Directual Update: The Latest and Greatest New Features

As promised, new year, new update. Here’s what we’ve been cooking up for you.

Take chances to learn the details of the update from our recent webinar:

AI-generated logo

We don't know what your process is, but we can spend hours tweaking the look of things. Logos are no exception. As Voltaire says, the best is the enemy of the good. To make your life easier, we created an AI logo generator.

A well-designed logo is a key component of branding. It provides a unique and recognizable mark that makes your app stand out in a crowded field.

Our AI logo generator saves time and resources and makes it easier to create a visually stunning logo for your app. What more could you ask for?

ES13 JavaScript engine

ES13, the latest version of ECMAScript, introduced the ‘async’ and ‘await’ keywords as syntactic sugar on top of promises, revolutionizing the asynchronous code in JavaScript. The ‘async’ keyword is used to declare an asynchronous function, while the ‘await’ keyword can be used within an ‘async’ function to halt its execution until a promise is either resolved or rejected.

Async functions always return a promise, allowing the use of the ‘then’ and ‘catch’ methods to manage the results of the asynchronous operation. This approach improves code readability and eliminates the need for excessive promise chaining or nested callbacks.

New JS-interpreter for scenarios

• ECMAScript 2022 (ES13)
• Lodash 4.17

By the way, the new JavaScript engine is ~30 times faster than the default ES5.

New locales for apps

Multi-language support is great, period. So we decided to add two new locales: Portuguese and Hindi. Why did we do this? First, for your personalized experience. Second, so you can reach your local audience more effectively. Not everything should always follow the ‘English first’ approach, right? Are we stopping at just these two languages? Of course not.

Lazy loading for cards and table components

Lazy loading is undeniably cool because it's all about speeding up performance. Instead of loading an entire web page or application at once, lazy loading allows content, such as images or sections of a page, to load only when needed. This results in faster initial page loads and improved overall performance.

Lazy loading for сards and table components is an alternative paging. Scroll the component and the next pages will load dynamically.

Improved menu configuration

Improved menu configuration is also cool. It gives you the ability to create highly customizable navigation experiences and helps you organize menu items based on frequency of use or relevance. 

What are the benefits? Easier navigation, reduced cognitive load, improved user experience. To make a long story short, here is a list of the new available settings:

• Side/Horizontal layout
• Compact mode for side menu
• Hide menu items in groups
• Labels on menu items
• Tabs menu for mobile view
• New icons for menu items from the Remix iconset
• Custom icons for menu items
• Keep app header for mobile view

Support for all Google fonts

This one is rather self-explanatory. Now you can use all 1577 families from Google Fonts catalog and add font filters like styles, language, etc.

Improved color scheme settings

Personalize your app like never before! Tailor the color palette to reflect your unique style, mood, or brand identity for a more visually appealing experience.

Whether you prefer vibrant or muted tones, this customization option allows you to transform the look and feel of your apps, creating a space that resonates with your creative vision.

• More color schemes
• Improved color scheme customization

Afterword

Not bad for the first update of the year, right? And the best part is that more is on the way. In the meantime, check out the new features and let us know what you think. Stay tuned for more updates!

If you have any questions or need personalized advice, be sure to join our community. You can also drop us a line at hello@directual.com.