
Show HN: Kinopio.club – visual thinking, brainstorming tool - pketh
https://kinopio.club
======
pketh
Hey HN,

Kinopio is a visual thinking tool that can be used for things like
brainstorming, organizing thoughts, mood-boards, planning, basically for
figuring stuff out (by yourself or collaboratively).

I've been building it for the last year after leaving my job as the co-creator
of Glitch ([http://pketh.org/hello-kinopio](http://pketh.org/hello-kinopio)).

There's no sign up required to use it, let me know what you think,

thx!

– Pirijan

~~~
santa_boy
Looks good. Just wondering how is this different from a mindmap. Is the
multimedia ability the differentiator?

I hacked together a simple textual mindmap with colors, fonts, etc on a canvas
that I use for personal thinking. Just wondering how this improves the
process.

~~~
bentsai
The differentiators for me are: 1) super-streamlined card creation and
editing. It lets me quickly capture, then move around with ease. No fiddling
with appearance or sizes 2) less structure than traditional mind-mapping. I
don't always think in hierarchies. Sometimes I have unrelated thoughts that
later coalesce. This tool matches that mode.

------
thinkersilver
I've been a big fan of brain storming tools for a long time so appreciate new
tools with different takes on the problem.

I do have one observation and it maybe just me. I have no way of clustering a
group of connected thoughts, or a way to 'chunk' the concepts. I see some
attempt by using coloured lines but there should be a way to make these ideas
hierchical and from that be able to zoom up and down various levels of
conceptualisation. It would make managing a large network of ideas a lot
easier, possibly a bit more ergonomic. Similar to the way the brain works.

It may just be me but was wondering if there's a way to achieve that with the
current tooling or if you think there are workarounds?

~~~
farrelmahaztra
Could you maybe link to a different space with your cluster of thoughts/cards
there? I'm not sure if there's a limit for spaces.

~~~
pketh
yup you can put any link (including space links) in a card. And there's no
card limit per space.

------
bentsai
I'm really excited about this tool. It hits all the right notes for me in
terms of flexibility and constraints. I've used it to write an academic paper,
run collaborative retrospective sessions with my team, organize my thoughts,
and more. I wrote about it here:
[https://www.bentsai.org/posts/2020-08-06-i-joined-the-
kinopi...](https://www.bentsai.org/posts/2020-08-06-i-joined-the-kinopio-
club/).

Here's a fun one documenting my guitar setup: [https://kinopio.club/-my-
guitar-setup-iIo8rVWavPruON76J_GPt](https://kinopio.club/-my-guitar-setup-
iIo8rVWavPruON76J_GPt)

------
lukevp
I like the art, not a fan of the text boxes not having white backgrounds when
editing but I get the stylistic choices.

Interesting approach to mind mapping, limiting by # of cards seems like it
encourages large cards though. Could you do a time based trial instead? Or
limit collaboration/public for paid plans?

I was concerned about the performance a large graph would have when I toggled
filters on/off on my iPhone and it took about a second for each change to
apply (that’s with < 20 cards). If someone really used this they’d end up with
thousands.

~~~
pketh
to ensure that cards comfortable fit in all screensizes, cards can only have
255 characters, so cards can't get too big (also because that's the default
postgres string limit).

I'll look into optimizing filter performance, can you email me
(hi@kinopio.club) the space you used for this? It usually isn't that slow.

re time trial: there's certainly no perfect trial scenario that works for
everyone, so if you hit the limit and you're still evaluating just shoot me an
email and i'll adjust your limit.

------
contingencies
For those looking at rolling their own, see
[https://github.com/dagrejs/dagre-d3/wiki#demos](https://github.com/dagrejs/dagre-d3/wiki#demos)
and [http://viz-js.com/](http://viz-js.com/) both based on
[http://graphviz.org/](http://graphviz.org/)

------
o-o-o
Happy user and recent subscriber here. What differentiates this for me vs.
other mind mapping tools is its idiosyncratic and opinionated interface. Yes
please to more interfaces that feel like a human has made them.

------
donut2d
This is really cool. One issue: I accidentally created a checkbox card with no
text and there's no way to edit or remove it (Safari). I can tick the checkbox
and move it around and connect it to other cards, but I can't bring up the
edit window.

Correction: there is a small area just below the checkbox in the card that I
can click to bring up the edit window. Was difficult to discover.

~~~
pketh
good call, i'll look into fixing this soon

~~~
pketh
just pushed out an update that adds some safe clickable area in this case

------
anon1094
Great work on this Pirijan. I use Glitch.com almost daily, but I did not know
that you were the co-creator. But, the moment I landed on the site I knew it
had something to do with Glitch. I felt that familiar design instantly.

------
zapzupnz
Is there any chance Nintendo could look rather disapprovingly upon the use of
the Japanese name for the Toad characters, Kinopio?

