Creating a Drawing App: Adventure in Code

In this supper club episode of Syntax, Wes and Scott talk with Steve Ruiz about how he built tldraw, how he manages state, what was done to support mobile, and more.

Gatsby - Sponsor

Today’s episode was sponsored by Gatsby, the fastest frontend for the headless web. Gatsby is the framework of choice for content-rich sites backed by a headless CMS as its GraphQL data layer makes it straightforward to source website content from anywhere. Gatsby’s opinionated, React-based framework makes the hardest parts of building a performant website simpler. Visit gatsby.dev/syntax to get your first Gatsby site up in minutes and experience the speed. ⚡️

Show Notes

• 00:34 Welcome
• 03:23 Who is Steve Ruiz?
• Steve Ruiz
• 04:45 What is tldraw and what was your inspiration for it?
• tldraw
• Globs
• Excalidraw
• tldraw on GitHub
• 11:04 Why didn’t you use canvas?
• 16:15 How do you make an algorithm?
• Perfect Free Hand
• 19:33 Do you use pointer events?
• 23:44 What are you using to manage state?
• 29:42 How do you handle zooming?
• Creating Zoom UI
• 32:28 Where do you store the data for tldraw?
• Project Fugu
• 37:08 Why use indexdb?
• 38:05 Sponsor: Gatsby
• 39:49 How difficult was it to make it work on mobile?
• React Use Gesture
• 41:59 Does it work offline?
• 43:25 Supper Club Questions
• Monokai Pro
• Framer Classic
• Hacker News
• One Lone Coder on YouTube
• Displaced Gamer
• Coding Secrets
• 52:28 SIIIIICK ××× PIIIICKS ×××

××× SIIIIICK ××× PIIIICKS ×××

• Last Call BBS

Shameless Plugs

• Steve: tldraw.dev

Tweet us your tasty treats

• Scott’s Instagram
• LevelUpTutorials Instagram
• Wes’ Instagram
• Wes’ Twitter
• Wes’ Facebook
• Scott’s Twitter
• Make sure to include @SyntaxFM in your tweets