
Show HN: Mandalagaba – Create mandalas and tessellations online - Weedback
http://www.mandalagaba.com
======
detritus
Any chance of being able to download a vector/SVG version?

...I can think of a multitude of reasons why "no bloody way!", just wondering
:)

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Meowlulz
It's been requested before and it's on the list of features to implement but I
haven't gotten around to it yet. The work is actually saved as a home-made
vector graphic type format so it would "only" be a matter of translation :).

In the meantime, if you do some work, then zoom in, then hit save, you'll end
up with a much larger render :).

So yes-way, it's just a matter of time & feature priority and this one is a
little on the niche side; although it did just get +1 vote :)

~~~
detritus
Neat! If it ever takes your fancy, I'd love to read about your development
process - "programming vicariously" as I like to think of it :)

Good job!

\- ed

Of course - I'm displaying my high proficiency as an "idiot in a hurry" and
missed this, clearly linked: [http://blog.mandalagaba.com/miscellaneous-
ramblings/](http://blog.mandalagaba.com/miscellaneous-ramblings/) !

~~~
Meowlulz2
Heh, no worries, I have more specific to development on my personal blog:
[http://ben.akrin.com/?cat=4](http://ben.akrin.com/?cat=4)

You might recognize an article which hit HN back in march about turning your
web traffic into a super computer :).

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Ataraxy
Reminds me of weavesilk.com nicely done.

One suggestion would be an automatic mode that arbitrarily generates art.

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Weedback
Thanks for your nice comment. Weavesilk is super cool indeed.

We thought about an automatic mode actually but still haven't put it on the
to-do list.

One thing users can do though is replay their mandalas. This is how it works:
1) You draw your design. 2) You click on the "Session info" button. 3) Inside
the session info pop-up, you click on the replay link. Here is a screenshot
for good measure: [https://imgur.com/XP4GNDT](https://imgur.com/XP4GNDT)

~~~
degenerate
Can you please not hijack the back button to generate random background
colors? That's what F5 is for...

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starshadowx2
I can't seem to find a way to start a new one/erase all other than just
deleting the unique end part of the URL and reloading.

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Weedback
Thanks for your feedback! You can use the "New Canvas" button / option to
start off clean: [https://imgur.com/JHsI61W](https://imgur.com/JHsI61W)

We are re-structuring various sections of the interface to make that options
more apparent.

Thanks!

~~~
starshadowx2
It would be nice to have a way to just clear the drawing without randomising
all the settings. That's how Weavesilk works. There should be a seperate
"Random" and "New" button.

Also sometimes the Undo button just doesn't do anything and gets stuck
highlighted yellow. I'm not sure how to "unstuck" it and get undo to work, so
instead I have to refresh and lose all the settings.

~~~
Weedback
Thanks for the feedback! The reason why we mix up the settings is to let users
play around with predetermined arrangements. We think that that is cool in
certain circumstances. But we also agree with you on the fact that separating
"Random" and "New" button is a good idea.

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drcursor
Reminds me of many hours spent on Amiga's Deluxe Paint.

~~~
Weedback
just checked it out and my mind went kablamo. Thanks for the comparison!

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slx26
this is awesome, nice job! it really has a lot of features. the presentation
and explanation of those features, as you yourself admit, could still be
improved a lot, but I can definitely see how much work went into it, and it's
fantastic.

I always liked the idea of drawing with symmetries. maybe you will want to
consider recursive drawing? I saw some apps like that for first time here in
HN. the randomization at the start is also great, but I would love having some
more conventional, handpicked palettes to choose, or maybe an easy mode more
focused on the basic features only.

anyway, really cool!

~~~
Weedback
Thank you so much for you comment. Very good advice in here. Spot on. We
hadn't even though about recursive drawing. On the todo list. We agree with
most of what you point out and we are currently working on ways to simplify
the controls and option.

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maaaats
Wow, that was satisfying!

I liked the triangles split into further regions. Ala
[http://www.mandalagaba.com/#ucKlDy](http://www.mandalagaba.com/#ucKlDy)

