

Ask YC: Feedback on my Mac Leopard App - hbien

About 4 months ago, I quit my full time coding job and started freelancing while working on this task management app:<p>http://gearsquare.com/actiongear/<p>I wanted to make the app stay in the background, only showing itself when the user hits a hotkey combination like Quicksilver.  This works really well when I'm "in the zone", because ActionGear just pops up over TextMate/XCode/Firefox when I need it and then goes away when I'm done.<p>It's in early beta right now (and free) because I believe in the "release early/release often route".<p>I'd really appreciate any feedback you guys have on the application, website, screencast, or even the business.<p>And if you guys have any questions for me, feel free to ask here =].<p>Thanks!
- Hugh
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swombat
You have a lot of competition, but hey, that's not always a bad thing!

The website looks very neat and clear, but you need to do a better job of
conveying why ActionGear is better than the other options out there, from
Things to OmniFocus to other GTD implementations. At the moment it's not
clear.

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hbien
Thanks swombat, I do have a lot of competition =].

I think ActionGear stands out by being a background app, like Quicksilver,
instead of being a full blown GTD implementation. I'll try to emphasize the
difference more.

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zenspider
I was going to say roughly the same thing as swombat... you need to
distinguish more. In particular, you seem focused on the fact that your app
stays in the background. OmniFocus does the same thing. I hit

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mattculbreth
I think its really nice, thanks. I'll continue to test it and compare it with
Check Off, which I use now.

A few suggestions: 1\. Really crank out the keyboard shortcuts. Things like
Delete on a group would be good. 2\. Small thing--when you create a Group, go
ahead and make it editable so that I can just start typing its name. 3\.
Support colored Groups, tasks.

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hbien
Thanks for the suggestions!

I wanted to let you know that I'm working on (1) more keyboard shortcuts and
(2) making items/groups editable after adding them. Both features should be in
the 1.0 release.

In fact, if you're a TextMate user, there's this "Go to File" shortcut that I
enjoy so much I wanted to put in ActionGear. The idea is: user hits hotkey,
window pops up, user types in group name partially, ActionGear takes you to
that group.

I'm a big fan of keyboard shortcuts too =]. I even dedicated a page to them:

<http://gearsquare.com/actiongear/hotkeys/>

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mattculbreth
Cmd-T is the greatest keyboard shortcut of all time in TextMate.

What is the Inbox for in your app?

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hbien
It's one place to collect all of your thoughts so you can organize it later.
It's from David Allen's GTD method:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done>

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joshu
I like it. I'm continually trying out apps for this purpose but inevitably end
up using an editor under Terminal.

(Pretend each hyphen starts a new bullet point)

Problems: \- The cold start is a bit weak on first run. What should I do next?
A little tutorial would be good. \- I wish I could create an item without
mousing to edit the description. Is this possible?

Ideas: \- Growl integration: Randomly pop up items that need to be done,
sortof as a teaser. Perhaps bias towards older or stale items? \-
Dependancies?

Wild idea: \- add a server component, via a simple REST api, with a simple PHP
version. Let me make a specific project folder be shared with other people.
The website can show a simple list of todos/completions ala twitter. (anything
you can X, I can social X. sorry.)

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hbien
Joshu, thanks for your feedback!

I was concerned about the cold start as well, I'll think of a better way to do
a first run.

You can add a new item using cmd-N and then hit 'tab' to edit it. When you're
done, hit 'enter' or 'tab' again to edit tags. I'll be changing it so right
after adding a new item, it'll go straight to editing it.

I haven't thought of Growl integration, but honestly it sounds like a great
idea to show users what to do next in their list.

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joshu
The Growl stuff is something I've wanted forever. Remind me of what I'm
supposed to be doing!

Seriously, though, the more I think of it, a server component would be great.

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a-priori
It looks good. I currently use Things (<http://www.culturedcode.com/things/>)
for a similar purpose, but good global keyboard shortcuts might make me
switch.

~~~
hbien
Thanks a-priori, I used to be a Things user myself - I think it's a great app
=].

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hbien
Link:

<http://gearsquare.com/actiongear/>

<http://gearsquare.com/media/vid/actiongear.mp4> <\-- this is just a 73 sec
video demo I put together in iMovie, it's a 6.4MB download

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j2d2
It seems odd to me that this isn't coupled with a network host of some kind.
Organizing my tasks is rarely the hard part. It's remembering them from
anywhere that proves tricky.

Perhaps instead of a network host, something better integrated with an iPhone
would be good..?

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hbien
I completely agree with you, I'm definitely going to make an iPhone version
that syncs with the desktop app. It's very useful to have your tasks on you
all the time, so you won't forget them.

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ropiku
At first sight it's nice, simple and needs a bit of polishing. It's a bit
annoying to not being able to delete groups.

I know that you want the app to appear when you need it, but I personally
would like it to stay as a normal app after I unhide it and cmd+tab on it.

