
Show HN: CodeOwl – Organize your notes, todos, and code snippets in one place - charbz
https://codeowl.io/
======
dugmartin
Nice. I'd suggest automatically adding a todo list that had tasks about
discovering all the features when a new user first loads the app. Having an
essentially blank screen is going to cause a lot of users to bounce.

Also, I'd set

    
    
        .workspace { overflow: hidden}
    

as I'm getting a double scrollbar in Chrome (Windows 10).

~~~
charbz
great idea ! to start off with a pre-filled todo list Thank you

------
chipfunk
Good stuff. I could see myself using this. A few bits of feedback:

\- Notes should be clamped to screen. There seems to be no limit to how far
off screen I can drag something, after which I cannot bring it back (unless I
create another note).

\- It would be nice if there was some way to snap the notes along a grid so
that it's easier to arrange things neatly.

\- Collapsible notes would be nice (e.g. collapsing the note so that only the
header is visible). Right now each tab has a very limited amount of space.

~~~
charbz
Awesome feedback , we were unsure between complete free-form and a grid system
but seems like many people prefer a more rigid grid

------
murrayb
Nice application, thanks.

There really needs to be a way to change the order of to-do's.

What happens to deleted to-do's? Gone forever?

Also CodeOwl combined with graphviz (as shown here-
[https://zwischenzugs.com/2017/12/18/project-management-as-
co...](https://zwischenzugs.com/2017/12/18/project-management-as-code-with-
graphviz/)) would be very cool- to-do list -> dependency diagram with colours
updating as items are checked off...

------
bevan
Congrats on launch!

A call to action could be useful. "Welcome to CodeOwl! Create your first
note/link now."

Looks nice!

------
syberspace
No privacy policy, no about page. No info on who's actually behind this. No
contact info whatsoever. Why should I register for an account or input any of
my data?

------
folta
Any possibility of allowing self-hosting? Would be fantastic to run on my
local dev server.

~~~
charbz
as of today , we only implemented the cloud version running with firebase on
the backend , but a localhost solution is definetly in the works. I can send
you an email once a localhost version is ready -- stay in touch
code.owl.app@gmail.com

------
dan678
Really cool. Like others have mentioned, tiling would be great. Free form
isn't bad though, maybe make a toggle between free form and tiling?

~~~
charbz
This might be the best solution .. we will check the feasibility of it

------
charbz
Thank you all for the great feedback you have given me. Please join the
CodeOwl subreddit to stay in touch, I will be posting updates over there for
all the features requested in this thread !

[https://www.reddit.com/r/codeowl/](https://www.reddit.com/r/codeowl/)

Happy Coding

------
semperdark
Bug report: When I add an invalid link (Like "123") to the Links widget it
sends a request to "publicApi/links" which hangs for a few minutes before
failing.

It looks like you're requesting the URL server-side to provide a preview, you
may want to validate the URL before making the request, or catch invalid
requests.

~~~
NKCSS
Also, just implement a give-up after 3-5 seconds. If a sever can't respond in
that time, why bother (not worth the resources).

------
z5h
To the CodeOwl developers: How did this Show HN work out for you?

What kind of traffic did you get to your site? Did people give it a solid
test-drive? Did they offer good suggestions, find bugs, etc?

Thanks.

~~~
charbz
We got quite a bit of traffic , and the target group is perfect for codeowl,
also the feedback has been overwhelming and mostly positive. I think Show HN
is a great idea for dev tools

~~~
z5h
As someone planning to do a "Show HN", understanding what "quite a bit of
traffic" means, would be helpful. Can you could divulge more details? Happy
you got positive feedback. Seems like a good idea for a tool, and nicely
implemented. Thanks.

~~~
charbz
I guess it's all relative , but we recieved about 7200 unique user sessions in
2 days from HN. Let me know when your Show HN is published :)

~~~
z5h
Thanks. That's helpful.

My app, if you care to take a look now:

[https://ixberg.com/#/invite/2018-hn-1](https://ixberg.com/#/invite/2018-hn-1)

(anyone reading this can try this as well)

------
guptat59
Nice tool. I would make urls just clickable and hyperlink them. CodeOwl may
not have access to everything I paste there and some urls may be broken if you
don't have access.

------
binaryapparatus

        CodeOwl is not yet supported on small screen resolutions :(
        
        ...
    

Running in w3m on FreeBSD, decently large screen :)

~~~
charbz
ouch

~~~
cpv
on a macbook pro 13.3 inch (2560x1600) if I resize the browser (Firefox) a
little, the right side of the header (Share, login) becomes hidden.

------
NKCSS
Looks nice, but I'd save everything to local storage when it's not saved to
the server. I expected it to be still there when I press F5.

Also, when you are dragging an item, make sure it get's the highers z-index,
you don't want the tile you are holding to appear below another one while
dragging.

~~~
charbz
I like the localStorage persistence ! you can expect this feature to be there
soon , thanks for the feedback

------
INTPenis
I love it, a small project space manager.

