a text rendering issue with small shape controls.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed a check for asset resources. Thanks for reporting it, Benedetto!
  • Mac: We have a new application icon, following the latest macOS guidelines.
  • Mac: We fixed a rendering issue when combining {color} markup and underlined text.
  • Mac: In the link inspector we addressed a layout issue with overwritten links.

15 September 2021 release

Version numbers:

We have some small improvements for you.

  • Windows and Mac: Improved the handling of Balsamiq Cloud projects that get deleted.
  • Windows and Mac: Improved the handling of damaged wireframe data. Thanks Heiko for reporting it!
  • Windows and Mac: The quickdraw cursor now always displays the correct cursor.
  • Windows and Mac: We no longer throw a warning for some very old control properties.
  • Windows: We fixed an issue with dismissing the "Transform to" pop-up.
  • Windows: We fixed a rendering issue with cropped groups. Thanks Chris S. for reporting it!
  • Windows: We fixed a rendering issue with markup controls in presentation mode. Thanks Chris S. for reporting it!
  • Windows: We fixed an issue with tooltips being displayed above other windows.
  • Mac: We fixed a layout issue in the link inspector when you have overwritten links.

20 August 2021 release

Version numbers:

This month you get something we have been preparing in the past months.

  • Windows and Mac: You can search our documentation and contact our support team without leaving the app! You can find both in the Help menu.
  • Windows and Mac: You can draw arrows! Just hold down the "A" key and draw with your mouse.
  • Windows and Mac: We now remember the zoom factor when you use zoom all. Thanks Francesco F. for reporting it!
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue in comments and callouts, not disabling the callouts of other comments.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed a rare rendering issue in the symbol view, displaying a wrong control.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue with group names not being used when converting them to symbols.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an error in copy/paste in the symbol context. Thanks Benedetto for reporting it!
  • Windows and Mac: The text markup for size no longer causes an error if you have size 0.
  • Windows and Mac: The application now reconnects when editing text controls. Thanks Cory W. for reporting it!
  • Windows: We fixed an error when two people worked on a Balsamiq Cloud project at the same time.
  • Windows: We fixed a typo in the Align menu. Thanks Chris Maeder for reporting it!
  • Windows: We now restore the window size and position in all open project scenarios.
  • Windows: We fixed a race condition during opening of projects that could lead to an error.
  • Mac: Exporting a wireframe to PNG handles the wireframe name correctly if it has a dot in the name. Thanks Bernard for reporting it!
  • Mac: We now only display a scrollbar in the transform control dialog when needed. Thanks Frank M. and Cory W. for reporting it!
  • Mac: We fixed an issue with deleting the search value in the icon inspector. Thanks Dom H. for reporting it!
  • Mac: We fixed an error that could occur when you edited a comment with callouts.
  • Mac: We fixed an issue with moving the mouse from a link to another link in the presentation mode. Thanks Penelope L. for reporting it!

14 July 2021 release

Version numbers:

Another month, another small bug-fix release while we finalize some cool new features.

  • Windows and Mac: You can now assign intranet links to controls that support links.
  • Windows and Mac: We tweaked the shape of the background of the Rectangle control with rounded corners.
  • Windows and Mac: We added tips to the Property Inspector to surface the Quick Draw feature a bit more.
  • Windows: We fixed an error when you used the arrow keys and shift to select multiple wireframes in the navigator.
  • Windows: We fixed the autosize keyboard shortcut to be handled correctly. Thanks George for reporting it.
  • Mac: The preview of Quick Draw takes now the zoom factor into account.

16 June 2021 release

Version numbers:

We're still mostly working on new future features, but some are starting to emerge. Let's take a look at what's in today's release:

  • Windows and Mac: We added a new Quickdraw option to add images by pressing the I key.
  • Windows and Mac: We updated our inspirational links in the Help menu, check them out!
  • Windows and Mac: We improved editing and adding comments with callouts.
  • Windows and Mac: We added a privacy policy checkbox when you store your user info in our application.
  • Windows and Mac: We updated Balsamiq Sans to fix a small rendering issue with ä and Ä. Thanks Patrick S. for reporting it.
  • Windows and Mac: The "Resize to" options will only be enabled when at least one control can be resized horizontally or vertically.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue when pasting symbol controls into an empty symbol library. Thanks Saravanan K. for reporting it.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue with text links going over multiple lines.
  • Windows and Mac: We handle now a data corruption case in the comments, that prevented some projects to open.
  • Windows and Mac: If you move the mouse quickly during Quickdraw, we no longer draw the snap guidelines.
  • Windows: The app remembers the window size for projects again. Thanks Andi for reporting it.
  • Windows: Rotated images get rendered correctly once more. Thanks Chris G. for reporting it.
  • Windows: When adding a new comment in a Balsamiq Cloud project, we no longer lose the text when your internet connection drops. Thanks Jigar S. for reporting it.
  • Windows: The Quickadd thumbnails get updated when you switch the skin.
  • Windows: A cropped element gets rendered correctly when you enter another group. Thanks Blaž V. for reporting it.
  • Windows: In the View menu, the shortcut for entering Fullscreen now uses F. Thanks Kevin J. for reporting it.
  • Windows: We fixed an issue when the data in the clipboard could not be parsed or added to the project.
  • Windows: We fixed several placement issues for new windows when you use two monitors.
  • Mac: We fixed the rendering of some icons in the comments panel on Big Sur.
  • Mac: We fixed the assets "Used In" height, it was too low.
  • Mac: We fixed a very rare issue when you could no longer create new projects.

Quarter 1 releases summary

Hello, Friends of Balsamiq!

It’s been a while since we last spoke, and that is on me. We have been busy here, and while I try to get one of these out every quarter, it’s been extraordinarily busy recently.

Let’s talk about why.

The big-feature train is rolling

I know we have touched on this before, but it’s worth reiterating because it’s become kind of a big deal around here. For those of you who have been following for a while, you’ll remember that we spent 2015-2017 building Balsamiq Cloud (and adapting the BW editor for our other web apps), 2017-2020 was all about building Balsamiq Wireframes for Desktop, and then we spent the last year making sure the new Desktop app was as solid as Mockups 3. Yes, we did some smaller features here and there, but the bulk of our development efforts were focused on stability and bug fixing.

And so here we are, 2021, and the focus is shifting again. It’s time to get back to the big-ticket features - and we couldn’t be more excited to start sharing them with you! The only caveat is that we are only 5 months into the year, and while there is a lot of stuff on the stove, some features still need a lot of time to cook. The good news is that we will not run out of new things to talk about - the bad news is that we have to wait a few months before we can talk about a lot of it. For now, let’s chat about what’s coming in the near future.

Balsamiq Cloud on your tablet

On April 3rd, 2010, Apple released the first iPad and brought tablet computing to the mainstream. A week later, someone sent in a request for Mockups for the iPad.

Since then, a lot of things have changed. We moved away from Flash and into built-in technologies. App Stores evolved and purchasing models changed. Mobile Browsers became more and more powerful. Now, in 2021, the question for us was “Do we need a dedicated app for Balsamiq Cloud?” After working on that for a couple of months, we think the answer is “no”.

“Ok, but why?”, you might ask, and it’s a fair question. A couple of factors played significant roles in this decision, and I would argue that they were almost equal in importance.

First, the reality is that the browser is powerful enough to do everything we want. Ultimately, if it weren’t, this wouldn't be a discussion. The main purpose of this project was to bring the authentic Balsamiq Cloud to mobile, and if browsers weren’t able to do that, we would have put a stand-alone app in App Stores.

The second factor is directly related to the last two words of that sentence: App Stores - specifically the politics of them. Putting an app in App Stores removes a layer of control that we have over your experience with the app. For instance, let’s say that we find a bug in the app, and need to patch it. If the app lives in the browser, we can update it immediately. If it’s in an App Store, then we have to submit a fix, wait for it to be approved, and it could be hours before the fix ships. After that, you still need to download an update before you see the fix.

Even if that were seamless, the fact that we cannot support folks who purchase via App Stores the same way we support our customers now was a huge disadvantage. Having the freedom to do whatever is necessary to make sure you have a good experience with our app is one of the things we pride ourselves on. App Stores take away a lot of that freedom, and the tradeoff just isn't worth it to us.

