

Show HN: Mindcast.com -- My Browser-Based Widget Engine MVP - bkyan

Hey everyone!  I am building a little browser-based widget engine that is inspired by Corning's "A Day Made of Glass" video. I was hoping to get some feedback on which of my interface decisions made sense and which do not, as this user interface goes a bit off of the beaten path for webapps.<p>Please note that this MVP is made to work with a mouse-based devices.  Touch sort-of works, but I've got a bit of work to do before I'm ready to call this MVP-ready for touch devices<p>Here are some features that (hopefully) makes this widget engine interesting for you:<p>* You can drag the background to scroll the viewport, both vertically and horizontally.<p>* When in edit mode, you can double-click the background and enter a url to embed a web panel/iframe.
    (... as long as the target webpage doesn't block framing.)<p>* You can minimize/expand web panels, with automatic thumbnail generation by url2png's web service.
    (... there is processing delay of up to 15 seconds on 
the thumbnail generation.)<p>* You can set the page dimensions and upload custom backgrounds.<p>* There are some simple authoring widgets for edit mode that I started to work on: 
  a wysiwyg editor (redactor), a grid editor (handsontable), a checklist builder, an image uploader<p>Thanks for checking this out!  You do have to register to get into edit mode and be able to save your work.  It's, of-course, free since I'm obviously in beta...  If you have any questions, feel free to post them here.  I'll respond when I can. (I do have a day-contract unrelated to this project, so I can't be here all the time.)<p>http://mindcast.com
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bkyan
Clickable Link:

<http://mindcast.com>

