

Ask HN: Review my application (2nd try). - rokhayakebe
http://www.doxela.com
I posted  this yesterday, but I believe several people missed it. So I wanted to give it another try, if you may.<p>Doxela.com is a very simple way to share pdfs and ppts (with soon .doc and other formats to follow). Think of it as an imgur.com for documents.<p>I would truly appreciate the harshest feedback.<p>Thank you all.
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cmelbye
Yikes, first of all: get a designer.

Secondly, I'm not sure what the point of this is. Doesn't Google provide
sharing with Google Docs? And they even throw in a full featured word
processor, presentation, and spreadsheet suite.

~~~
Mystitat
Yeah, the design is pretty wonky. It's a simple app: keep the design simple
(as in, maybe just one color, instead of a graphic?).

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dasht
I can't tell what your app promises to do for me from any of the information
on the front page. I can't tell what problem it tries to solve. I can't tell
what would actually happen if I uploaded a file. All I know is that you want
me to give you some file and it has something to do with sharing. Only, you're
a third party I've never met so, why the heck would you want a copy of my
file?

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terpua
It may or may not solve a problem but it does tell you what it does: it helps
you share ppt and powerpoint files.

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Erf
From the perspective of someone encountering the site: _how_ does it help? Why
should I use your site instead of just emailing them? Or using Scribd? Or
putting it on my network shared drive?

~~~
rokhayakebe
Let's say you want to share a PDF with some HN readers in a comment, you can
quickly upload the document and share the view link with others. No
registration, sign in and all the other stuff.

You could have the document on your server. But believe it or not, several
people do not have servers to host documents they may want to share publicly.

I think if you wanted to quickly share a ppt or pdf without much control over
the document, then Doxela is much faster to achieve your goal. It's like what
Scribd would be if they wanted to do a lite.scribd.com.

~~~
Frazzydee
Most PDFs I want to share are taken from an online source, so I'd just link to
that source.

When it isn't, it's usually a document that I'm sharing with a couple people
(I would email it).

I don't remember the last time that I needed to share a document publicly that
I didn't just find online. Since this is such a rare occasion, I probably
wouldn't remember this site and just use something more general like dropbox.

I don't really see much advantage of this over dropbox. Actually, I prefer my
pdf reader over google's since the find feature works better.

Sorry. Maybe I'm not the target of your app though.

Oh, also, it didn't work for me using safari.

One more thing: The text you see after a file is deleted has a grammar
mistake: "Your document succesfully deleted."

~~~
rokhayakebe
Thanks Frazzydee for all the feedback. All taken into consideration. And
thanks for catching the grammatical error.

~~~
Frazzydee
No problem..I actually felt really guilty after writing that for having
nothing but negative things to say :(

Wish you all the best with it!

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rajasaur
First impressions:

1\. Please use a mechanism for tracking all files I have uploaded (whether
custom registration, openid whatever). Without that, this looks like it can be
used only once unless you are capable of remembering those ids that appear in
the URL (<http://www.doxela.com/manage/777656602.php>).

2\. Provide the upload form at all times as that is the main purpose of your
site. For e.g. If I did not enter a filename, the error appears on the front
page and I cant find the upload form anymore

3\. The URLs (for manage) seem to be having more slashes as I move through
every page. Not a problem, but just ugly URLs if I have to share those.

4\. There are much better uploaders available with progress indicators. Using
a simple file upload control works, but would be much better to use a better
upload control

Of all, I would only like (1) above as the absolute must.

~~~
rokhayakebe
Thank you for the feedback.

1\. I may think of a way to do this using, or at least email users the links
just as Craigslist used to.

2, 3.Agreed.

4\. I will have to look into other uploaders.

Thanks again for the time.

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cubicle67
Please tell me you haven't used the default wallpaper from OSX Tiger as your
background :|

~~~
rokhayakebe
Sorry, I can't tell you that.

~~~
rokhayakebe
Cscotta,

Thanks for feedback. I have to create more error messages.

Also I frankly did not think it was necessary to give a shout out to Apple.
Nevertheless, the background will be gone as soon as I do a simple design.

Thanks again for trying the app and for sharing.

~~~
Frazzydee
I think it would be copyright infringement regardless of whether or not you
attribute the source.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
True, you'd need permission from the rights holder to use the image.

Do a Google search for desktop wallpaper using the advanced CC options or use
a background from KDE or such that is FOSS licensed, eg from [http://kde-
look.org/index.php?xsortmode=down&page=0&...](http://kde-
look.org/index.php?xsortmode=down&page=0&xcontentmode=7)

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bricestacey
1\. create an onclick for the share text-box so that it auto-selects the
contents making right-click for copy easier. Don't bother with auto-copying
the text. Many browsers don't support that function anyway.

2\. the Manage link didn't work for me.

3\. the delete button loads the doc viewer again with an error message that
it's no longer available - You should only make it show the "this has been
deleted" message, not the viewer.

4\. Your app seems pretty pointless. You're better off directing people to
docs.google.com and teaching them how to use it instead.

5\. You'll probably run into a brick wall (disk limitations at Google) well
before you reach any sort of critical mass. So, again, I don't see why you're
doing this.

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city41
I just uploaded a pptx created with PowerPoint 2010 beta and all I got was
"This document type is not supported".

You will definitely need to support pptx if you don't already, and make sure
you work with Office 2010, otherwise you're losing a huge chunk of potential
users.

~~~
rokhayakebe
Thank you city41. I am simply using the Google Doc Viewer embed feature, hence
I can only support the document they support. But I will try and find a work
around. Thanks again.

~~~
neurotech1
I have used Google Doc viewer (embedded version) in another project and it is
far more limited than the Doc viewer that is part of GMail, which may result
in hitting a brick wall development wise.

Edit: Are you using the proper embeded version or a hack of Google Docs - its
prompting me to login from an iframe.. this is a definite! problem. Email me
for advice neurofog <at> gmail <dot> com if you want the details.

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zroseman
Drop.io already exists. And it's way, way, way more robust than this.

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rokhayakebe
clickable <http://www.doxela.com>