That, ultimately, is why Balsamiq Cloud is a browser-based app on mobile. I know that may be a disappointment to some (especially if you like stand-alone apps), but I promise that once you start playing with it in the browser, you won’t notice a difference. :)

Folks who have accessed Balsamiq Cloud on their tablets in the last few months may have noticed that things have gotten smoother. It’s already way better than it was six months ago, and those are just minor tweaks. We have been sneaking little updates out here and there to build the foundation of the big updates that are coming soon. As someone who wasn’t sure that Balsamiq Cloud would sing in the browser, I have to say that I have been blown away by what Tommaso and the team have accomplished. It truly feels like a dedicated app (it is even awesome with the Apple Pencil!)

We are in the process of doing some intensive testing on the latest mobile-friendly build of Balsamiq Cloud, and we hope to release it in the first half of the year. We also have some quickdraw tweaks that are coming, but those may be after the initial release. Either way I cannot wait for you to get your hands (and tablets) on it. :)

Quick Look on macOS

Quick Look is one of those features that you don’t realize you’re missing until you don’t have it. Almost every text doc, or PDF I read on my Mac, I read via Quick Look. It’s super convenient to just be able to select a document, hit the space bar, and start reading. No need to wait for an app to load - I’m already in the doc and reading.

When Marco offhandedly remarked late last year that he had been working on Quick Look in his free time, and it would be an easy addition, we immediately jumped at the chance to get it into Balsamiq Wireframes on the Mac. If you’re running the latest version of Balsamiq Wireframes for macOS, you may have noticed that Quick Look is now available. If you’re not on the latest version, you can use the in-app updater, or download the latest version from our website.

You’ll never preview wireframes the same again.

This is only the beginning

As I mentioned above, the feature train is only 5-months out of the station, and it’s only just begun to pick up steam. After we ship the Balsamiq Cloud updates, I’m hoping that I get to sit down and talk to you about the new in-app support system we are building. We have that and those quickdraw enhancements in the hopper for later this quarter, and I can’t wait to talk (and show) you more about them.

Did I mention that we are tackling the number one most requested feature in Quarter 3? Is that a subtle enough tease for the level of cool things we are working on?

As always, it’s an honor to get a chance to chat with you about these things. We are super excited for this year, and I cannot wait to share more with you.

Until next time, friends.

14 April 2021 release

Version numbers:

While we work on bigger features, here's another batch of small improvements and bug fixes for you.

  • Windows and Mac: You can now select multiple wireframes and copy/paste/cut or duplicate them all at once!
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed a resize issues with cropped groups.
  • Windows and Mac: The warnings for big projects will disappear after 15 seconds.
  • Windows and Mac: Duplicating a control in the symbol view works correctly again.
  • Windows and Mac: The mockup-name macro gets correctly updated when you rename a wireframe.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue when importing files with special characters. Thanks Samuel for reporting the issue.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue when copying wireframes between projects.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue with the cut command in review mode.
  • Windows and Mac: Resizing a cropped group correctly scales the group.
  • Windows and Mac: Moving a control with arrow key no longer keeps the selection if you click on another control shortly after the movement.
  • Windows and Mac: We improved the automatic start of the background music and addressed a potential crash issue with it.
  • Windows: You can now drag and drop a BMPR project onto the app to import it.
  • Windows: We no longer lose comment changes if the connection drops. Thanks Jigar for reporting it!
  • Windows: We fixed an issue when the toast notifications no longer appeared.
  • Windows: We fixed an error in the Icon Library.
  • Mac: We did several UI tweaks for MacOS Big Sur - it looks gorgeous now!
  • Mac: We addressed an issue during the auto-update not closing the application correctly.
  • Mac: We fixed an issue with BMPR file icons being blank in Big Sur. You will have to restart your computer after updating to see the effect.

11 March 2021 release

Version numbers:

We're working on lots of exciting new things. In the meantime, here's a substantial bug-fix release for you!

  • Windows and Mac: We moved the "Back to Wireframe" button into the app bar and added it to the assets and trash view. Thanks Daniel for requesting it!
  • Windows and Mac: You can now trigger redo with Ctrl/CMD + Y in addition to Ctrl/CMD + Shift + Z.
  • Windows and Mac: When you import a project we now retain the comments.
  • Windows and Mac: When you paste a lot of data we will now present a progress bar, while the application is busy.
  • Windows and Mac: We changed the design of the conflict dialog a bit to make the new and exiting label look less like a button.
  • Windows and Mac: Copy to Bitmap is again possible when the focus is on the canvas and no control is selected. Thanks Bill and Alexey for reporting it!
  • Windows and Mac: Icon and Label control correctly calculates the height of the control, when the label is not below the icon. Thanks Cory for reporting it!
  • Windows and Mac: We added a few new tooltips to the navigator menu.
  • Windows and Mac: Tooltips for controls on the canvas will no longer appear while editing the text of a control. Thanks Tim for reporting it!
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed a rendering issue with the tab bar control when you selected a tab in sketch skin. Thanks Andi for reporting it!
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed a rare issue when you could not export a Balsamiq Cloud project to pdf. Thanks Rajesh and Joschua for reporting it!
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue when the scrollbar and zoom factor were not correctly maintained. Thanks Daniel for reporting it!
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue with displaying the 'trash is empty' notification in some cases.
  • Windows and Mac: Forced line breaks at the end of the text correctly calculate their line hight. Thanks Dagfinn and Robert for reporting it!
  • Windows: Addressed a few minor layout issues.
  • Windows: We fixed an issue in the presentation mode where it could happen that parts of the wireframe got clipped. Thanks Wilbèr for reporting it!
  • Windows: You can again double-click on the resize border of the panels in presentation mode to reset their width to the default value.
  • Windows: The unread comments and the comments tooltip no longer appear at the same time.
  • Windows: We fixed a potential error when adding controls from the UI library.
  • Windows: We fixed an issue in the selection inspector not setting the selected value correctly. Thanks Daniel for reporting it!
  • Mac: We fixed a potential freeze during resize. Thanks Laurence for reporting it!
  • Mac: The crop bar correctly now displays the crop size the first time you enter the crop mode.
  • Mac: The chat background color is no longer a light blue on Big Sur.
  • Mac: If the autoupdate triggers during quit it will now correctly close the app after updating.
  • Mac: We fixed the order of the color properties for the shape control.
  • Mac: Importing a BMPR project by dragging a file on an open project works again.

09 February 2021 release

Version numbers:

First update of 2021! We keep on working on making Balsamiq Wireframes better.

Here is what's new:

  • Windows and Mac: You can now import a project by dragging the file onto the target project.
  • Windows and Mac: You can now import a folder with images.
  • Windows and Mac: Importing a project now maintains comments, notes and project description.
  • Windows and Mac: We added a color swatch to the context menu, for controls that support color and are overlayed.
  • Windows and Mac: You can now select the wireframe notes without needing to edit them.
  • Windows and Mac: Exporting to JSON now requires one less step than before.
  • Windows and Mac: We added a few tooltips to elments that did not have one.
  • Windows and Mac: We improved the feedback in the fullscreen mode when you hide a panel.
  • Windows and Mac: We hide the layering inspector when you overwrite a symbol control.
  • Windows and Mac: We improved the visual feedback if the focus is currently on the navigator.
  • Windows and Mac: We improved the font size in some cases when using the {size} macro.
  • Windows and Mac: We improved the handling of double clicks and fast mouse movements. Thanks Guilherme and Cory for the request!
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed pasting controls from one group to another: it now sets the offset correctly.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue with pasting controls with overridden properties.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed breaking symbols apart to maintain overwritten properties.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed pasting a symbol control in a symbol library. We also addressed the crash error that could be caused by this issue.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed a case when select unused images did not select all unused images.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed the color markup to correctly apply the color to the underline as well.
  • Windows and Mac: We updated the library for our realtime collaboration feature with Balsamiq Cloud.
  • Windows: We fixed the performance drop when there were a lot transparent objects to be drawn. Thanks Matthias for reporting it!
  • Windows: We fixed several causes of errors in the integration with Balsamiq Cloud when the internet connection drops.
  • Windows: We fixed two errors during PDF export.
  • Windows: The PDF export no longer includes the fonts several times. Thanks Lê Cao for reporting it!
  • Mac: We now support Quick Look for BMPR files! Try it out! Just select a BMPR file, hit the space bar, and you'll get a preview without having to open Balsamiq Wireframes.
  • Mac: Fixed the difficulty to close the toast notifications when there were several at the same time. Thanks Paul for reporting it.
  • Mac: The home icon in the group and symbol floating bar is black again on Big Sur. Thanks Matthew for reporting it!

