
Show HN: Momentum – create lists to structure your thoughts and projects - r0bin
https://momentum.earth
======
zichy
Seeing the demo video on your website, I really have no idea what's going on.
Your navigation doesn't have to be "revolutionary", it has to work. If no one
has done it before, maybe there's a good reason for that.

The interface features bad contrasts (neon colors on white), thin (illegible)
fonts, and too much whitespace. The category/navigation bars seem way too
small. _Please_ work on your typography.

~~~
r0bin
Further design themes are planned. For now the low contrast is by design. When
you enter your projects they will be displayed in high contrast. Thanks for
the feedback though

~~~
zichy
I get that the low contrast is by design. _Everything_ is by design, since
someone once thought about everything. I don't want to be a dick about it, but
texts with low contrast are _almost never_ a good idea.

~~~
inetsee
I agree with you but I would suggest that texts with thin fonts _and_ low
contrast are _always_ a bad idea.

~~~
zichy
I agree on the thin fonts, but text with low contrast can sometimes be useful
to indicate that an element is inactive or unused (e.g. <input disabled> in
HTML).

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jsnathan
Two other nice apps in this space are Workflowy[1] and Dynalist[2].

[1]: [https://workflowy.com](https://workflowy.com)

[2]: [https://dynalist.io](https://dynalist.io)

~~~
jfreax
This seems like an interesting approach to organize data. Are there any open
source implementation that I can customize myself and host on my own personal
server?

~~~
murftown
Some assembly required, but:

I have a self-hosted solution. It's in an alpha state, not ready for public
consumption, but would love any feedback from people willing to try it out.
Here it is:

[https://github.com/ryanfmurphy/db_viewer](https://github.com/ryanfmurphy/db_viewer)

This started as a DB Admin tool ala PhpMyAdmin, but I now use it for Todo
lists, tree-style mind-mapping / brainstorming, tracking finances, etc.

If you give this a shot feel free to email me for help setting it up / getting
the most out of it. (Email is in my profile)

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r0bin
Hello HN,

we built this web app which enables you to structure ideas, thoughts and your
projects.

It offers a similar flexibility in building hierarchy as OmniFocus. Just
without being tied to apple or a missing web interface. One of the main
reasons why we started this project.

I want to highlight one feature that I never seen anywhere else. There is no
difference between tasks, projects or folders. It works based on your
hierarchy, for example an idea become a project when you add a "subtask". The
app has no limit on how deep you nest and offers an extra view that filter all
actionable next steps out of your hierarchy.

It is a progressive web app, so you are able to add it to your mobile
homescreen and use it offline. You can also encrypt your data with your login
password.

I am excited to get your thoughts about the app or any questions.

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mezod
I was interested until I read "revolutionary design" while having a hard time
to read most of the copy of the site. There are some other major design issues
on the site that you might wanna get fixed. I'm not a design geek, but text
has to be readable.

~~~
dobin
TBH, i'm also confused, but i didnt invest more than 2 minutes looking at it.
The menu changes the location to all sides which is a bit confusing. I also
added some drop's, gave it a context, now they are gone?

It seems that the application is trying to help a lot, with video and the help
pages etc. Which is good, but also a sign that its not very intuitive.

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tmountain
Just FYI - Momentum is a well established email platform that's owned by
MessageSystems. If your project gets any traction, this is sure to cause
issues at some point.

[https://www.messagesystems.com/products/momentum-
platform](https://www.messagesystems.com/products/momentum-platform)

------
wpietri
Please just let people try it. No signup flow, no barriers. Just let us use
it. If it's as good as you say, we'll want to save what we've created; you can
get us to sign up then.

Also, you should really user-test landing pages like this. I get that you love
the design and content. But the page is not for you. Book 5 people in your
target market and study how it works for them. Then revise and book another 5.
Repeat until people are actually engaging with the topic in the way you want.

~~~
r0bin
I agree with you, our long-term goal is to use the approach you mentioned. We
even considered it for the launch but thought it is to much work. But I
realized that it worth more to make it as easy as possible to try out a web
app, if you ask for feedback. So for the future and if possible I will do it
differently.

Thanks for the feedback, for now we are pretty happy with the engagement of
the landing page.

