

 Review my app, Crate. - sahillavingia
http://letscrate.com/register?inv=hn

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leftnode
I really like your interface. One thing I'm not crazy about with HTML5 is drag
and drop uploading. I like that it exists, but please give me the regular
type=file input box.

With drag and drop, it means I either have to resize my browser to access
something on my desktop or open my filemanager to navigate to the directory
where the files are. I'd much rather just click on a Browse... button and go
from there.

Otherwise, very nice.

~~~
sahillavingia
Ah, good point. We'll add in the ability to click the dropzone for the normal
file upload method soon!

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wccrawford
Interface looks nice. It seems easy to use. Lack of anything other than a
signup form is... Off-putting. Made me wonder if you're just harvesting my
email address.

As for the 'sharing' bit... I just give out the url of the file? Can't give
out the url for the crate? Can't lock it down in any way, shape or form? If
someone guesses my url, they can download my stuff?

~~~
malvim
I agree with the "lack of anything other than a signup for is off-putting".

Sorry, but I won't sign up for something that I don't know what is. This is
probably obvious, I know, and that's exactly why I'm stating it here again.

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sahillavingia
We've been busy with features so we haven't had a chance to work with the
marketing site. But we understand that and that's totally fine.

~~~
swombat
For what it's worth, Woobius ran with only sign-up/login on the front page,
for about 6 months, before we finally got around to adding some information
about what the service was. In that time, being naturally viral, it grew to
over 1000 users.

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rmc
I went to your website and I have no idea what it's about. All I see (on the
home page) is a "Login" or "Register" button. Your tagline is "Ridiculusly
easy filesharing", but I can already share files with people via email or
Facebook, why should I use your site? You need to sell me on your site.

~~~
sahillavingia
This is more of a "review the features of the app" rather than a marketing
pitch, but definitely something we have in the works.

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trickjarrett
Awesome UI, but there is no way in hell I'm giving you any files until you
have some legal pages up explaining my rights, your rights, and what you
can/will do with my information and files.

~~~
sahillavingia
Fair enough, we're working on getting some policy pages up ASAP.

~~~
trickjarrett
Fantastic. But as I said, the site looks great and is extremely simple to use
(from what I can see) - my only concern is the TOS :)

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fredleblanc
I'm doing that no-Flash-plugin-on-my-Mac thing and couldn't get uploading to
work (and I also see a box noting a missing plugin). I "let go to upload," but
the window just sat there. Switching to Chrome (which has Flash built in),
everything worked fine.

As others have said, just having a standard upload button would work nicely.
Same with click-to-copy, there doesn't seem to be a way to get the URL without
Flash. Detect Flash, and then add in the "goodies" like that, otherwise the
interface is much less usable.

Other than that, when Flash is installed, the interface is nice and easy to
use. It's a great start and I look forward to more!

~~~
sahillavingia
Yeah, click-to-copy is Flash only. Definitely looking to implement a fallback
though :)

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sahillavingia
I feel like we've reached a 1.0 (beyond a MVP because it has features that
aren't necessary but greatly improve the UX, oh buzzwords!).

Crate = drag-and-drop + slick interface + easy sharing system of crates or
single files.

We're still hard at work on it (you can tell that the marketing site is quite
lacking...) but I'd love all your feedback. Thanks!

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wilhelm
Why do I need to register to try it out? I'd be happy to spend a few minutes
of my time trying something new, but having to fill in all this information is
too much friction. I won't bother.

A button that allows me to create an anonymous test account with one click
would be nice. If I like the service, I would like to turn my test account
into a proper account, keeping my data. If I don't like it, and abandon my
test account, you can delete it automagically after a month. Please do keep me
logged in the whole month, though - I might change my mind and come back
again.

~~~
retube
Seconded. I think an app like this should allow anonymous users for small
files.

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timtadh
I like the idea, however I would really like short sharing urls for all files.
My use case for sites like letscrate is for quick file transfer for things
like printing from untrusted computers. I also would like a regular file input
box like @leftnode, since many of my files are hidden many layers deep from my
desktop.

~~~
sahillavingia
True, the short URLs aren't that short. We're adding in nice "lts.cr/a" URLs
soon.

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azrealus
I love how simple it is :) Nice job guys! The one thing which I would change
is jumping to the other window to add my files to the crate I just created. I
see the crate I just created added to my list but then the screen suddenly
jumps to the other view. Other than that it's very nice!

~~~
sahillavingia
Yes, it is a bit sudden. We'll work on making this smoother.

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amitvjtimub
Drop area need to be full window. At present it is just one rectangle.

I dropped 2 files and figured it out for third file.

Edit: Also it not immediately obvious that clicking on file copies URL
pointing to that file.

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sahillavingia
Yup, that's the biggest usability problem on our list; workin' on it!

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mikelbring
Looks nice, you need to make it so the file is force downloaded. I uploaded an
html file and it just viewed it.

~~~
wilhelm
Being able to view files directly in my browser is nice. Forcing a download
just so that I can open the same file in the same program is just annoying.

But be careful! If you serve user-uploaded, untrusted files from the same
domain as everything else, that's a great way to make yourself vulnerable to
XSS.

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inovica
I agree with others - just put a brief bit of info to let people know. OK - it
works really well for me. I'd like to be able to rename the files that are
uploaded and I'm not sure how I give access to them to others, unless its
purely via the URL (what about password access)? I still think you've some way
to go, but its good. Some documentation and/or a video would be really useful

How have you created the drag and drop uploading?

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randrews
It doesn't seem to work with folders... I dragged an Xcode project folder on
to it and it spun forever at 0% uploaded.

Other than that, it's pretty cool. Very nice interface. You should make a
shell extension or something so I can right-click on a file to add it to a
crate (and copy the URL to that crate); that would be very handy.

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GotToStartup
I like the simple and clean layout, however, what I really need is a way to
send large files (>200meg).

~~~
FrankDee
Have you tried FilesDIRECT? It lets you send files up to 2GB, store up to 30GB
(to start!), has tons of features and a 1 month free trial. I believe there's
a 50% off sale going on too, but I'm not sure if it's still on...

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sleight42
I dig it. So how about widgets to embed "drop here to store this in create X"
within other apps?

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kevinburke
I tried signing up and the signup page just reloaded with red lines around it.

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snsr
Drag and drop upload hangs at 0% w/ Safari 4.0.2 and Flash 10,0,32,18.

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TheSOB88
Just having a red box around the bad part of the submission form is not
enough. I didn't even notice the box had changed color for like 20 seconds,
because the border is so thin. But you need some text too.

~~~
sahillavingia
Good point! We have this for the login I think, but we'll add this to the
register page too.