22 December 2020 release

Version numbers:

It has been a long year with lots of improvements. Enjoy and see you next year!

Here is what's new:

  • Windows and Mac: We made lots of improvements to the right-click menu. Check it out!
  • Windows and Mac: We updated the inspirational quotes you see while loading.
  • Windows and Mac: We increased the export resolution of PNGs.
  • Windows and Mac: We increased the thumbnail resolution in the Navigator and in the UI Library.
  • Windows and Mac: We improved the handling of the symbol library conflicts to handle each symbol control individually, instead of the whole library.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue with pasting that wasn't correctly disabled.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue with handling unicode.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue when your editor was offline and you tried to close a project with image links.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue when you tried to empty the Trash when it was already empty.
  • Windows: The text in exported PDF now properly uses kerning. Thanks Max for reporting it!
  • Windows: We fixed an issue when you tried to close a Balsamiq Cloud project while offline.
  • Windows: The app no longer crashes when you are offline and you have a Balsamiq Cloud project open.
  • Windows: We improved the layout of some inspectors.
  • Windows: Scrolling the Icon Library with the scrollbar no longer closes it. Thanks Paul for reporting it!
  • Windows: We addressed the causes of several errors.
  • Mac: The app now runs natively on the M1 chips!
  • Mac: Fixed copying text with emojis. Thanks Anthony for reporting it!
  • Mac: When you open Wireframes to Go the focus gets set to the search field.
  • Mac: We fixed an issue when you have % in your file name.
  • Mac: The check for update dialog now correctly uses light theme.
  • Mac: We fixed an issue when importing an image while the choose image from filesystem dialog is open.
  • Mac: Fixed the styling of the border inspector for the rectangle control on Big Sur.
  • Mac: Fixed a crash that occurred when the sheet dialog appeared when the app was in the background.

End of 2020 releases summary

Hello, friends of Balsamiq!

The year has begun to wind down, and that means it’s time to post an update on what we have been working on, (and what we have shipped).

So, let’s begin… :)

Balsamiq Wireframes is smarter about your projects

One thing we see in support more often than we would like is that folks' projects start slowing down after a while. 9 times out of 10, this is because the project size has started to bloat (the trash is holding a lot of wireframes, there are a lot of unused assets that the app has to process, etc). It wasn’t that emptying the trash or removing the assets was difficult, it just wasn’t very discoverable. This update hopes to address that.

The Balsamiq Wireframes Editor (which is used in all of our modern apps) now will alert you when your file could use a tune-up. Whether it's the number of Symbols you’re using or how big your trash is, the app will walk you through cleaning that up.

We are still tweaking when (and how often) you will see the popups and would love to get your feedback on them. If you feel like you’re seeing them too much - or not enough - please get in touch. It’s very much a Goldilocks feature, and we want to get it juuust right.

Higher quality PNG exports

One of the top-5 feature requests for Balsamiq Wireframes was high-dpi PDF exports, which is something we launched Balsamiq Cloud with. However, we weren’t able to include hi-dpi PNG exports as well, which lead to an inconsistent experience. Not ideal, for sure.

Now that things have settled down on the bug-fixing side, we can start focusing on little wins like this.

It’s a small thing, but a big improvement for the folks who have been requesting it. I’m just excited because now all the memes that I include in my wireframes will be readable on retina screens :).

This feature will ship with the next update, but you can get it (and all desktop updates) early if you join our Slack Community.

A better RTC configuration panel for Atlassian Server

This is one of those features that most folks will find boring, but the handful of people who need it will be relieved that it exists.

When we launched Balsamiq Wireframes for Atlassian Server Products, we included a behind-the-firewall collaboration system so that our server customers could still take advantage of real-time wireframe collaboration. Unfortunately, due to the nature of server installations, this was not a one size fits all situation, and required a lot of additional configuration.

We made a lot of tweaks to the panel, which hopefully means admins can spend less time tweaking config files, and more time focusing on other things.

Hundreds and hundreds of bugs fixed

Our focus for the first year of Balsamiq Wireframes Everywhere™ was to squash as many bugs as we could, bringing the stability of our legacy apps to our new apps quickly. As we come to the close of that year, we think we have gotten really close. It was a lot of work, but it was worth it.

Now we can focus on features (and breaking the app all over again :) ).

So long, myBalsamiq

When Adobe announced Flash's end of life in 2017, we knew myBalsamiq’s days were numbered. Without support from Adobe, maintaining a Flash-based web app would be very difficult (and, potentially, unsafe), so we made the decision to close down myBalsamiq for good this year.

On December 1st, we hit the power button on the myBalsamiq server and turned it off for good. It was bittersweet.

If you didn’t get a chance to get your projects out, or you have any questions about the shutdown, please don’t think twice about dropping us a line. We plan to hold on to backups of people’s projects for the next six months or so.

After a while, Mockups 3

We have also decided to fully retire Mockups 3 for Desktop on January 15th of next year (2021). When Flash went away, Adobe Air’s writing was on the wall. The days of Adobe Flex (the framework that powers Mockups 3) were coming to an end. The world had moved on, either to more modern frameworks like Electron, or more platform native solutions (like our Balsamiq Wireframes for Desktop apps use).

We will continue to offer Mockups 3 for download for as long as it’s needed, we just won’t be issuing additional updates for it. Your license will continue to work for as long as the app functions.

I started at Balsamiq right after we launched Mockups 3, and while I’m sad to be closing that chapter of our book, it’s exciting to think about all the cool things we will be able to do now that we don’t have to worry about maintaining backward compatibility. New controls, rebuilt controls - the world is our oyster. :)

And on that note, it’s time to close out another Dev Update. If we don’t have a chance to chat beforehand, I hope you have a wonderful and safe holiday. It’s been a hard year for a lot of folks, and I hope that the holidays bring you some respite from that.

I’ll see you next year (ha ha).

11 November 2020 release

Version numbers:

We addressed a lot small issues to make your work easier.

Here is what's new:

  • Windows and Mac: We added warnings when you have many unused resources in a project.
  • Windows and Mac: When importing project we check for existing resources.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue with undo and redo while importing a project.
  • Windows and Mac: The zoom is more predictable when using the scroll wheel to zoom in and out.
  • Windows and Mac: We no longer do an html decoding during importing or pasting of controls with text. Thanks Alex for reporting it!
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue with alternates that could occur if the alternate was discarded and the undo operation required this alternate.
  • Windows and Mac: We added a delete control option to the context menu.
  • Windows and Mac: You may now generate a PDF export of your project after the trial period expired.
  • Windows and Mac: We no longer render the return character in the notification tooltip, for easier reading. Thanks Benedetto for reporting it!
  • Windows and Mac: You can now use the size markup {size:xx}{size} without test to increase the current row height. Thanks for reporting it Olof!
  • Windows and Mac: You no longer encounter an error when you open a Balsamiq Cloud Project and a resource gets deleted while you are still loading the project.
  • Windows: We improved once more the rendering performance of the canvas.
  • Windows: We fixed a small shift in the navigator when you switched between editor and reviewer role. Thanks Benedetto for reporting it!
  • Windows: When editing a Symbol control the other controls in the Symbol Library get blend out correctly.
  • Windows: We fixed horizontal scrolling in the presentation mode with the trackpad.
  • Windows: You can now use # when entering color values in the inspector.
  • Windows: We fixed a rendering issue with bold and italic text styling.
  • Windows: When opening a project from Balsamiq Cloud the projects are now listed in the same order as in the web version.
  • Windows: We fixed a rendering issue in the size inspector when overwriting the size of Symbol control. Thanks Benedetto for reporting it!
  • Windows: We fixed an issue when the import of an image from web failed.
  • Windows: We fixed a rendering issue with long urls in the import image from web dialog.
  • Windows: The application no longer causes an error when a text contains specific unicode characters.
  • Windows: We fixed an issue with links in the project and wireframe notes.
  • Windows: Opening a project from open recent opens the project in the window size and position of the previous session.
  • Windows: We addressed several smaller issues with the tooltips.
  • Mac: Choosing to edit the Symbol Sources now always selects the correct control.
  • Mac: Selecting all unused assets now always selects the correct assets.
  • Mac: If you try to open a project that is already open it will be brought to the front.
  • Mac: Lato no longer gets rendered poorly in the custom font option if you have Lato installed on your computer.
  • Mac: We addressed a potential issue when entering the presentation mode.

