

Red Pen v2 with live collaboration - mattrobs
https://redpen.io

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mattrobs
Hi HN. I'm Matt, the co-founder of Red Pen. I'm a designer who turned
developer because I wanted to make Red Pen.

This is our big v2. Cool things you could try: the front page has an
onboarding bot that simulates using the product; commenting on designs use
Pusher and stream live; and I like to think I made it pretty damn fast.

Appreciate the feedback! (eh eh)

~~~
elwell
Really great design and execution. Are you responsible for the animations (on
the marketing site and product itself) and other components? If so, what was
your learning process (a book, website, etc.)?

~~~
mattrobs
My co-founder @8apixel and I co-designed it (we make competing designs then
choose/merge the best ideas.) We both shared in coding the front-end.

Coding front-end and animations is just searching google for examples +
practice. I didn't find a shortcut, sadly! I fiddle with CSS animations until
they match what I imagine them to be. Ceasar
([http://matthewlein.com/ceaser/](http://matthewlein.com/ceaser/)) is really
good for getting kinetics right.

It's also a huge help when designers better than you give you feedback and
suggestions; because they can picture a different finished product to you.
During Red Pen's development I would share Red Pen with other designers who
would give me feedback about Red Pen on Red Pen (whoa).

Back-end learning was harder because I came in (a year ago) with little Ruby
or Rails knowledge. Why the Lucky Stiff's ebook on Ruby was inspirational (and
it had cartoons cats!!). Rails for Zombies was a nice primer to Rails. The
rest was Google. Knowing devs was a bonus because I could hire them to cover
my arse (security audits and performance optimisation.)

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baby
This looks really really good! I don't see a use for it right now so I'm going
to wait until I start a new collaborative project so as not to waste the 30
days evaluation.

But one thing is I might forget about it when I'll need it. Just a wish but
you should do some sort of 5 free projects for students like github does.

~~~
mattrobs
Email matt@redpen.io and I will personally remind you in two weeks :D

Education discounts is something we've thought about. You've up-voted that
thought for us.

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scott_karana
Unrelated to my other positive comments...

I think the "show hidden comments" needs a bit of tweaking. I came across a
case where it didn't really need expanding. Bit of a pet peeve of mine.

See screenshots below. Firefox 28.0, OS X 10.9.2

[http://imgur.com/qE8StaH](http://imgur.com/qE8StaH)

[http://imgur.com/ALGsofX](http://imgur.com/ALGsofX)

~~~
mattrobs
But it saved you 10px of precious reading space!

But, yes, valid feedback. It should be smarter.

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mootpointer
I started using Red Pen when I was working with Katie (who is a rocking
designer) at one of my previous jobs. I've then taken Red Pen and used it at a
bunch of other places now.

I've always ended up with bunches of printed mockups with annotations on them
which are hard to version and end up piling up on my desk. Red Pen means that
I can work with anyone to get a design just right.

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scott_karana
I really like the improvements. V1 was very useable, and really the only thing
lacking was a "professional" introduction page. And you even added versioning,
too!

Also, congratulations on finding a business model! I like how you're charging
for _active_ projects, and allow past ones to be archived and revived. Strikes
me as pretty ethical.

~~~
mattrobs
Yeah, we designed the pricing model based on what we would actually use as
designers. I've always been able to spot arbitrary obstructions products throw
up on purpose— and it never felt right.

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wahwahwhitney
This tool, quite seriously, has changed our business. V2 is off the hizzle.

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janlukacs
Any difference between you and Viewflux
([http://www.viewflux.com](http://www.viewflux.com))? - been using it for a
while.

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girvo
Woah! This looks really really nice. I'm definitely going to re-visit it when
I get back working on my start-up :D