~~~
Weedback
You played around with the tessellations feature! Thanks. You also are sharing
your session URL, which is really cool 'cause I did a bad job at explaining
how that works. Actually, I just connected to your session and can see you
drawing in real time. I can even collaborate on your drawing with you.

~~~
Weedback
If you saw a big white "hello" appear on your screen, that was me :)

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maaaats
Hah, didn't know others could edit. It's been completely vandalized now haha.
But cool, will share this with others, not just publicly!

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modzu
awesome!

minor tech point: the automatic redirect is a bit annoying because it makes it
difficult to navigate back (bad!)

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Weedback
Thanks for the "awesome"! I’ll look into making this not affect the browser
history, thanks for the feedback. I hate these redirects that prevent you from
going back too.

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iooi
You probably want to replace the location instead of pushing onto it.

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Meowlulz2
aye, geesh you guys are pointing bugs and providing the solutions, what a
crowd!

I'll get around to it this evening :) thank you very much.

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jenzen
Made this with one pen stroke.
[https://imgur.com/BbK2AG3](https://imgur.com/BbK2AG3)

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crookshanked
Loaded this up on chrome and wasn't able to make anything appear on screen.
Tried changing the # via the - and + at the top and got an undef.

Log - No 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' header is present on the requested
resource. Origin '[http://www.mandalagaba.com'](http://www.mandalagaba.com')
is therefore not allowed access. The response had HTTP status code 503.

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Meowlulz
Hmmm, do you have any kind of super duper security plugin maybe? This message
makes it sounds like the level of security applied to your Chrome is super
anal :). And I don't find much of anything Googling for it.

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throwaway987909
Lots' of these in console using chrome on windows. No special settings or
anything.

Failed to load
[http://2cbjt.akrin.com:7342/socket.io/?focused=true&url=www....](http://2cbjt.akrin.com:7342/socket.io/?focused=true&url=www.mandalagaba.com&user_agent=Mozilla%2F5.0%20\(Windows%20NT%2010.0%3B%20Win64%3B%20x64\)%20AppleWebKit%2F537.36%20\(KHTML%2C%20like%20Gecko\)%20Chrome%2F67.0.3396.99%20Safari%2F537.36&EIO=3&transport=polling&t=MJCk_Zd):
Redirect from
'[http://2cbjt.akrin.com:7342/socket.io/?focused=true&url=www....](http://2cbjt.akrin.com:7342/socket.io/?focused=true&url=www.mandalagaba.com&user_agent=Mozilla%2F5.0%20\(Windows%20NT%2010.0%3B%20Win64%3B%20x64\)%20AppleWebKit%2F537.36%20\(KHTML%2C%20like%20Gecko\)%20Chrome%2F67.0.3396.99%20Safari%2F537.36&EIO=3&transport=polling&t=MJCk_Zd')
to
'[http://127.0.0.1:2372/blockpage?id=178'](http://127.0.0.1:2372/blockpage?id=178')
has been blocked by CORS policy: No 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' header is
present on the requested resource. Origin
'[http://www.mandalagaba.com'](http://www.mandalagaba.com') is therefore not
allowed access.

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Meowlulz
Totally weird but that was an unnecessary tidbit of a script so I removed it.
Thanks for pointing it out.

~~~
groby_b
Still not working on Chrome (67.0.3396.99)

Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property '0' of undefined at
update_mouse_position (javascript.min.js:1) at
HTMLCanvasElement.on_canvas_mouse_down (javascript.min.js:1)
update_mouse_position @ javascript.min.js:1 on_canvas_mouse_down @
javascript.min.js:1

~~~
Meowlulz2
I'm unable to reproduce so far sorry :\ What box are you running this on?

~~~
groby_b
ChromeOS is the non-working one.

It works fine on macOS 69.0.3494.0 and 67.0.3396.99

Looking at the source, it wants to read a touch event whenever touch is
supported (in update_mouse_position)-- but I'm using a mouse. Even though
there's a touch screen, too :) (And using the touch screen, I can draw)

Either way, this is awesome - thank you for putting this together!

~~~
Meowlulz
wow, ok I'll definitely look into it, I'm pretty sure I can get my hands on a
ChromeOS box. Thank you so very much for taking the time to point out exactly
at what's going on.

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adrianaferro
No idea what just happened here:
[https://imgur.com/Se1jzmd](https://imgur.com/Se1jzmd)

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Fnoord
Works on smartphone with Firefox, but if I select a different color I can only
get the selection box go away by tapping on screen or changing color. Both
have repercussions. Perhaps make the undo button more prominent?

~~~
Weedback
Thanks for the feedback! I am not sure I am understanding this correctly. You
should have other colors to choose from
([https://imgur.com/J3MCXWo](https://imgur.com/J3MCXWo)). Or is this not a
color choice issue?

~~~
Fnoord
When I click (touch) on one of these I get the selection bar to modify the
color right away. It causes me to not see 50% of my screen, but in order to
get rid of it I gotta click on the background behind it therefore "painting".
I feel like touch-wise the UI could use some improvements. Though it could've
been worse, too.

~~~
Weedback
Thanks for following up on this. Yeah... we know we have to improve this one
way or another. Truth be told, Mandalagaba is more convenient on a tablet with
a stylus or on a desktop but I agree that we have to find ways of making it
more suitable for smartphones.

~~~
Fnoord
I don't know which percentage of visitors is from smartphone but if you
communicated that it is optimized for PC/laptop/stylus I'd have used that
instead

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NKosmatos
Just wow!!! Free, fast and highly addictive. Must try it while listening to
liquid DnB or psychedelic trance ;-)

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sampl
Very cool!

For folks with iPads, Procreate just released a similar feature (radial
symmetry drawing)

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Meowlulz
This works on iPads as well. On the web or as a free app (Mandalagaba).

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phanindra_veera
Awesome and trippy

~~~
Meowlulz
Thanks :) agree on both, it's nice to see other folks feel the same way.

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teddyh
We had these exact features more than 20 years ago as a built-in feature of
Deluxe Paint – probably the leading computer paint program of its (and
arguably all) time.

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rhcom2
How does the saving by unique hash work?

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Meowlulz
I'm not sure I understand the question exactly as you intend it so my answer
may be off but I'll try :).

Simply, the work is saved on the web server and the hash is what is used to
refer to it.

Is that what you were after?

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zfrenchee
This is beautiful work!

~~~
Weedback
Thanks for the kind words!

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halite
dead?

~~~
Meowlulz
getting hugged pretty hard, working on increasing server firepower...