30 September 2020 release

Version numbers:

This release is all about polish.

Here is what's new:

  • Windows and Mac: We now cache asset data for projects from Balsamiq Cloud to improve loading speed.
  • Windows and Mac: Improved the toast message and option when moving resources to the Trash.
  • Windows and Mac: Fixed a small rendering bug with the Alert Button.
  • Windows and Mac: Improved the rendering and placing of text links in the Label control.
  • Windows and Mac: Fixed an error in an undo/redo scenario for creating Symbol controls.
  • Windows and Mac: Toast notifications no longer trigger an error during the closing of a project.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed a rare issue when you quickly changed controls.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue that can occur during importing resources when you have alternates.
  • Windows: The big arrow pointer is now on top of the link hints in the presentation mode.
  • Windows: Horizontal scrolling in the UI Library is once more possible with Shift+Scrollwheel. Thanks Jordan for reporting it!
  • Windows: We fixed a potential error when leaving presentation mode.
  • Windows: We improved a few small layout issues in the navigator.
  • Windows: If you close the last project via the "Close" command it will not be restored in the next session. Thanks Max for requesting this!
  • Windows: We fixed an issue with text formatting in wireframe notes causing an error.
  • Mac: Other assets correctly display their file icon in asset Grid View and Trash.
  • Mac: Importing other assets is again possible via drag and drop.

09 September 2020 release

Version numbers:

We hope you could recharge during the summer. Some of us did, which lead to working on many smaller items instead of few big ones. :)

Here is what's new:

  • Windows and Mac: The Combobox min width is again 10 if you have items in the drop down menu. Thanks Christopher for reporting it!
  • Windows and Mac: The Combobox and Menu control now correctly calculate the row height if you have both of them in a wireframe. Thanks Paul G. for reporting it!
  • Windows and Mac: Bullet list now take the indention into account to wrap the text correctly. Thanks Paul G. for reporting it!
  • Windows and Mac: Text links now support unicode characters in the Wireframe names. Thanks Hugh and Vlad for reporting it!
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue where the Undo operation did not correctly revert a text change.
  • Windows and Mac: When copying data between projects wireframes get checked if they already exist in the target project.
  • Windows and Mac: We improved the loading speed of projects from Balsamiq Cloud.
  • Windows and Mac: When you choose to edit the definition of a Symbol control for the first time in a session, the Symbol control will be brought correctly into focus. Thanks Paul H. for reporting it!
  • Windows and Mac: Export to PDF option choices get now correctly remembered across sessions and projects. Thanks Alex for reporting it!
  • Windows and Mac: Using the nudge resize keyboard shortcut now handles multiple directions correctly.
  • Windows and Mac: You can use "F2" and "CMD/Ctrl + Alt + R" to rename a Wireframe, Asset or Symbol.
  • Windows and Mac: We added several tooltips for controls that were missing.
  • Windows and Mac: We updated the learn more link for the Trash view.
  • Windows and Mac: The "-- Edited" flag no longer appears in the brief moment the data hasn't been saved with autosave.
  • Windows and Mac: The assets info panel displays the actual file size of the resource.
  • Windows: Small performance improvement when switching to another wireframe.
  • Windows: We fixed an error when you were working on a Balsamiq Cloud project and the Internet connection got interrupted.
  • Windows: The user info dialog correctly checks the email address for a public Gravatar.
  • Windows: Several small UI tweaks in the Wireframe Navigator.
  • Windows: Fixed an error in the check for updates causing it to pop up even though you had the latest version. Thanks Paul G. for reporting it!
  • Mac: We no longer display the link hint icons from the edit mode in the presentation mode.
  • Mac: We fixed the mouse cursor during panning operations.
  • Mac: We fixed an error within the Wireframes To Go integration. Thanks Benedetto for reporting it.
  • Mac: The app now correctly checks the minimum operating system version for execution.
  • Mac: We fixed a potential error during selecting unused Assets.
  • Mac: If you quit the application during the start process it no longer crashes.

05 August 2020 release

Version numbers:

This is the first update that you can get with the new check for updates feature!

Here is what's new:

  • Windows and Mac: You will be able to copy and paste a subset of a Symbol Library into another project's Symbol Library.
  • Windows and Mac: Pasting a symbol library in a project that has no Symbol Library is now possible in the Symbols View.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an issue with using "Use New" in the paste/import conflict dialog.
  • Windows and Mac: We now detect existing resource names in the paste/import conflict dialog for assets and symbols.
  • Windows and Mac: The text of Sitemap controls with links can be edited again.
  • Windows and Mac: The Alert Button correctly renders the switch from two to one button, without the need to reopen the project. Thanks Corey for reporting it!
  • Windows and Mac: The Menu and Combobox control correctly render the separators and menu options without reloading the project. Thanks Paul for reporting the issue!
  • Windows and Mac: Navigator hierarchy remembers the “open/collapsed” state across sessions. Thanks Les, Jim and Laura for reporting it!
  • Windows and Mac: Text Links will use the correct color in thumbnails, PNG export and PDF export. Thanks Max for reporting it!
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed the formatting of the banner you see when you open a project of a suspended Cloud space.
  • Windows and Mac: When you edit a project with Autosave off, we display an "Edited" suffix in the title bar when latest changes haven't been saved yet.
  • Windows and Mac: If you transform a control to another the color values will only be carried over if they were changed from the default values. Thanks Alex for reporting it!
  • Windows: The Icon and Label tooltip shows the correct keyboard shortcut to open the Icon Library.
  • Windows: Multiline Text window editing now fits correctly inside the application.
  • Windows: The application no longer crashes if you close a project while a toast notification is active.
  • Windows: Closing the Copy to JSON dialog by using the X button no longer freezes the application.
  • Mac: The text color of the last rows of the Calendar control are now set correctly again.
  • Mac: When you crop controls, the "cropped" part gets now displayed with transparency. Thanks Pluwen for reporting it!

Balsamiq Wireframes 4.1 announcement

Hello again, Friends of Balsamiq. It’s time again for a big Balsamiq Wireframes for Desktop release.

Today, I’m excited to introduce you to Balsamiq Wireframes for Desktop version 4.1. Wireframes for Desktop 4.1 is a massive release, with bug fixes and a big new feature. Let’s dive in, shall we?

The most striking thing about Wireframes for Desktop 4.1 is that we have fixed literally hundreds of bugs since its release back in January. If you’re still running Balsamiq Wireframes for Windows 4.0.1 (and, honestly, that’s amazing if you are), today’s release will fix around 300 bugs for you. That’s a lot!

“But Brendan,” you ask “how many people are really running old versions of the app?”

Unfortunately, a lot more than we would like.

Our app updating process has always been somewhat obscure. You have to go to our download page, download the update, and install it as if you were installing a new app. It wasn’t the most user-friendly process for updating an app, and we knew that. We were kind of forced into it with our Adobe Air based apps, but now that Balsamiq Wireframes for Desktop is completely native, we can do better. So, without further ado, I’d like to introduce you to our first feature of 4.1.

In-App automatic updates

As you can imagine, in-app automatic updates have been a highly requested feature for a while. No one wants to re-download and install an app to update it, especially not in 2020, so we knew this was something we had to prioritize as soon as the bug fixing died down. Today is the last day that you will have to download an update from our download page. Once you have 4.1 installed, we will let you know when an update is ready, and automatically download it through the app.

We even have a little icon to let you know there is a new update waiting for you. :)

So that’s in-app automatic updates. Let’s talk about another change for Wireframes for Desktop 4.1

An updated Balsamiq Sans font

We have used Balsamiq Sans as our default font since version 2.1 of Mockups for Desktop (nearly 9 years ago!), and we really love it.

Recently, however, we decided that we needed to make some updates to the font to make it more web-friendly, and cleaner. A lot of the work was done by the Google Font team in order to bring our font up to snuff with the freely available fonts on Google Fonts (you can take a look at our listing here).