~~~
zatel
The demo on the site also uses the wii store music or some recognizable
version of it.

~~~
pketh
The demo song is a mashup version of Drake's hotline bling that I found on
youtube. It'd be awesome if Nintendo went after me for using it though,
because it might mean that they'd use the iconic tune for themselves again

------
TrueDuality
It was a lot of fun exploring how you're UI/UX worked. I like the particle
effect into a selection tool especially.

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gillesjacobs
Very cool visual design. Reminds me of Nototo.app because it also relies on
visual cues for information organisation. It works wonders for intuitive
information recall.

HN discussion of Nototo:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22087780](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22087780)

------
StopHammoTime
I've been using Kinopio for a few things in the last few weeks. It's a great
bit of kit, and for me the excitement of the UI keeps me more interested than
traditional mind mapping software.

Pirijan is super responsive on support. Glad to be able to support his project
financially!

~~~
pketh
it's appreciated!

------
ibdf
This is really neat. Found it to be pretty intuitive, and selecting multiple
nodes is super useful. I noticed the arrow links on the top of the node open
on the same window, which I would have expected to open on a blank window so
that I don't lose the current view.

~~~
pketh
the links open in the same page because navigating away from kinopio.club
doesn't result in any data loss.

Because there are usability issues with new tab/window spawning for less pro
computer users, the w3c recommendation is that you should only use
target=_blank links when moving to a new page would destroy your page state
(e.g. if you were filling out a form).

(Just in case you haven't tried it yet, middle mouse clicks will open the url
in a new window/tab)

------
pk78
Hey! Nice tool! I created a similar mind mapper a while back - it's completely
free to use: [https://mapsofmind.com](https://mapsofmind.com)

If someone is looking for a similar tool, do take a look! :)

------
breakfastduck
Really cool design choices here. I love how simple and responsive it is.

Can see myself using this quite a bit for work.

Are there plans to add more types of cards? Html embed might be quite cool.

It would also be nice to be able to give the connections an angle so they can
go around different blocks

~~~
pketh
html embed is def possible , but using an actual iframe might lead to some
performance impacts. Instead what I eventually plan to build is a url
unfurling/screenshot tool that I can use on cards with urls

~~~
breakfastduck
I would love that.

Have you considered adding markdown support to the cards?

Within an hour I paid for premium and have used it to mock up diagrams and
workflows at work multiple times. This is a really fantastic tool for non
linear ideas & brainstorming. I hope you are able to continue development!

------
jlbnjmn
Love it! It's great. Works for me. I needed something like this today.

I'm not sure why it's so much better than other mind mapping tools, but it is.

Also, really big fan of the local storage only, no login required feature.

~~~
uxamanda
The local storage is great. Looks like the export to JSON and the local
storage cache are one and the same meaning importing data should be
straightforward as well.

------
bkyan
Have you considered making your background draggable? (Example:
[https://beta.mindcast.com/](https://beta.mindcast.com/) )

~~~
pketh
it's a neat idea, def something I'll think about.

In general my goal is to have the main navigation interactions be as native as
possible so there's less to learn. e.g. if you know how to scroll a webpage,
you know how to scroll a kinopio space.

------
zatel
Thank you for making this it's cool and is basically the exact way that I use
Keynotes on Mac to organize ideas (only better because of adding videos and
other content)

------
aus_sua
The tool freezes sometimes - The elements stop working until you refresh the
page

P.S: Great tool. Loved it

~~~
pketh
Hey aus_sua, this is the first I've heard of that. Could you let me know what
actions occured when you noticed the freezing (scrolling, card editing, etc.)?

As well as any device or browser info. If I can replicate this I should be
able to eliminate the freezing.

(For a quicker response, feel free to email me at hi@kinopio.club)

thanks!

------
S33V
I might be a dummy, but if I create a card with a checkbox and nothing else I
can't seem to edit it. Is this a bug?

~~~
S33V
By the way I love the product :)

~~~
pketh
thanks! I'll also look into addressing this bug soon

------
whywhywhywhy
Been following this from the start, like where it's heading and hope to see
more things like this in the future.

------
neetrain
Isn't name of the product going to cause copyright issues? "Kinopio" is the
Japanese name for Toad from Super Mario franchise.

~~~
madrox
Names cannot be copyrighted, though they can be trademarked, but trademarks
are rarely enforceable outside the trademark’s domain. Since this site has
nothing to do with video games I think they’re fine.

------
juliend2
I love this. Any plan on adding a premium pricing so I can be confident I can
use this in the future?

~~~
juliend2
Ok I just saw this:

> Kinopio is free for 150 cards, afterwards it's 4$/month

Cool!

------
bobbydreamer
Really cool. It's easy to use.

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wildrhythms
Great job! Love the design, reminds me of glitch.com

------
smusamashah
Looks similar to Miro

~~~
pketh
try them both out, I think you'll find the differences in feel and use readily
apparent :)

------
maydemir
great job!

~~~
pketh
thanks!

