App: Layer Exporter
Developer: Rodotti
Genres: Developer Tools

Design graphics, icons and user interfaces for your apps, and use Layer Exporter to rearrange, select, rasterize and export layers as icons, images, layered hierarchies with metadata, plain resources or as Xcode assets. Import complete pixel-perfect layered UIs into your apps with one line of code using the included import library. Layer Exporter uses .psd files as intermediate format supported by most popular design tools (see below).

PROGRAMMING
Layer Exporter is a tool for professional developers bridging graphics and coding: while the interface is extremely simple with only two buttons, open and export, you program all actions for Layer Exporter in your design's layer names using a small set of powerful commands: Export (file/folder/hierarchies/assets), Exclude, Tag, Rasterize, Unfolder, MergeInto, SuperBounds, and Replace.

EFFICIENT
Layer Exporter allows for complex designs optimized for editability, while exporting flattened structures optimized for app efficiency, including doublure detection/re-use e.g. with recurring UI-elements. Within your UI-importing app, layer name and tag are available to assign interactivity to views/layers.

SUPPORTED DESIGN TOOLS
Layer Exporter opens (8-bit rgba) psd files, Adobe Photoshop’s primary format and exportable by many other design tools such as Affinity Designer, Adobe Illustrator, Pixelmator, etc. Several of these tools offer a psd-export preset that rasterizes any proprietary filters, effects and vector-based tools into pixels (intended for e.g. Apple’s movie-editor Final Cut Pro). This offers the ideal workflow where you can maintain full vector-based complexity and editability in your design, while exporting pixels/images in the intermediate psd format. Layer Exporter further supports automatic psd-file-change detection, to get immediately updated resources after a psd-export of your design.

MANUAL & CODE EXAMPLE
Layer Exporter comes with an extensive manual that shows how the simple syntax offers a great variety in export options, with detailed examples for each. Further, an example Xcode project “Layer Importer” is included as universal app for iPhone-iPad-Mac (Catalyst), with a pixel-perfect UI that resizes based on screen or window size. It includes an Affinity Designer file with all graphics using symbols for icon/UI-element designs recurring at different scales/positions, the exported psd file and resources, plus all importer library and app code (each just one lean file).

FEATURES
• Extremely simple interface with “open”, preview and “export”
• Auto-export for multiple psd files, with re-export when psd files change
• Simple syntax with powerful commands in layer names
• Simplify/restructure complex layered designs during export
• Efficient re-use of layer doublures (e.g. multiple same UI-elements)
• Simple one-liner import code, easy to assign interaction to layers/views

EXPORTABLES
• Single/multiple images, plain or in folder structures
• Image formats: png/bmp/tiff, jpg/jpeg2000 with adjustable compression quality
• Entire hierarchies with layer metadata: name/position/alpha/visibility/tag/blendmode
• Hierarchy formats: all-in-one-mosaic-image, or folder with plain images/readable-text-file
• Xcode assets: catalogs, group/folder, images, data, icons, stickers and colors

FOR DEVELOPERS BY DEVELOPERS
Layer Exporter exists since 2011 as a proprietary tool used only by app developers Qneo (Blower, Voice Synth and many others) and Rodotti (Hover Engine). Over time, Layer Exporter evolved to fit new apps and graphic designs, and finally got an interface so you can use it too.

If you find this tool useful, or find something missing, incompatible, a feature request, anything, mail me directly at contact@rodotti.nl for personalized assistance. Happy exporting!

André
Rodotti

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