Introducing Finch: A Simple Way to Share Your Web Build
As a tech-focused company with an active team of front-end and back-end developers, we’re always on the lookout for innovative tools that will improve our day-to-day working lives. Finch is one of those tools. Created with the express purpose of letting developers share an in-progress build via a secure public URL, it’s fast proving itself to be a vital asset for our developers.
Parallax Director Andy Fitch can’t imagine working without it. “I use Finch to temporarily publish my work in progress to a URL that can be accessed from any computer. This might be for a client in the meeting room, but it’s usually for virtual machines (i.e. cross-browser testing) or emulators (i.e. iPhone/iPad testing) that wouldn’t normally have access to my computer.”
“It’s very useful for testing,” Andy continues. “Without it, I’d have to deploy work to our web servers, which can take a minute or two. Finch is almost instant, which is great for efficiency and concentration. Clients get to see a snapshot of your progress, rather than waiting for the next version of your work to be published online. It’s really reassuring for them, but also for us – we get to control the lifespan of the link.”
“I tend to use a mixture of the command line and desktop apps to manage my workflow. With recent updates, Finch’s interface has come on leaps and bounds. And the branding has a friendly, modern feel to it, which is always nice!”
He’s not the only one that relies on Finch. James Kirkby, our Head of Front-end, found another great use for it. “A client recently asked us to put together a dashboard to display statistics from their site.” he explains. “For Geckoboard to get data, it needs to retrieve it from a website, but that would take a long time, what with having to push the site to QA each time I made a code change.”
“Instead, I can work on the site locally, using Finch as a tunnel so Geckoboard can read from my machine,” he continues. “Once the features are written and tested I can push the code into production, then tell Geckoboard to look at the production site. It makes the entire process so much smoother and easier.”
This kind of mass integration and compatibility is another key selling point. Operating seamlessly with the likes of WordPress, Ghost, Perch and Umbraco, Finch is also compatible with bespoke builds. Furthermore, it can make great use of webhooks. A local site might be integrated with another tool (e.g. Stripe) where it needs to send information to a server. Finch provides a domain – a webhook endpoint – for your machine so you can test payments locally.
It’s a great tool that allows me to access and test a website that exists on my local machine from somewhere else, such as outside of the office, or through BrowserStack. It can also be used to show others in the office a project I’m currently working on, without having to push it to the QA server.
Finch is a product borne out of necessity. Its founder and lead developer, Nick Payne, explains the backstory. “I was working as a developer for a TV sports channel. We’d write a load of code, but thanks to the way their network was configured, we couldn’t test it on the devices it was written for. Emulators and simulators only got us so far – they simply weren’t as good as the real thing. And the only real chance we had to test it came around once a week – the company weren’t prepared to deploy to public devices more regularly than that. So any errors or issues wouldn’t be seen for days.”
I use it to provide clients a demo of any work in progress. It’s convenient for showing small changes or tweaks. And it allows a rapid ‘back and forth’ – especially when I’m fine tuning certain features. It’s also super useful when deployment or QA links haven’t been set up yet and a link is needed ASAP.
Nick knew he couldn’t continue like this, so he set to work on a solution. “I remember thinking I could solve this in an elegant way.” Although the app only took a couple of weeks to create, there was still a long way to go. Originally starting life as a terminal application, he quickly realised the interface was a barrier to people using it. “It’s one thing to have a working prototype. But to develop that into a product people want to use every day is something totally different.”
Convinced no other software performed as simply or as robustly as Finch, Nick set about creating a desktop version, bringing others into the fold to develop a more user-friendly interface that reflected the simplicity of the product itself. These days, Finch is available on Windows, Linux and OS X – and it looks the part too. A free version gives users the chance to try it out before upgrading to the premium package, which offers unlimited use, reserved subdomains and geolocated forwards. “I just want to make sure people are happy it will solve their problem.”
Finch is now used by a large number of agencies and freelancers, as well as one or two of the big players. “IBM have used it, and we’ve had interest from NASA.” Looking to the future, Nick tells us about the buzz Finch is generating. “There’s a lot of scope for creating new device lab partnerships. We’re particularly excited about exploring options for integration.”
“I use Finch mainly for testing endpoints and webhooks. I also use it to give examples to clients ahead of a release. The interface is really neat – it’s come a long way since its terminal days. And it’s got decent scope in terms of locations for serving content. Is it as good as ngrok though? I’d say so, yes.”