But what does it use for storage? Do you have a backend or is it all browser
storage? I assume backend since Firefox never prompted me about using browser
storage.

Reason I ask is that all free things come to an end. Just like Taiga.io, which
I used before for minor project management.

~~~
charbz
I am using firebase for storage currently the model is completely free , once
you create enough dashboards you can request extra space also for free ( for
all early adopter and for the foreseeable future )

------
polartx
This is exactly the kind of application my life needs! I've been using the
Notes section of the toolbelt of Sublime.

edit- autosave would be great though. I made all these notes, then left for an
hour (without saving), when I came back the page refreshed itself and
everything was gone.

~~~
charbz
glad you find this useful .. this came about after years of frustration as a
dev

------
k4ch0w
Very cool man. I could definitely see myself using this. Is there a mode to
set new notes to tiling mode rather than down a list? Something similar to
[https://i3wm.org/](https://i3wm.org/)

~~~
charbz
This seems to be the most consistent feedback we've had so far, so you can
definitely expect tiling mode to come soon

~~~
k4ch0w
No worries man. I love the initial site and concept. I can't wait to see more
of it. I will show it to my team next week. I'd love to save screenshots and
an autosave, I'm pretty forgetful.

I will continue to use it and give you guys feedback. Nice work!

------
chewmieser
Random bug: All panes seem to accept pressing <enter> as valid input. The URL
pane seems to spin forever if you just press <enter>.

Neat though, agreed with adding a todo to help the user navigate their first
time through.

~~~
charbz
Interesting, thanks for reporting !

------
jimt1234
Feature request: Search. If I don't have the ability to search search through
all my Notes/Todos/Code/Links, then it's kinda useless to me. I like it a lot,
though. Thumbs up.

~~~
charbz
Search is a feature we are working on for the next update

------
PurpleRamen
Looks interessting. Is there an export?

Kanban might also be something to strive for. This should be easily
implementable by just adding a column- or grid-layout with title-element at
the top, per tab.

~~~
charbz
export sounds like an awesome feature to add .. I guess the format of the
exported data is something I'd have to think about

~~~
charbz
any format in particular ? .. JSON would be the most natural , XML is possible
.. plain text probably the most useful

~~~
PurpleRamen
Whatever would be simple and stable. So yaeh, JSON seems to be the obvious
choice. I guess Firebase or your web-framework is already using it internally?

Export is the natural downfall of every cloud-solution. Because if people have
no way to get their data, many will not bother to bound with a closed up tool.

------
eindiran
I really like this and can imagine using it regularly. Do you have any plans
to support more color options in the future?

~~~
charbz
do you mean color for text , or for the widgets themselves .. we do plan on
creating a dark theme , as well as adding more coloring options to the widgets

~~~
eindiran
I meant both the widgets and the text: I tried changing the color of the
widget to grey and with the default text color it was very difficult to read,
but I didn't see any way to change the color of the text.

Having the option to change the theme of the entire app or dashboard would be
very desirable as a feature, at least to me.

------
squiggy22
Very cool. Be nice to have it as a Chrome plugin just to open it quickly, or
have it there all the time as a new tab.

~~~
charbz
We were thinking of making a desktop client for codeowl , but chrome plugin
might be even easier

~~~
virgilp
Not just chrome. Some people use Firefox ;)

I tried it, it's promising. I'd like a desktop app/ browser plugin version
too, I think. But don't take just my word for it... I'm not sure I'm a good
client for this sort of app (e.g. I don't pay for Evernote, just use it within
their "free" limitations)

------
wellpast
Where is my Clojure syntax highlighting?

~~~
charbz
Clojure syntax -- noted

~~~
gpm
While calling out languages - rust.

------
kqr
Sounds very interesting. Out of curiosity, why would I use this over, e.g. Org
mode?

~~~
charbz
I would say the most obvious difference is having all your notes / dashboards
in the cloud, accessible through a web-browser, and being able to share them
with others through a url

~~~
OskarS
That would be so cool to have for Org mode, a version of emacs that runs in
the browser where you can cloud-edit your org mode files.

~~~
charbz
very interesting .. I will be looking into that ! thank you

------
hitgeek
nice work!

I couldn't figure out how to exit the full screen interactive code view.

The button to delete a todo and "check" a todo are pretty close together, easy
to click the wrong one. maybe move the check to the left side of the text?

adding links is really slow.

------
chrisjh
Hey @charbz great project! How can I get in touch to provide some feedback?

~~~
charbz
Thank you ! feel free to write me on code.owl.app@gmail.com your feedback is
much appreciated

------
d4nc00per
nice work, looks very polished from the outset.

Couple of things: \- Items don't reflow when you remove them? I only added
loads of notes and removed the top two, but the rest stayed off the screen.

------
ezconnect
How do you search stuff you've save?

------
urda
Can tabs not be renamed?

~~~
charbz
tabs can be renamed , simply click on the tab and change the name

~~~
urda
Got it, must have not done that to start with!