~~~
hbien
Thanks, I'm hoping to give it more of a polish for the 1.0 release. It's still
missing some features that I think are necessary.

To delete a group, select it, and click on the "gear" icon on the bottom left.
There's a menu item to "Delete Group".

Did you expect the delete key to delete a group? Or did you right click on a
group looking for a menu to delete? I should implement those features, I want
the UI to be clear for everyone.

If more people request it, I _might_ make an option in the preferences to have
it act like a normal app so you can cmd+tab to it.

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ropiku
I was expecting right click menu.

Thank you for taking into consideration my option, it's not a requirement for
me. I'll play more with your app see how it feels.

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izak30
I'm having a problem..

I assiagned a hot key. Then I didn't restart the computer yet.

Later, I was in the safari search bar, and whenever I hit 'a' it would toggle
the program. I had to close the program to be able to hit 'a' again.

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hbien
Hi izak,

This seems to be a bug that some other people are having also. I'm working on
a fix for it and it'll be out for the next version.

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powellb
Hugh, your app looks promising. I will try it out for a week and see how it
fits into my workflow.

One side question: what is the terminal icon in your menubar? I must have that
app (whatever it is).

~~~
hbien
Heh, it's called Visor, from the makers of Quicksilver:

<http://docs.blacktree.com/visor/visor>

You can hack Terminal.app so it becomes a background app too, like
Quicksilver/ActionGear:

[http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=200107011915182...](http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20010701191518268&query=nsuielement)

I also made it a "login item" to start on system start up. System prefs ->
Accounts -> Login Items.

So now, I always have a command line prompt handy =P.

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bdotdub
Looks really cool :) I'm not in front of my mac right now, but looks
promising, will definitely try out.

One thing about the website though, please please resize your screenshots into
thumbnails!

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hbien
Thanks bdotdub, I resized the screenshots so they should look better on
Windows IE/Firefox now.

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jmtulloss
If you click "Show ActionGear" and then bring another window to the
foreground, the menu says "Hide ActionGear", but clicking the item brings the
window to the foreground.

~~~
hbien
Thanks! I'll get that fixed for the next version.

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h34t
Somehow your #pp h#s t#ken over my keybo#rd.

Every time I try #nd type #n "#" (# being pronounced "eh"), your #pp comes to
the foreground. It is very #nnoying.

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ashleyw
Yeh sme for me too...shme becuse t first glnce it looks gret!

Intel Mcbook Pro, Leoprd 10.5.4

Btw, no ide why I didn't close the pp before typing this messge, its very hrd
to remember not to press letter...

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hbien
Sorry! I hope it wasn't a huge inconvenience for you, but thanks for the bug
report. I'll get on this one immediately...

It looks like for you the app wasn't substituting '#' in place of 'a', or were
you deleting the '#' characters?

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h34t
That was my bad. I typed in # characters in place of 'a''s.

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jobeirne
Looks pretty slick. I really like the minimal, "lurking in the shadows" sort
of approach. Would integration with iCal be something feasible/desired?

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hbien
Thanks jobeirne, I was hoping that people like the minimal approach.

I use iCal too, so I think integration with iCal would be a really useful. I'm
putting it on the back burner as a 1.1 or 1.2 feature.

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aupajo
Website Feedback :)

1\. Alter typography, add a decent line height (maybe 1.6em?) 2\. Background
image is yeck. You'd be better off with a lighter grey than the current image.
3\. Headings would look better without small-caps

Other than that, seams good! Still testing the app atm.

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parenthesis
Seeing as its a Mac app, you might not care, but the site doesn't look very
good on Windows XP + IE7 (I'm using someone else's computer). The font(s) look
kind of 9-pin dot matrix, and the screen shots are not very clear (it's hard
to see what the text says in them).

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hbien
Ah thanks, I'll probably fix the site in IE7 tomorrow. I googled about the
blurry screenshots, turns out PNG looks bad in IE7. I'll try converting the
images to JPEG..

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there
it looks bad for me in firefox on unix as well. make properly scaled
thumbnails of your images, don't rely on the browser to scale them down.

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blakeperdue
I reviewed your app and also many of the other apps that people mentioned in
the comments.

[http://blog.blakeperdue.com/2008/09/15/app-reviews-task-
mana...](http://blog.blakeperdue.com/2008/09/15/app-reviews-task-management/)

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blakeperdue
i would say add a publish a group feature would be nice. i currently do this
with remember the milk so my boss can keep tabs on what i'm doing.

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hbien
Hi blakeperdue,

This sounds like a pretty useful feature. I'll put it on the back burner for
now, but what I'm thinking of is a simple HTML page generated and published to
a server for other people to view.

