I have been more than a little critical of Google Drive, because of its poor support for source control (Git), however, I still use it for a number of document editing tasks. At the same time I have been looking for a wireframe editor that supports designing mobile, web, and desktop applications; I am a big fan of designing the UI first and iterating on that initial design over the lifetime of the app, so that type of tool is an important part of my toolchain.
Balsamiq, the cross platform (Adobe Air, Linux, Mac, and Windows) wireframe tool has been on my radar for some time and I even tried a demo version of the Mac app a few months Overall, I liked it but wanted to something more. It was hard to explain what was missing but something seemed lackingl, then they released the web app for Google Chrome.
This is the tool that I’ve been looking for. It is pretty much as responsive as the desktop app and saves your wireframes right in your GDrive. I found this to be a one two punch of power and convenience that was too hard to resist. Better still, the tool integrates with a number of services including Jira (more on that later) and Fog Creek.
There is a also a number of community developed templates that you can add to the app by uploading them to you GDrive, for example there is a template specifically designed for working on apps for Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Android 3.0 tablets.
I know this sounds a lot like a commercial, but balsamiq for GDrive is a great tool and given how hard it was for me to find a wireframe editor that I like, I assume there are others with the same problem. As a pro level tool, the app is not free. It costs $50 for a year or $5 a month; there is also a free seven day trial. Let me know what think. I can be found on Twitter and Google+.
