
Show HN: Hummingbird - Preview Mockups on Devices in Realtime - vpanyam
http://blog.vivekpanyam.com/hummingbird-preview-mockups-on-devices-in-realtime/?hn
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dang
This post set off the voting ring detector, but I'm restoring it because we
want to see original work on HN.

A voting ring is when people get friends to upvote their post. This is against
the rules. We want stories to be on HN because they're good, not because they
were promoted.

All: Please don't do this; just take your chances with HN's randomness. If a
post is solid and hasn't gotten any attention yet, a couple of reposts is ok.
Questions are welcome at hn@ycombinator.com.

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zachlatta
I really like the approach you're taking to moderation. Leading by example and
providing constructive advice is definitely the way to go. Great job with
everything so far.

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dang
Thanks (to both of you) for saying so!

Definitely not everything, but there's nothing wrong with a learning curve.

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zaroth
"Preview Mockups on Devices in Realtime" \- Does this say exactly what you
want it to say, because it's the very first thing I read, and I need to
understand it before I read any further. What this said to me, on first
impression, is a way to see final renders of a URL on different browsers and
running on different devices. Only later am I thinking this connects to
Photoshop actually?

Scrolling down, I don't understand the huge picture of a bird. Switch the
white to transparent, the blue to white, and put it small in the top-left
corner I think. But you know it looks too much like twitter, you probably will
want to change it. One random suggestion to make it distinct; add a tablet
with a wireframe, and the hummingbird is feeding off it.

"Hummingbird lets you preview designs and webpages from your computer on
devices in realtime." Did you consider adding the word 'target' almost
anywhere you say devices? Is it "designs and webpages" or "webpage designs"?
Is it devices, or browsers? I guess "devices' browsers" actually.

Maybe a table with what devices you support. I think that would make it
immediately clear what you were doing. You could also have a 'Preview' which
shows how you used hummingbird running against your own site.

"Hummingbird works on Android and on any browser that supports websockets
(Safari on iOS, IE 10 on Windows Phone, Chrome and Firefox on desktops...)."
OK, now reality is starting to sink in. I'm going to need to possess each one
of these devices... and have it setup and configured... It's not really HTML
Preview Service.

It would be nice to mention you are releasing under MIT license on the main
page. I looked for the source for Android and iOS builds, but it's not up on
Github yet, so I guess at this point it's not quite fully released. But
everything is brand new as of today, so no problem to wait and see when it
comes.

I'd love a screen capture of the installation process, and example output.
Even better, show me how this fits in your workflow and how it makes you work
faster. If you can fit a compelling demo in under a minute, I would put it at
the top/center.

I think it would be cool on the site to tell us if this is a hobby project,
MVP, or what are YOUR goals with this? Just switch into first person and go
for it :-)

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Theodores
I am with @zaroth in that the name + bird does not quite work. Furthermore the
page above the fold image of the camera does not do it for me. I wish I could
suggest a better name for the product but I am of ideas. 'Hummingbird' to me
sounds too close to 'Thunderbird', which probably isn't used a lot, but is
close enough to be confusing to me.

I also felt that the write up was written from the programmer point of view,
not the user. It is all well and good knowing how it works, but, if something
is to be useful you want to see what it does and have some setup steps - it is
a different perspective on the write up.

Criticisms aside this does appear to be a reasonable product to solve some
reasonable need. Anyone care to brainstorm some branding/naming ideas?

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vpanyam
Thanks for the feedback! I'm working on a site that should make everything a
lot clearer.

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vpanyam
Here it is:
[http://vivekpanyam.github.io/Hummingbird/](http://vivekpanyam.github.io/Hummingbird/)

Let me know what you think!

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vpanyam
TL;DR: An open source, cross platform Skala Preview/ Sketch Mirror that also
works with HTML

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supercoder
Great work!

Except find it a little ironic the page doesn't look right on my mobile
browser (iphone safari) , header is all chopped off.

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afreak
Might have a hard time using "Hummingbird" as a name:

[http://connectivity.opentext.com/](http://connectivity.opentext.com/)

