做软件产品设计时经常会涉及到原型设计，用纸笔画废纸，用Visio画废劲。而且今年产品要做大的调整与换代，原型设计更为棘手，决定花力气找一款得心应手的原型设计工具，而 “ Balsamiq Mockups ”让我眼前一亮！迫不急待，进行了一翻在线试用，呵！对于软件原型构造来说，可真是“随心所欲、信手拈来”，中肯的说比纸和笔更为方便。

附

网址： http://www.balsamiq.com/ 

在线演示地址： http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups

试用网址： http://www.balsamiq.com/demos/mockups/Mockups.html

整体截图：

 

功能和亮点：

1. 操作方面：拖拽，控件分组，甚至元素之间的对齐都做得很到位；
2. 预制了六十多个界面元素，从简单的输入框，下拉框，到经常用得到的导航条，日历，表格，到复杂的Tag Cloud，Cover Flow, 地图，WYSWYG的格式工具栏等，有了这些不用从头画起，其实比用白板都快；
3. 界面元素的修改很简单，比如导航条的几个标签页的label，就是用逗号分隔的文字，下拉框的选项就是分行的文字；
4. 使用xml语言来记录和保存界面元素和布局，从而使其能够快速的导入到你所需的任何一个项目中，或其他工具中。
5. 可以将设计导出成PNG格式的图片；
6. 随着使用的熟练，快捷键便派上用场，超过一半的元素均有快捷方式，这更有助于原型的快速构造，几乎几分钟便可实现一个满意的而复杂的原型设计；
7. 跨平台，Balsamiq Mokups是用Flex和Air实现的，所以在Mac OS, Linux和Windows下都能使用；
8. 不仅仅有桌面版本，还有能集成在Confluence，JIRA，和XWiki中的版本，使得异地在线协作更方便有效；

  

 

这么好的一款软件是不是免费的呢？当然不是，但是软件的作者有N多种方式让你得到free license 的方法。

To get a free license key, you can do one of the following:

• If your company bought Mockups for Confluence, JIRA or XWiki, ask your IT admin for your company's license information and use it FREE of charge.
• If you are a do-gooder of any sort (non-profit, charity, open-source contributor, you get the idea), email Mariah with a short blurb and she'll send you a license, FREE of charge.
• If you are a blogger / journalist / maven willing to write us up (honest reviews are the most useful to us) email Mariah a short blurb with the link to your blog and she'll send you a license, FREE of charge, so that you can evaluate Mockups properly.
• If you are willing to demo Mockups to an audience of at least 15 people (at a user group, a conference, a BarCamp), email Mariah your info and she'll give you two licenses, one for you to keep and one to give away at the event, FREE of charge.
• If you teach a high-school class, email Mariah the name of your school and your class, plus the number of students in your class. Mariah will send you a license for all of them.
• A note to university students and professors: we currently do not offer free licenses to universities, but we'll be happy to offer you an additional 50% off any orders of 10 or more licenses. Let us know if you're interested and we'll set up a discount code for you.

你做到以上的任何一条。你就可以得到免费的许可证了。
嘿嘿，终于暴露目的了…… 不过这么好的软件，不推荐一下也实在说不过去。