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jarvuschris
Still stuck waiting for my verification email, and it's not in spam. You
should let people use your app as soon as they finish signing up.

Limit functionality or disable after a grace period to enforce email
verification, don't stop people during the onboarding flow and lose their
interest

~~~
r0bin
very sorry for that, please give us a short notice directly from the "?!" help
menu in the app

thanks for the advice with the grace period, good point.

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t-----------
The reception would be much improved with better visuals. I can't read
anything, the launch page hurts my eyes and I don't know where to look. The
gifs play too fast to understand what I'm looking at.

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crush-n-spread
There's already a product called Momentum Dash[1] which is a project-
organizing Chrome extension.

[1] [https://momentumdash.com/](https://momentumdash.com/)

~~~
dmoojunk
I love dash and was excited for this, but the navigation is madness. Someone
let UX drive this one. Being surprised by the novelty is not a good UX
experience.

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voiper1
... looks nice, but I'm afraid of being stuck having to pay. Will you have a
free tier..?

Currently using workflowy for stuff _like_ this, but it seems your system is
much more flexible.

~~~
r0bin
in the event of an introduction of basic income, there will be for sure a free
tier, maybe free at all :) But in the long-term we need to sustain the
infrastructure costs. That depends on the feedback of how users and the
community is willing to contribute to the costs or the value they have from
the app.

Great to hear, we still search for cases where the flexibility provided by the
app is not sufficient

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apthnz
I really like the core concept of saving ideas/etc in one place and then
splitting them up into categories based on how I'm going to deal with them.

The navigation isn't intuitive, but that's probably because it's new to me
rather than inherently complex.

It's nice, but I wouldn't pay to use it, which I gather is the intention.

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d--b
My own opinion: the navigation system seems overcomplicated. I don't see this
beating workflowy as it stands.

~~~
r0bin
The value we see in the app navigation is the following:

The navigation is separated in three broader levels. 1\. The first level is
everything that is relevant in the moment (Inbox, Next, Away). 2\. The second
level is to organize everything Idea, Project or Archive. From time
perspective mostly related to the next weeks. 3\. And the third level is to
review your hole system.

After a short time it will feel like walking through different rooms and
levels in a building.

~~~
AndrewOMartin
The third level sounds rather like navel gazing.

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creativeembassy
I love OmniFocus, but have always been bothered by a lack of web interface or
Android client. (I use Focus GTD as an unofficial client on Android, and it's
less than perfect at best.) I've been looking for something like this. Going
to try it out and hopefully provide some insight.

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yellowboxtenant
I don't know what is going on, but I appreciate the fact that it's
experimenting with UI methods.

~~~
r0bin
thank you for the appreciation :), new UI methods are often a challenge and
risky but we believe it is a experiment worth exploring

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escovabr
Pretty sure that will be good to have support for repetitive tasks, like every
sunday or every 3rd day of month.

I know I know, I can use postpone to the same task, but I think that a "task
generator" will be a good feature =)

~~~
r0bin
i agree, this feature is on the roadmap, it is planned as an upgrade for the
copy function from archive to active view. Instead of doing it manually for
grocery list, you will be able to define a repetitive time frame

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savolai
It says drop here. I tried to drag and drop an image. Doesn't work. What
exactly does 'drop' mean in this context?

~~~
r0bin
it means drop an idea, project or reference in the text field (text or emoji
only). file support is on the roadmap

~~~
savolai
This seems challenging for a non-native like me to understand. I sort of
anticipated this would have been the idea, but it's still hard to see if
that's what it actually means - it's hard to see if 'drop' is a noun or a
verb. It would be easier if it had a context word like you give here, i.e.
"idea, project or reference".

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scandox
I couldn't scroll with PgDn which always make me bounce off straightaway.

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yarsk
Thought restructuring is quite estream.

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ricardobeat
Scrolling momentum is broken in iOS (couldn't resist!)

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sigi45
Subscriptioncost for a todo list? With this amount of functionality?

Nope sry.

Don't get me wrong, i like your idea. It looks simliar what i'm already doing
on paper and was planing to write somehow. But i'm not subscribing to small
features and i'm guessing that it is very cheap, for that i would not give you
my credit card information or not that cheap and than i don't care anymore
about it.

