

Show HN: Zephyr – Collaboration for teams and freelancers - gotzephyr
https://zephyrplatform.com/demo/login/?fname=hacker&lname=news&email=hn@zephyr.email

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bshimmin
I'll be honest - I find the UI impenetrable. It's dark and full of fiddly
icons and I'm not sure what I can click, what I can drag, etc.

If there's any way you can find someone amenable who has no personal
attachment to this project (ie. hasn't used it before, doesn't really know
what you're trying to achieve) _and_ has strong UI/UX sensibilities to take a
look over this, I really think you should. Sometimes when you've built
something and you're proud of it, it can be very hard to have an objective
perspective on how usable something is.

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ericcholis
The UI is quite jarring at first, and doesn't give any call to action or
incentive to "try" anything. The "Join the Beta" window is overlaying the
"Welcome to Zephyr" box, which is confusing.

The dark color scheme is nice for a workspace, but the font size is difficult
to read with large quantities of text. This makes it harder to onboard a user.

Also, I took myself to the home page
([https://zephyrplatform.com/](https://zephyrplatform.com/)) in hopes of a
nicer pitch....and was presented with a sparse version of the demo.

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gotzephyr
Good point on the overlapping cards, we're fixing that now. Thanks!

For our main website, soon as we release the full beta we will move that to a
more detailed website. It's just a basic splash page for now.

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gotzephyr
This is our first release, built to showcase the card based UI and platform
command system, come and try packing and flipping our cards. Also modules for
chat, pinboard and storage for you to play with.

As we roll out beta there will be further modules added for productivity and a
suite of core enhancements, new command functions to push faster usage, the
Zephyr analytics engine and more.

Would very much love to have you onboard, also any feedback you have. Thanks!

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fragmede
Does this have anything in common with the Zephyr instant messaging protocol
designed in the 80's created at MIT as part of Project Athena? A quick look at
the link didn't seem like it.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zephyr_(protocol)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zephyr_\(protocol\))

It's not the sexiest new protocol, but there are still pockets where it's
still used, particularly SIPB.

No other product (save Zulip which used Zephyr on the back end anyway), has
had the same notion of messages having both a class and instance which makes
it hard to replace, so I'm stuck on screen + barnowl for the time being.

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gotzephyr
Ha, no. It's just the same name.

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tux
Yeah there is also Zephir Language > [http://www.zephir-
lang.com/](http://www.zephir-lang.com/) Same names is very confusing.

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gotzephyr
That's a different spelling. I see what you are saying though. Name's just a
name at present, a working title, and everything is under test to produce the
best product possible for launch.

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tux
Oh you're right sorry, I did not even see that until you mentioned it.

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gotzephyr
Thanks for all the comments, massively appreciated! Just remember its a first
demo release, we've still much more to do before we launch, especially on the
UI.

Everything has to start somewhere, but you will see many improvements as each
week rolls by, would very much love to see you all on our beta so we can show
you what we can do and how Zephyr will be progressing.

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chandika
I'm struggling to understand the purpose of this compared to other
collaboration platforms. Could you elaborate why this should matter to a team
above and beyond other collab platforms out there?

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gotzephyr
We're only around 20% of our final build functionality on this demo. It's just
a little taste of what Zephyr can do.

Tasks, events, screenshare, integration with mail and other 3rd party systems,
analytics and a lot more besides will be rolling out.

Basically you and your team will be able to create your data, visualise it how
you want, analyse it and store it on Zephyr. All on one platform, across all
your devices, fully secured.

This isn't our final product but if you do want to come onboard and see what
we can do and how we will benefit you and your business, sign up to the beta
as I would very much love your help in making Zephyr (even more) awesome ☺

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almaspite
Super cool, well done!

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gotzephyr
Thanks! :-)

