

Show HN: My Project Management and (eventual) Collaboration Tool (Server down) - dclaysmith
http://www.thetaboard.com

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dclaysmith
Hey everyone. I've been working on and off on this for the last 9 months or so
(god has it been that long). I wanted to learn backbone.js, improve my
javascript skills, and build a tool that I felt had been missing. So I build
ThetaBoard--a (very) simple tool for managing lists and projects.

Unfortunately, Trello came out in September and was fairly similar to my
original vision. I thought about stopping development but my vision for
ThetaBoard is a bit different than Trello so decided to atleast get an MVP out
there and see what people thought. Would love to hear your suggestions and
ideas. Especially any areas where tools like Trello aren't really scratching
your itch.

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marketmonkey
Just had a play. Looks good. A few comments:

    
    
      - SUGGESTIONS
      - Switch the screenshot and demo button around (button on right)
      - Improve the quality of the screenshot
      - Pre-fill the blank slate with some demo items
      - Allow users to download data (json/xml etc.)
       
      - BUGS
      - When using the demo, press save, then [browser back]. I get a JSON representation
       
      - QUESTIONS
      - Does it allow multi-user access?
    

Keep it up.

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dclaysmith
Thanks a ton. I put the landing page together last night and I'm not much of a
designer (tho was pretty happy with how it turned out). Definitely needs
better screenshots (and it doesn't work on the ipad right now so should
probably drop it!)

Data export coming! and yeah, I prepopulate the initial board with some
default columns but should throw a couple stories in there.

It doesn't currently allow multi-user access but it's (fairly) useless without
it long term. The free/personal plan isn't collaborative (that's my initial
plan). When/if I add some premium plans it will obviously have to have multi-
user and realtime updates.

Thanks.

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dpcx
I like this. I do have some comments:

    
    
      - When dragging from one board to another, unless I drag to the right location, I can't drop. It would be nice if I could drop anywhere in the board
      - Keyboard shortcuts?
      - A way to save a story without using the mouse
      - If I drag from the To Do board, I can drag (forever) to the right. This isn't a problem, per se, but is definitely unexpected behavior.

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dclaysmith

       * I think I just need to add some padding into the jquery.ui.sortable to make them more "accomodating"
       * Thanks. I had some simple keyboard shortcuts in place (ctrl+n, ctrl+s) but found a couple of bugs in the library so temporarily removed them.
       * Saving without a mouse: hitting tab currently should do it but keyboard shortcuts coming soon.
       * Yep, hadn't noticed that it flies off to the right. Thanks!

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vineet
I like it. Solving Project Management pains is hard. There are way too many
tools that don't work. I like your approach - having a very fast interface to
add and move items makes a significant different.

That being said, how do you intend to be different from Trello?

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dclaysmith
Thanks! One of the things I'm trying to do design wise is eliminate/minimize
pop up screens and multiple pages, etc. I want everything to accessible from
one screen.

My plan is to add functionality--initially realtime collaboration--and then
comments, tasks, assigned users, point/time tracking, etc. but make all of the
features opt-in and customizable.

I consider this the real minimum viable product. Just a list of items.
Priority represented by position in a list. Status respresented by WHICH list.
An unobtrusive backlog. An accessible archive. I want people to be able to use
it at this level of simplicity a year from now.

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vineet
Those sound really good - but aren't they exactly what Trello is already
doing?

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dclaysmith
Trello is a great product and, honestly, it was a bit deflating when they
launched. Not to mention they are (currently) free and I hope to offer premium
packages.

The one (only?) thing about Trello that I don't love is the number of pop up
screens, etc. I want ThetaBoard to be a single interface where you can do what
you need from the one page. If that makes any sense.

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cjbos
I really like your product, and I also like Trello, but unfortunately our
corporate policy is to avoid hosting data on third party servers so I can't
use either. These products would make a great tool for my small team.

This is not a suggestion just a comment/wish, I'd like to see some app like
yours offer the ability to store/retrieve data from a web service that we can
provide to you but written to your specification, not sure if something like
that is possible, but it would be preferable to a packaged application my
small team cannot afford. I haven't seen a SaaS app take this approach, but it
is interesting to think how it might work. UI as a Service?

~~~
dclaysmith
Really interesting idea. With Backbone.js and RESTful APIs (which ThetaBoard
is using), it wouldn't be too difficult to implement on the UI side. The
hardpart would be getting organizations like yours to build their own public
api exposing their business data.

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import
Looks nice! My suggestions;

Keyboard shortcuts (N for new to-do, Shift-S for saving item). An API, or a
Mac/Win app or terminal tool.

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dclaysmith
Good ideas. Probably go API first...

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dclaysmith
Any way to change a title of a post after 2.5 hours? Wouldn't mind removing
the "(Server Down)" part... If anyone (pg, moderator of some sort) wants to
help, the original was:

Show HN: My Project Management and (eventual) Collaboration Tool :: Θ
ThetaBoard

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jastanton
Using a column name as "<script>alert(1)</script>" I get an error.

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dclaysmith
I think I'm glad.

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dclaysmith
Ouch. Server swamped. Rookie mistake. Resizing it to a bigger instance. Check
back soon!

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entropie
Does not load here.

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dclaysmith
Yeah. I _thought_ I had resized the server instance last night but it looks
like it failed. So it's now running on a 256MB instance... on w/ support.
Check back soon!

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entropie
Works now. Interesting. Are there any hotkeys? I think it would be nice to
move an item via Ctrl + left. Also some colors for priorities..?

~~~
dclaysmith
Hey. I had a few basic hotkeys in place this morning but found a bug so
dropped them out of the build (ctrl+n for new, ctrl+s for save). Want to get
the hotkeys right so going to give them some more thought before I implement
them.

Planning on implementing colored tags very soon...

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nishant123001
very nice, intuitive and simple. I love to use it.

