
Show HN: Lanes – a minimalist week-planner and Pomodoro timer - welanes
https://lanes.io
======
jsherer
Would be good to start off your landing page with a headline and some copy
explaining your product. I didn't quite get it at first.

You need something like...

    
    
        Lanes is a simple to-do list with a built in pomodoro tracker designed
        to help you stay focused during your day.
    
        -- Insert screenshot of Lanes in action --
    
        Here's how it works:
    
        1. Build your to-do list for each day
    
        2. When you're ready to work, start a pomodoro tracker.
           The top task for the day is what you should be working on.
    
        3. Once your pomodoro is up... stand up, stretch, and if you've completed
           your task, mark it as done.
    
        4. After your short pomodoro break, goto 2.
    
        -- Insert testimonials about how lanes helped your customers save X
           amount of time or get N things done or achieve 100% increase
           in tasks completed --
    
        What are you waiting for... you should sign up
        for Lanes and start getting things done!"

~~~
pedalpete
Basically what you have in the 'what is lanes' page, make that your home page.
Why hide it and risk people leaving because they don't know what it is.

~~~
dhagz
The issue is, I went to the "What is Lanes" page, clicked on each of the
features to see a description and got...nothing of value. The feature became
bolded and crossed-out, and that's it. No video loaded, no text appeared.

------
welanes
Hey HN. This is the latest version of a task management app I've been building
since mid-last year. Since then I've turned about 100 pieces of feedback* into
incremental improvements/changes.

Still much to do so before I dig into the next set of updates I figured I'd
share here and get your take. Cheers.

*A good chunk of which were around improving drag and drop, which turned out to be easier said than done.

~~~
welanes
Update: I'm actually wowed this post got any traction, let alone time on the
front page as I'm sure many people here could make a task manager in their
sleep. Thanks, HN.

That said, the hard part isn't the tech, it's making something people want to
use and use again. That's key. So excuse the app being rough around the edges
- it will be refined - and thanks for the advice.

------
jordanlev
I think I might know what this is attempting to do, but can't actually tell
for sure.

I briefly saw some "action" links or nav menu in the top-right (day, week,
poms), but then the "what is lanes" green bar at the top covers up the action
menu. The "what is lanes" thing didn't explain anything to me. And when I
forcibly deleted the bar using web inspector, then the action buttons didn't
work (day / week / poms). Very confusing. (But a big fan of pomodoro technique
so looking forward to seeing what exactly it is you've created once it gets
explained better and the UI gets cleaned up.)

~~~
welanes
All solid points. The 'what is Lanes' tutorial is being improved right now, as
a little too sparse on the detail.

Thanks for the comment.

~~~
dhagz
Sparse implies that there is something there. When I click on any of the
features to get an explanation, it just becomes bold and gets a strikethrough.
After I click on all three, a button shows up saying "Start Accomplishing".
That's not much in the way of a tutorial. I apologize for sounding harsh, but
I don't really want to learn how to use your product by trial and error or
without at least some idea of what it will look like when I am using it.

~~~
welanes
Not harsh at all. Each clicked link should result in a gif showing the feature
in action. If that's not showing at all then looks like I've a browser
incompatibility to fix.

------
erichurkman
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_11_3) AppleWebKit/601.4.4 (KHTML,
like Gecko) Version/9.0.3 Safari/601.4.4

Clicking the 'what is lanes' thing, I get this:

    
    
        [Warning] [Vue warn]: Unknown custom element: <v_settings> - did you register the component correctly? (bundle.js, line 13)
        [Warning] [Vue warn]: Unknown custom element: <v_connect> - did you register the component correctly? (bundle.js, line 13)
        [Warning] [Vue warn]: Unknown custom element: <v_bgt> - did you register the component correctly? (bundle.js, line 13)
        [Warning] [Vue warn]: Unknown custom element: <v_imagegal> - did you register the component correctly? (bundle.js, line 13)
        [Warning] [Vue warn]: Unknown custom element: <bgtab> - did you register the component correctly? (bundle.js, line 13)
    

Works fine in Chrome.

------
ApolloRising
Not sure if you know this but after you go through the process to create a
task and you don't seem to have a way to edit it.

You also may need to streamline your sign up screen as it defaults to login
without clear messaging.

Seems like a good start but you may have to work on your actual use cases and
step through it with a few brand new users.

------
Zyst
This looks pretty nice, a bit ago my preferred planner/pomodoro app broke so I
might use this.

A caveat would be having the top right menu be a bit more distinguishable, it
can get lost very easily with some backgrounds:

[http://puu.sh/n19Fx/b34d4c217f.jpg](http://puu.sh/n19Fx/b34d4c217f.jpg) (With
POM :Hovered)

However, this can be fixed using your favorite CSS injector so it isn't that
problematic. I just added:

    
    
      .view_item {
        color: white;
      }
    
      .view_item_active {
        color: #191919;
      }
    

I have a concern, how do you plan to monetize?

~~~
welanes
Looks good, will make the menu more distinguishable in the next release.

Monetizing: focus is on creating a great user experience now. Once that's
achieved and the app adds value there’s a few ideas

------
schwarzrules
Also, did you want us to login / create an account? I show up and get a timer,
but couldn't really tell what was supposed to happen other than immediately
signing up for an account.

~~~
welanes
Yeah, that's the idea. I think the consensus is better onboarding so will
improve it.

------
mataug
I would love to see some solution that integrates time blocking and pomodoro.

After trying various todo lists and kanban boards I finally settled on using
my google calendar which works perfectly as both my todo list and scheduler.

More on this [http://calnewport.com/blog/2007/12/03/monday-master-class-
do...](http://calnewport.com/blog/2007/12/03/monday-master-class-dont-plan-
your-day-with-a-to-do-list/)

------
senko
Looks interesting, great work!

Suggestion: If you allow custom background, think carefully about the font
colors. On the default background (tree & blue/gray sky) it was very hard to
notice "up next" and "later" lablels - I wouldn't notice them were it not for
your intro video in which they were more visible).

Also, a simple way to get back to "today" in the week view. I was surprised to
find out it wasn't in the leftmost page.

~~~
welanes
Thanks, Senko.

The custom list section is going to be improved in the next update. Right now
it's two uneditable labels which is kinda weak. A more visible, more
customizable version coming soon.

Will look at a 'jump to today' option too.

------
hiq
When I saw the title I expected an application, i.e. something I could run
offline. What are the benefits of using an online website? Why would I use
this website instead of my offline pomodoro timer?

~~~
anexprogrammer
I was hoping for offline too. The trouble with online is I spend >50% of my
waking hours with no signal or when I do have signal I don't have data. Even
at home signal is intermittent at best. e.g. I pick up the phone to answer a
call and phone loses signal between table and ear.

Current apps always seem to be built in the expectation of perfect always on
data and cope terribly (if at all) with intermittent or poor conditions. It's
frustrating to say the least

------
Slix
I love the weekly planner idea. Of all the to-do lists I've looked at, none of
them seem to support that critical feature.

Are there any other weekly planner apps like this?

~~~
prawn
I used this one for a while:

[https://teuxdeux.com/](https://teuxdeux.com/)

------
eecks
I signed up but this is really something I will never use again. I like the
idea of a week-planner but this doesn't click with me at all.

------
bribri
Awesome concept, I want something exactly like this. As others have said,
improve your onboarding!

------
vetrom
A landing page that doesn't peg CPU via javascript loops on the opening page
would be nice.