Font aficionados will surely appreciate the changes (especially the kerning changes), but we wanted to bring it to everyone’s attention because your projects that use the font may need a little adjusting. We apologize for that and hope you’ll understand. We don’t like making any change that can potentially lead to cleanup work on your end, but we thought this change was important enough to justify that.

Of course, if you have any questions, or run into any issues, don’t think twice about emailing us, and we will do everything we can to help.

Finally, we have one more feature for you.

Spell check on Windows

I know this doesn’t seem like a big one, but a lot of folks have been requesting it, and we have been working hard to get it implemented. Now you can spell onomatopoeia on the first try*, without having to google it!

Eagle-eyed Windows users may have noticed that this was actually included in our 4.0.48 release, which is true. We wanted to give it a shout-out here so that the folks who have been requesting it would see it too. :)

That’s all for us this time around, friends. It’s exciting to think that these posts won’t be the only way we communicate new releases to you. It’s a brave new world for us. :)

Until next time, stay as safe as you can, and be good to each other!

*I had to Google it.

22 July 2020 release

Version numbers:

We have something new and shiny for you. It is time to enter a new era! :)

This new release will offer the option of auto updates!

But that is not all, so let's see what else is in this release:

  • Windows and Mac: Check for update and auto update!
  • Windows and Mac: A new command line option for IT departments to deactivate the auto update.
  • Windows and Mac: Updated the Balsamiq Sans font with the latest kerning fixes.
  • Windows and Mac: Performance improvements for text measuring.
  • Windows and Mac: Improved the recognition of existing assets further - especially for images.
  • Windows and Mac: Improved the conflict dialog for symbol controls. It now displays thumbnails of the different Symbol Libraries.
  • Windows and Mac: Improved the import JSON dialog. The import button stays disabled if the JSON structure is malformed.
  • Windows and Mac: Importing a project no longer clears the Undo/Redo stack.
  • Windows: The taskbbar now displays all open application windows correctly.
  • Windows: We addressed an issue when the real time communication did not disconnect properly.
  • Mac: The registration dialog has now a helper text where you need to put your license key.
  • Mac: We fixed a crash that could occur after you closed a project on Balsamiq Cloud.
  • Mac: We fixed an error when importing a project with many assets. Thanks Christian for reporting it!

08 July 2020 release

Version numbers:

We have a new little release with a bunch of improvements.

Here is what's new:

  • Windows and Mac: Adjusted the fullscreen dialog a little.
  • Windows and Mac: Fixed an issue with unicode chars that do not have a width during the PDF export.
  • Windows and Mac: Fixed an issue that could lead to selecting controls in different groups, which lead to an error.
  • Windows and Mac: Some UI tweaks to the dialog to handle conflicts when you import resources that already exist in the project.
  • Windows and Mac: Improved the detection if resources are already present in the project.
  • Windows: The app will use the system language for spellchecking.
  • Windows: Fixed an issue with a huge number of nested groups.
  • Windows: Fixed an error that could trigger while closing a window.
  • Windows: The link hints get correctly hidden in the fullscreen mode. Thanks Ralf for reporting it.
  • Windows: Imporing an image caused an error if it had no DPI information.
  • Windows: If the app tries to open a native save dialog with a file path that no longer exists, we will fall back to the default path.
  • Mac: We fixed a crash caused by the Icon inspector. Thanks Mario for reporting it!
  • Mac: We fixed an issue with the snaplines appearing thicker than they should.
  • Mac: Long wireframe names get now properly handled in the thumbnail view.
  • Mac: Fixed an error when you tried to connect to Balsamiq Cloud and a user avatar could not be retrieved.
  • Mac: Fixed an error when in a copy paste scenario with a Balsamiq Cloud project and a new unsaved project. Thanks Daniel for reporting it!

June 2020 releases summary

Hello, friends of Balsamiq! We hope this post finds you doing well.

As has become a tradition for our chats, it’s been a while since we spoke last. And, as it was the last time, that is not an indicator of us standing still. In fact, since the release of Balsamiq Wireframes for Desktop, we have been squashing bugs at a fever pitch.

Now that it has slowed a bit, we have been able to slide back into feature development. Over the next few months, there will be a couple of big (and highly-requested) features coming to our apps. Today, we are going to talk about the first one of those.

Image Links are a feature we introduced in our (now) vintage web-app, myBalsamiq - and they got a ton of use. Image Links were a safe way to embed your wireframes in places so folks could view them without having to sign up for myBalsamiq. Users used them in their Confluence Pages, their Jira Issues, and even their websites.

When we launched Balsamiq Cloud in 2016, we didn’t yet have a way to do Image Links in the new app. We knew we had to get started on re-writing our desktop apps, so we put Image Links on the backburner, knowing that folks who still needed them could stick with myBalsamiq for the time being.

This was immediately complicated by Adobe’s 2017 announcement regarding Flash’s end of life, which put a date on myBalsamiq’s demise (December of 2020). We were knee-deep into Desktop development at that point and didn’t have the bandwidth to support two large-scale development projects. We knew time was of the essence, though, and that Image Links had to be our first priority once we came out of Desktop development.

And so here we are, 6 months out from myBalsamiq's EOL, and Image Links are finally ready! As of this posting, they are live on Balsamiq Cloud, Balsamiq for Google Drive, Balsamiq for Confluence Cloud, and Balsamiq for Jira Cloud. If you’re accessing your Balsamiq Cloud projects through Balsamiq Wireframes for Desktop, you can generate your Image Links there too.

I don’t want to parrot the documentation for them too much, so you should go check them out. It’s a really nice implementation, and I think you’ll dig it. 🙂

Wireframes for Desktop Release Notes

So this next item isn’t a feature per se. It’s more of a…preview(?) of an upcoming feature. 🙂

In preparation for an upcoming desktop app feature, we have published all the release notes that we had been posting to our Community Slack. You can find the release notes page here.

More information on the feature they are tied to next time…

Balsamiq Wireframes for Linux (via Wine)

As it turned out, a lot of folks were using Mockups 3 for Desktop on Linux (using Wine), and we sort of left them hanging with Balsamiq Wireframes for Desktop as it didn't work nicely with Wine.

Today, we are correcting that. 🙂

Our latest Windows release of Balsamiq Wireframes for Desktop now works with Wine. If you’re looking to get started, check out our Github repo to find the installation instructions. There are a couple of bugs we are working on (for instance, it won’t connect to Balsamiq Cloud), but it should be very usable.

While we don’t officially support it, we’re happy to try to answer any questions or address issues you run into. Just drop us an email.

That’s all for this update, friends. We have a lot of things in various stages of cooking, and we will be sharing them with you real soon. Stay safe, and we will chat again soon.

Brendan for the Balsamiq Team

17 June 2020 release

Version numbers:

We have a nice update for our desktop versions packed with lots of bug fixes.

Here is what's new:

  • Windows and Mac: Compress new png assets to jpg, if the png does not use the alpha channel.
  • Windows and Mac: In Balsamiq Cloud projects you can now add an image sharing link.
  • Windows and Mac: Fixed a PDF export issue where the mime type of an image was wrong.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed several issues with comments, when you never set the user information.
  • Windows and Mac: Preserve color when transforming a "Label" to an "Icon and Label" and back. Thanks Cory and Pluwen for reporting it.
  • Windows and Mac: Added a context menu for assets in the UI Library to delete the asset like we have in Balsamiq Mockups 3. Thanks Alex and Benedetto for reporting it.
  • Windows and Mac: The Checkbox control and the Radio Button control correctly apply the chosen color to the text. Thanks Klaus for reporting it.
  • Windows and Mac: Fixed an edge case where the color markup got displayed as text in Checkbox Group and Radio Button Group control.
  • Windows and Mac: Fixed a rendering issue in the Tree Pane control when you only had the symbol characters in the line. Thanks Karsten for reporting it.
  • Windows and Mac: We addressed a potential race condition that could cause errors.
  • Windows: Fixed an error that could occur during closing a project.
  • Windows: Fixed an error that could occur when dismissing a dialog.
  • Windows: Fixed an error when you disconnected your desktop version from Balsamiq Cloud.
  • Windows: Fixed that Balsamiq Wireframes correctly opens, when you connected your desktop version to Balsamiq Cloud and the application is closed.
  • Windows: You can now use Flickr to import an image when you use a proxy.
  • Windows: When emptying the trash the file size did not get correctly reduced.
  • Windows: Quick Add no longer stops working via remote control. Thanks Tomas for reporting it.
  • Windows: Fixed that the big arrow pointer got partially hidden in the presentation mode. Thanks Farzam for reporting it.
  • Mac: Clicking on a weblink in a comment gets correctly opened in the browser.
  • Mac: The mouse cursor changes now to a hand pointer when you hover over a link in the comments.

