Is Adobe XD a time saver?

[AbolBahadori]

After enjoying the easy flow of prototyping (especially for mobile apps) with XD and feeling really comfortable with it, I am now realizing that, in fact, I am ending up to spend more time than just using Illustrator, Photoshop, or even prototyping in InDesign for the following reasons:

1. XD is not capable of showing mouseovers (something I used to easily do in InDesign), so it fails in that most basic interactive prototyping and I need to go back to good old InDesign.
2. It does not produce CSS or any image assets for HTML or WP. So I have to export it as PDF, open it in Illustrator, release clipping masks, retype all the text as it breaks words up exporting to PDF, and most of the time I have to clean up the layers and export Illustrator to Photoshop for flattening any transparencies created in XD. Forget about creating any shadows in XD; that will turn into a nightmare in PDF/AI. Essentially, I may as well create the whole thing from scratch in Photoshop or Illustrator for generating assets.
3. Lack of any full-screen web view without a black frame all around for the desktop view (and I am not even talking about responsive) forces me to export my desktop comps as full-width PDF from XD. But generating PDF sizes that are small enough to email is not easy for lengthy pages with many transparencies and masks.

I have no complaints about the mobile view with the exception of not being able to have a fixed top that won't disappear in scroll. I really enjoy numerous live YouTube Adobe session on XD too. It has definitely brought UX and UI designers together while they are all learning and experimenting with XD. But I just wish Adobe had moved little faster on finally gave us a good web/app asset generator. I am tired of right clicking on layers and copying and pasting CSS from Photoshop 2017 and 2018.

Love to hear alternatives that other designers use for the time being.

Cheers

Abol

[Chris W. Griffith · Accepted solution]

A couple of comments:

XD is 'sort of' mobile app first, so hovers (mouseovers), really don't exist in that interaction model. With that said, it is something that the team has moderately high on their roadmap

The export of assets is supported. Simply select the asset and choose Export from the menu. You have several options to export, PNG (1x,2x,3x) and SVG. Granted mass exporting is currently not supported, but this is coming really soon.

The fixed header in mobile is also that is coming soon. I made sure to up vote it on the UserVoice site (Adobe XD Feedback : Feature Requests & Bugs

Chris

[grylkngtn]

"Lack of any full-screen ... view without a black frame all around for the desktop view."

This is something I would dearly like to have today for demonstrating my app to a roomful of people on my 27" monitor, turned 90 degrees so that it is in portrait mode.

[AbolBahadori]

Chris, as a loyal Adobe user I am so happy to hear that all this is in the process. Thanks for your quick response. BTW, if you switch "mouseover" with "first touch" effect as in a mobile calculator clicking on numbers for example, it is needed for mobile apps too. I am glad it is moderately high item on the roadmap.