
Show HN: Mjolnir, an automation/productivity app for OS X - _vya7
http://mjolnir.io/
======
vtail
Congratulations on releasing Mjolnir!

Here is some feedback: I have never heard of Mjolnir, or Hydra, before. I
visited the page you linked and skimmed through. Here is what I learnt:

\- That it's a "Lightweight automation and productivity power-tool for OS X"

\- How to try it out

\- How to uninstall it, or install it to $HOME

\- How to install it's doc sets

\- How to work with modules

\- FAQ on some very technical questions

\- Some high-level phylosophical comparison with other apps ("Mjolnir is more
modularized, Slate is more all-in-one")

\- Thanks, technical changes, license etc.

I still have no idea _what is it_ , what _problems_ could it solve and what
are some _typical_ examples of automation, apart from a single paragraph"start
writing some fun staff" in "Try it out" section.

I'm certainly interested in automating tasks on my Mac, but after reading the
landing page I have no idea what kinds of tasks it could be. Is it better that
Automator? How does it compare? Is it better then writing shell scripts? etc.

If I were you, I would spend 70% of the page to explain what someone can
accomplish with Mjolnir and why they should care, and 30% (or less) on the
technical stuff. May be I'm not an intended audience.

~~~
sedev
Can't emphasize this stuff enough. What problems does it solve for the user?
It's described in very general terms, which I'm going to assume is because
it's a general-purpose tool that can solve many problems. Show some of them!
Are they problems people already solve in a different way? Show why yours is
better.

~~~
sdegutis
Thanks to both of you. I've updated the website now to include some things
that help clarify some example use-cases. I hope it helps?

~~~
vtail
Thanks - it does help. So now I have a better understanding what it does - if
I were to express my understanding in a single sentence, it would be something
like "Mjolnir allows you to script Apple mouse events or system dialogs in Lua
and assign them to a hotkey - no need to use Apple C API".

Again, if you target Mac power users (which is the right market you should
probably target - much bigger than just developers), I would emphasize
_higher-level_ stuff you can do with Mjolnir and ease of use comparing to
AppleScript.

For some inspiration, go to App Store and search for "Automator" \- you'll see
several bundles that help people automate programs like Adobe Illustrator,
etc.

Just my 2 cents. Good luck!

~~~
vtail
Here is another idea/fun experiment: try to express your idea in:

\- 5 words

\- 1 sentence

\- 1 paragraph

\- 3 paragraphs

Adding constraints like that really help you focus on what's important. For
example, does "Lightweight" section belong to the introduction, or is it an
implementation detail? Should you move screenshots up on the page above the
"fold line"? etc. etc.

------
sdegutis
Author here.

I'm very glad (and relieved!) to finally release this after several months of
hard work and a ton of help from many very supportive and smart contributors.
Mjolnir wouldn't be nearly as useful without their help!

I'd be happy to answer questions here.

~~~
encoded
Congrats on the release!

I've enjoyed a few of your other projects, and am currently happily using
Phoenix. I look forward to trying Mjolnir in the near future.

I hope Mjolnir will be around for a while. I like your work, but redoing my
setup each time is getting annoying. :)

~~~
sdegutis
Thanks!

Mjolnir is not quite the same as Hydra/Phoenix/Zephyros. Those were "window
managers" and that's really all they do. Mjolnir is for general automation,
although window managing can be part of that.

So if Phoenix is working for you, stick with it :)

------
tehwalrus
I can't read that page at all (I'm rendering it in XFCE in debian, because I
am broke and between Macs.)

to clarify, I can see that there is text, but it's so thin and faint on my
crappy LCD that I'm getting a headache trying to read it. No, this doesn't
happen on most sites.

~~~
sdegutis
Hmm that's weird. I'm using a canned Github-Pages theme on that site. You can
read the exact same text on the official readme:

[https://github.com/mjolnir-io/mjolnir](https://github.com/mjolnir-io/mjolnir)

~~~
Keats
The colour (#777) makes it hard to read (at least for me). Having it in black
(and font-size bumped to 16px) makes it way more readable

~~~
drivingmenuts
I'd bump the font size up a few notches and maybe go with #333 or #444 if
you're just itching for gray text.

------
airlocksoftware
I was going to ask -- isn't this exactly like Hydra? But some Googling
indicates it's the same project and was renamed. Explanation of the name
change here:

[http://sdegutis.github.io/2014/08/11/the-history-and-
current...](http://sdegutis.github.io/2014/08/11/the-history-and-current-
state-of-appgrid-zephyros-phoenix-hydra-penknife-and-mjolnir/)

~~~
sdegutis
It does similar things, and started off from Hydra's code-base. But it's
design and architecture is so different that it's now a completely different
app. Many Hydra modules can be ported, but they're not completely 1:1
compatible.

------
aeontech
How does it compare to Amethyst
[[http://ianyh.com/amethyst/](http://ianyh.com/amethyst/)] ?

~~~
tuananh
Amethyst is a tiling window manager, mjolnir is an automation tool, which can
be configured to be a window manager. Not sure if it can be configured to be a
tiling one.

------
actionscripted
It'd be awesome if there were a brew cask formula for install/setup.

~~~
sdegutis
We experimented with that early on, but at the time `cask` didn't have any way
to remove old versions when upgrading. This caused problems with the start-at-
launch feature, which then launched several instances of the app. This may be
fixed in newer versions of cask, though. If anyone gets around to it, send a
PR :)

------
packetslave
meow-meow?

~~~
sdegutis
According to #mjolnir it's actually pronounced "myur-myur"