26 May 2020 release

Version numbers:

We have a nice update for our desktop versions packed with lots of bug fixes.

Here's what's new:

  • Windows and Mac: We fixed the issue when you could not paste after leaving the overwrite mode of a Symbol control. Thanks Paul and Chris for reporting it.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed an error when the hierarchy information got corrupted.
  • Windows and Mac: Some control changes got communicated via real time collaboration, but the view was not updated in the other sessions.
  • Windows and Mac: When you had only two spaces in a Data Grid cell, we no longer write undefined into the cell. Thanks Jakob and Craig for reporting it.
  • Windows and Mac: The mouse pointer did not always display the correct state when you pressed the ALT key.
  • Windows and Mac: When you resized a group, with a link assigned to the group, we now update the link hint position. Thanks Benedetto for reporting it.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed a potential error when iterating over symbols.
  • Windows and Mac: Pasting a control after switching to a wireframe correctly sets the focus to the canvas. Thanks Ingolf for reporting it.
  • Windows: Now supports system proxy, including the command line registration.
  • Windows: We fixed an error when you could not reload a project from Balsamiq Cloud due to e.g. network issues.
  • Windows: Fixed crashes while exporting to PDF or PNG due to font woes
  • Windows: Fixed a problem with incorrect cursor sizes depending on screen resolution. Thanks Danni for reporting it
  • Windows: Fixed group breadcrumb sometimes not showing up un multiple monitors.
  • Windows: Fixed canvas thick grey borders on small models.
  • Windows: Fixed an error cancelling a download request from cloud.
  • Windows: Fixed a problem in the scrolling of the navigator right after load. Thanks Hamilton for reporting it.
  • Windows: We fixed the "Transform to" dialog, which could sometimes not be dismissed.
  • Windows: Fixed opening projects in SharePoint. Thanks Michael for reporting it.
  • Windows: Fixed an offset in mouse pointer when selecting controls in the canvas.
  • Windows: Fixed blurry application moving it between monitors.
  • Mac: We fixed an error when you edited the wireframe notes and project notes.
  • Mac: When you start to edit the notes we set the focus now correctly, so you do not need a second click to set the focus yourself.
  • Mac: Editing the wireframe notes has now the same font size as when the text is saved and displayed.
  • Mac: The floating breadcrumb menu can no longer be partially hidden behind the UI Library.
  • Mac: When you opened a project that caused an error on open, we will restore the other projects you had open in the previous session. The open process used to stop after attempting to open the failing project.
  • Mac: Fixed an error with importing a renamed image. Thanks Sabine for reporting it.
  • Mac: Improved the scrolling of the navigator.
  • Mac: We fixed the preview of the drag and drop operation.
  • Mac: We fixed several UI issues with the Transform control panel.
  • Mac: We added some Cancel buttons to dialogs that you could dismiss with ESC but could not dismiss by pressing a button.
  • Mac: We fixed a crash when you tried to move a displayed element that shouldn't have been displayed anymore.

29 April 2020 release

Version numbers:

Here are the changes for todays release:

  • Windows and Mac: Data grid: Tabs no longer get replaced with a comma when you assign a text link.
  • Windows and Mac: Data grid: Spaces after a separator will be maintained when you assign a text link.
  • Windows and Mac: Data grid: Text links directly after a separator will be handled correctly.
  • Windows and Mac: Checkbox group and Radio button group support the color markup better and apply them properly to the checkboxes, radio buttons and text.
  • Windows and Mac: Fixed an issue where an image could be added via drag&drop but not via import from disk.
  • Windows and Mac: Some projects caused a crash on open, cause was the wireframe order combined with the hierarchy.
  • Windows and Mac: Fixed a potential crash when handling comments.
  • Mac: Improved the handling of dialogs. You can use Enter to confirm the button in focus.
  • Mac: Fixed an issue which caused that the link hints in PDFs where missing.
  • Mac: The characters ` and ´ get rendered correctly. They were swapped.
  • Mac: The single line text editor now scrolls again.
  • Mac: Fixed an issue that CTRL+Click did not get handled as right click.
  • Mac: Fixed a crash in the context of groups with the floating breadcrumb.
  • Mac: Corrected the mime/type for the bmpr files.
  • Windows: We use now .NET Core 3.1. This should give some performance improvements.
  • Windows: The installer displays now our application name in the msi installer dialog.
  • Windows: Reduced the min value for the application * Windowsdow size.
  • Windows: Fixed a crash when you dragged an Asset in the Asset view with the grid navigator.
  • Windows: We improved the styling of some error dialogs, to match the general feel of the application.

08 April 2020 release

Direct download links:

Now that the product is more stable, we are switching to a 3-week release cycle, which has worked well for us for years.

Today's release is primarily focused on fixing occasional crashes:

  • Windows and Mac: Fixed a crash in the list inspector, when switching between changing row hight and opening the icon inspector quickly.
  • Windows and Mac: Fixed a potential crash in the list inspector when you managed to trigger both increase row height and decrease at the same time.
  • Windows and Mac: Fixed a potential crash with duplicating alternates when the target alternate no longer exists.
  • Windows and Mac: Fixed a crash on redo of importing a project.
  • Windows and Mac: Fixed a crash in WireframesToGo. When you double clicked on a block of text or line of text we no longer try to transform the control to a text control.
  • Windows and Mac: Fixed a crash when pasting a control in an empty asset view. Thanks Benedetto for reporting it.
  • Windows and Mac: When you exit the overwrite mode of a symbol, the paste option now gets correctly enabled. Thanks Paul and Alex for reporting it.
  • Windows and Mac: When you drag and drop a text control from the UI Library onto the canvas, we now open the text editor right away, like we did in Mockups 3.
  • Windows and Mac: We updated the icons for Layering.
  • Mac: We fixed the border inspector not displaying all the options.
  • Mac: Renaming a wireframe, project or similar resource now correctly selects the existing name.
  • Mac: Scrollbars get displayed based on your system preferences.
  • Windows: We replaced the "Quit" label with the more common Windows term "Exit".
  • Windows: You can now use diacritical / special keyboard combination involving ALTGR when entering text.
  • Windows: We improved the error handling when an antivirus app blocks saving the registration file.
  • Windows: Fixed a potential crash when copying something.
  • Windows: Improved the sensitivity of the zoom with mouse wheel to respect the system settings.
  • Windows: Fixed an issue in the msi installer that you could not uninstall via command line.

18 March 2020 release

Direct download links:

Here's what's in today's release:

  • Windows and Mac: The UI Library stopped to update all elements when you changed the skin.
  • Windows and Mac: The About Dialog can now be closed with ENTER and ESC.
  • Windows and Mac: When you transform and Icon to an image we now maintain the rotation values. This also applies to Icon and Label control and the reverse directions. Thanks Benedetto for reporting it.
  • Windows and Mac: In PDFs the link hot areas were not above the linked element, when the wireframe was bigger than the PDF page size.
  • Windows and Mac: Fixed a crash when you saved a project the first time or to a new location while editing text.
  • Windows and Mac: Improved the hit area for double-clicking the separator between canvas and navigator to resize the navigator back to default width.
  • Mac: When import assets from the file system you may now select multiple files at once.
  • Mac: We fixed the coloring of the hierarchy triangle in multi-selects.
  • Mac: The canvas has now a shadow at the max coordinates, so you can recognise that you reached the edge.
  • Mac: On Sierra the inspector buttons should all be rendered correctly.
  • Mac: Replaced a misleading error message in the log with useful information about the registration state of the application.
  • Windows: The polish character ć can now be typed with AltGr+C on polish keyboards.
  • Windows: Addressed an issue when the license key contains a line break.
  • Windows: Fixed a potential crash in import from Flickr. Thanks Benedetto for reporting it.
  • Windows: Fixed a potential crash when data needs to be written to the LocalStorage
  • Windows: Addressed a crash when the access permission to Balsamiq Cloud change.

04 March 2020 release

Direct download links:

Our focus is still on addressing issues you have been reporting.

Here's what's in today's release:

  • Windows and Mac: We now add a space between the wireframe name and the alternate name, when exporting to PNG and PDF.
  • Windows and Mac: The transform control option in the Edit menu did not always get updated correctly.
  • Windows and Mac: Sometimes the Import JSON did not work on a new Wireframe. We fixed this. Thanks Benedetto for reporting it.
  • Windows and Mac: We improved the undo for Group resize.
  • Windows and Mac: Fixed a crash when transforming a control with specific text to a button.
  • Windows and Mac: Importing images with double resolution, will maintain their dimensions.
  • Windows and Mac: If you had unsaved changes for a file, and you reopen the application, we check now if the file had been updated from another source before restoring the unsaved changes.
  • Windows and Mac: We fixed a potential crash during quit.
  • Windows and Mac: The Button Bar control supports leading and trailing spaces again, like in Balsamiq Mockups 3.
  • Windows: We fixed the input of diacritical marks.
  • Windows: We fixed a crash during registration.
  • Windows: We fixed the copyright year in the executable properties.
  • Windows: Fixed a crash when an event was send to a closed view.
  • Windows: Fixed a crash during PDF export.
  • Windows: When closing all projects and autosave is turned off, we will ask how to handle unsaved changes.
  • Mac: Fixed the copyright date in the About Dialog
  • Mac: Improved the performance for rendering colored icons.
  • Mac: Improved the performance for resizing and moving groups.
  • Mac: Fixed a rendering issue with a cropped image in a cropped group. Thanks heringsfilet for reporting it.
  • Mac: Double-clicking the "Official Version" in the alternate menu will no longer open the rename branch dialog.
  • Mac: Improved the PDF export dialog to make it clearer what is currently enabled and what disabled.
  • Mac: You can now dismiss dialogs with ESC even if they have no cancel button.
  • Mac: We improved the text measuring on the mac desktop version to be closer to the web versions. Thanks Cristopher for reporting it.
  • Mac: You can now use "--" in the sitemap control. It will no longer be transformed to a long dash. Thanks Philipp for reporting it.
  • Mac: Changing zoom should no longer make the controls on the canvas blurry. Thanks Cristopher and George for reporting it.

19 February 2020 release

Direct download links:

We spent the last two weeks responding to your feedback on our new versions, and fixing as many little bugs as we could.

Here's what's in today's release:

  • Windows and Mac: Changed the order of the "ON" and "OFF" buttons in the Switch control inspector, to reflect the order in the control itself.
  • Windows and Mac: fixed a crash when cropping something and moving it very close to the top-left of the canvas.
  • Windows and Mac: The "Used in X wireframes" note was showing up for Symbol Libraries and not just Symbols - we fixed it.
  • Windows and Mac: When exporting an alternate to PNG, the alternate name wasn't being included in the file name. We fixed it.
  • Windows and Mac: we now properly show a "User Settings" link in the avatar menu when you're connected to Cloud
  • Windows and Mac: Added a bunch more automated tests, so we can all sleep better at night. :)
  • Windows and Mac: the "Import image from Web" dialog now properly remembers the last tab you had selected.
  • Windows and Mac: we now resize retina images to 1x when importing them
  • Windows and Mac: we now properly strip spaces from license keys before checking them against our database.
  • Windows: fixed a weird behavior of the "Rename Alternate" dialog.
  • Windows: fixed a bunch of blurry icons in the property inspectors
  • Windows: fixed a color in the navigator when selecting multiple resources
  • Windows: fixed a crash when using \ to escape text in some cases
  • Windows: fixed a crash when using a date as text
  • Windows: fixed an issue with the thumbnails being created at the wrong resolution. Fixed now.
  • Windows: we now fail more gracefully when the application has troubles starting
  • Windows: corrected CTRL-Z/Y (undo/redo) when working with quick add control
  • Windows: fixed a weird behavior of edit text window showing an incorrect control text
  • Windows: fixed the application not opening all the BMPR files dragged over its desktop icon
  • Windows: fixed a crash occurring when creating a new project
  • Mac: we slowed down the scrolling of the navigator when re-arranging wireframes! It's actually usable now! :)
  • Mac: fixed a crash report when working on files stored in a Google Drive sync folder.
  • Mac: spell-check was not enabled by default. We fixed that.
  • Mac: the link hint wasn't showing up in some edge cases. Fixed.
  • Mac: CMD+Enter now properly converts labels to text.
  • Mac: fixed a cosmetic issue in the Symbols navigator

February 2020 releases summary

Hello again, friends of Balsamiq - I'm back with the first Dev Blog post of 2020. Before I jump into what's happened over the past 8 months, I feel like I owe you an explanation.

I closed the May 2019 Dev Update by saying "The next time we talk, we will be talking all about the new Balsamiq Wireframes for Desktop app. We're so excited to finally share it with you. We need only to wait a little while longer.." That, as it turned out, was not how things played out.

We rolled into May with the intention of releasing in late June. As the month progressed, however, we started wondering if we needed to release in June. Our existing Balsamiq Wireframes-based apps were all very stable, and Mockups 3 for Desktop was the same reliable workhorse it had been for the previous 4 years. Balsamiq Wireframes for Desktop (the new desktop app) was in pretty good shape, but it would definitely benefit from a little more time in the oven. So, we decided to push it back a little.

Between holidays and vacations, that "little" became another 6 months - but it was so incredibly worth it. The Desktop app we ended up shipping was in such good shape that we had almost no new or non-known bugs come in during that launch week (a sign that it was really well tested by our QA team and beta testers). We also were able to squeeze in some features (like pinch-to-zoom) that wouldn't have made the June release.

If you haven't given the new Desktop app a spin (or if this is the first you're hearing about it), check out our release blog post, and then download it for yourself. We think you're really going to dig it!

With that out of the way, let's talk about everything else that happened since the last time we were here.

Balsamiq Cloud

While the majority of our development might was focused on getting Balsamiq Wireframes for Desktop out the door, our Cloud team was busy adding some highly requested features.

Copy and paste controls between projects

This was harder than it sounds, especially on the web. There was a menu-driven way of doing this by exporting and importing Wireframe JSON, but imagine remembering to do that, let alone explaining it to someone else. We needed a better (read: easier) way.

Everyone knows CMD/CTRL + C copies and CMD/CTRL + V pastes, so Balsamiq Cloud should work the same way. And now, it does!

Pinch-to-zoom support

Every year, more and more people buy laptops. That means that, every year, more and more people have trackpads. If you're using a trackpad, you probably expect to be able to use the pinch gesture to zoom in and out on elements.

In our Flash-based apps, pinch-to-zoom was nearly impossible but, now that we control the stack, it is much more doable. This was one of the features we snuck into Desktop during that 6-month "delay". It's hard to imagine not having it, now.

Behind the scenes features

We also did a lot of work in the nooks and crannies of the app that you don't always see or interact with.

  • We left Auth0 for our homegrown authentication system. This gives us control of the whole system and, more importantly, lets us avoid sending sensitive information to a 3rd party.
  • We made a lot of enhancements to our internal Balsamiq Cloud administration system. As a member of the support team, I can tell this was very exciting for us.

And, most importantly, we made it work with Balsamiq Wireframes for Desktop. If you didn't already know, anyone with an active Balsamiq Cloud subscription can use Balsamiq Wireframes for Desktop to edit their Cloud projects for free. You don't need to buy a license - you're already paying for Balsamiq Cloud, after all.

Our integrations (Plugins)

The Integrations team has been stretched pretty thin between testing desktop releases, but they still somehow managed to tackle some big projects in the last 8 months.

@-mentions in comments

When you can control the entire platform (like we do with Balsamiq Cloud), doing mentions and notifications is easy. When you're piggy-backing on someone else's platform, they become much harder. However, the Integrations team has managed to implement @-mentioning in both our Google Drive and Atlassian integrations.

We're really proud of this one because a lot of folks have been asking for it. Our Atlassian Cloud (Server coming soon) integrations can now generate hosted image links. You can use these links to display your project on multiple Confluence pages, or share directly with someone who has access to your Confluence or Jira instance.

What's better is that you can use the image link to share a Wireframe project on multiple Confluence pages, making it editable from all of them.

Not to be outdone by its Atlassian cousin, our Google Drive integration also got a really awesome sharing feature: a public link to Full Screen Presentation Mode.

Now, as long as your project is publicly shared on Google Drive, you can link people directly to the Full Screen presentation mode of your project. The coolest part is that your collaborators don't have to have Balsamiq Wireframes for Google Drive installed to view, it just works!

Finally, the team was able to add a BMML to BMPR converter for our Atlassian Cloud Integrations. If those words don't mean anything to you, don't worry about it. The people they do mean something to will appreciate the feature enough for all of us. 🙂

More detailed release notes

Another thing we thought a lot about in the last 8 months were release notes.

It used to be that we would have a blog post that listed all the fixes and changes that we had made to our apps, regardless as to how big, so that we could people informed. As we moved from our Flash-based apps to our new Native-based ones, release notes became harder. We were iterating more quickly, and the iterations weren't always big, tentpole features. While upgrading Cloud's servers to Node 12 was a big release internally (I promise that that collection of nouns makes sense to someone - even if it's not you or me), the event is hardly release-note worthy.

So we decided to move to the dev update model where we'd collect some of the bigger features & changes from the past month, and write about them in a blog post. Some months we would just skip if we hadn't released anything noteworthy. That has worked out great for a lot of folks, but there are some of you who want more granularity (and, more importantly, want to know about bug fixes, which we rarely talk about here). We hear you, and we think we have a solution for both worlds.

Going forward, I will continue to write Dev Update Blog Posts for the folks who just want the highlights, and Florian will post more in-depth release notes in our Slack Community channels (#desktop_win and #desktop_mac). We have been doing this for a couple of weeks, and the reception has been great. They are limited to our desktop release notes for right now, but we are talking about sharing Cloud release notes as well (for the Node-Heads in the room). Feel free to join us on Slack for more up-to-the-minute news and updates. 🙂

I think that is about it this month. It's been a wild ride since last May, and I hope you now feel caught up with all the goings on here. Of course, if you have any questions or comments, don't hesitate to leave them below, or get in touch.

Until next month, friends.

Brendan for the Balsamiq Team

Balsamiq Wireframes launch announcement

Hello again, friends of Balsamiq!

It's been a while since we spoke, but we promised you then that the next time we did speak, it would be about the new desktop apps we have been working on. So it's my incredible pleasure to introduce you to Balsamiq Wireframes for Desktop.

Balsamiq Wireframes for Desktop is the culmination of everything we have learned in the 10 years we have been making desktop apps. It's been re-written, from the ground up, to be native and fast, while staying comfortable and familiar. Over 1000 people have tested it during a year-long private beta, and we finally think it's ready to launch. We really think you're going to like it. Let's talk about why!

What's new in Balsamiq Wireframes for Desktop

This is a fun topic because, technically, everything is new. We have spent the last few years completely rewriting our editor and app code because we wanted a completely native application. Gone are the Adobe underpinnings, replaced with a completely native framework of our own creation. If you've used any of our modern web apps, you have already experienced the core of this new editor. We simply took the work we had done for the web apps, and wrapped it in a thin - and homemade - code layer. And while everything underneath is new, you should feel right at home when you use it.

"Balsamiq Wireframes is now a native macOS app and one can really "feel" it: It’s fast, responsive, and also looks sharper. It’s even more fun to work with now!" - Rene Rosendahl, beta tester

"The good old flavor of Balsamiq in a new fresh and friendly interface!" - Benedetto, Windows beta tester superstar

Of course, there are new features as well, and I'd like to call out a couple of them specifically.

A new review and commenting system

When we released Balsamiq Cloud, we added a review and comment system that made collaboration super easy - and now, we have brought that same system to Balsamiq Wireframes for Desktop. Stakeholders can comment too (as long as they have a license or active trial), all you need to do is send them the project (.bmpr) file. You no longer need to have a separate app/system to take notes on projects - it's all built in! You can read more in our documentation.

Wireframes to go built in

When we redesigned our Wireframes to Go website (formally Mockups to Go), our desktop users got the short end of the stick. Importing controls was much harder than it needed to be, and we kept telling folks "Hang tight, I promise this will get better." Today, it gets better.

In Balsamiq Wireframes for Desktop, you'll find a "More Controls..." button in the upper-right-hand corner of the UI Library. Clicking that loads Wireframes to Go inside of the app. From there you can search and import controls directly into your project without having to leave the app.

A brand new Full Screen Presentation Mode

We spent a lot of time rethinking our Fullscreen Presentation mode for our modern apps. This redesigned mode allows for easy user testing, review, and presentation of projects you're working on (and it's super easy to swap between those functions). You can read more about the new Full Screen Presentation Mode in our documentation.

Opening Balsamiq Cloud projects

One constant in the world of software is that if you have a web app and a desktop app, someone will want them to talk to each other. We have wanted to do this for years, and with Balsamiq Wireframes for Desktop, we were finally able to.

If you have a Balsamiq Cloud account, you can authorize Wireframes for Desktop to use that account, and open any projects you have access to. Then, as long as you have an internet connection (offline syncing is coming later), you can edit your Balsamiq Cloud projects in Wireframes for Desktop. Working in a native app is almost always going to be faster than a browser (and you don't have to worry about keyboard shortcut conflicts!).

"The fact that Balsamiq Wireframes opens Cloud projects is huge. Now I can take advantage of the collaborative features of Cloud without having to wireframe in a browser!" - Cori Watilo, beta tester

And more...
  • A Larger Canvas (six times as large!)
  • Spell Check (macOS only for now)
  • Android Controls

Beyond that, there are purely technical updates that weren't possible in Balsamiq Mockups 3 for Desktop because of the underlying frameworks. Things like:

  • High-Quality, Vector-based PDF exports with selectable text
  • Better trackpad and mouse support
  • Native features (like editing in Full Screen on macOS)

We really think that you'll enjoy using Balsamiq Wireframes for Desktop.

The year-long private beta has been an awesome experience - so many people who have helped us make the app better and better with every release. Now it's ready for you. We hope you'll feel the same way. 🙂

Buying or updating to Balsamiq Wireframes for Desktop

As with everything we do, we tried to keep pricing as simple and fair as possible.

For new users, Balsamiq Wireframes for Desktop will cost $89/user.

Same price as it has been for a while, and we don't see a reason to change it. For folks coming from Balsamiq Cloud: you can use the Desktop app to edit your Balsamiq Cloud projects for free (as long as you have an internet connection).

For users with an existing Balsamiq Mockups for Desktop license, Balsamiq Wireframes for Desktop will cost $44.50/user.

Even though this is a completely new app, we wanted to thank the folks who have purchased our apps in the past. It's the first time in 10 years we have charged for an update.

For more details on how to use your key to get the discount, or how it works for volume license customers, please take a look at this FAQ.

If you have purchased Balsamiq Mockups 3 for Desktop in the last 90 days, you will get to update to Balsamiq Wireframes for Desktop for free.

What about Mockups 3 for Desktop?

While we are no longer selling Mockups 3 for Desktop, existing customers should feel free to keep using it (in fact, if you're on the fence about upgrading, we encourage you to stay with Mockups 3 until you're sure).

We will maintain compatibility with Balsamiq Wireframes for Desktop and Balsamiq Cloud until at least the end of 2020. It gets a little tricky after 2020 (when Adobe retires and sells off the technology we used to build the app), but we will support our apps for as long as we possibly can (we still get Mockups 1 tickets from time to time).

We totally think you will find the upgrade worthwhile, but if not, don't worry about Mockups 3 for Desktop. It will still be around for a while!

The next chapter...

I cannot tell you how long I have been writing this blog post in my head, waiting for the app to be ready for you. It's a really exciting time for us as all of our current generation apps are based on the same technology. We plan to spend the next few months bugfixing and optimizing our apps, while sprinkling in new features here and there. It's an exciting time, and we hope you'll come along for it!

Alright, go get the new version and try it out! Here are the build numbers of today's release:

  • Balsamiq Wireframes for Desktop (Windows): 4.0.17
  • Balsamiq Wireframes for Desktop (Mac OS): 4.0.14

If you notice anything funny with it, get in touch!

Happy wireframing! 🙂

Brendan for the Balsamiq Team

Previous release notes

Older release notes can be found on our Company News.