Show HN: Zen Timer – Mac app using Bézier paths to draw a tree | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Zen Timer – Mac app using Bézier paths to draw a tree

smartcodehq.com

one more helpful criticism: the 'epic' music in your video, for me at least, evokes the opposite of a zen-like, concentrated state. it brings up images of action movies, war scenes or documentaries about bridges.

Thanks. You got us there and you are completely right. Truth is we at SmartCodeHQ are complete suckers when dramatic video shows up. What can I say, this was one of the examples we looked at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSye3T6FQZs

As a helpful criticism: Great idea, but the execution needs improvement.

To my eyes the tree visualization is a good pre-alpha proof of concept but now it should be productized. I.e. the growth looks like simple parenting, the leafs are mostly awkward, etc. It does not look like a tree.

Thanks. We have spend lots of time balancing between very rudimentary and over-designed trees. We think this is the right balance but we listen what people have to say.

Not totally unique. I saw this app just some day ago: http://www.forestapp.cc/

Thanks. I didn't know about that app before. It seems they are using prefabricated graphics vs algorithm and drawing that we do. Looks like nice app.

I just bought this for fun from the appstore in order to support you guys. Maybe I'm missing something but there is no menubar item to show you a small representation of how much of the tree has left to grow. I would also like to ask you what windowless mode is supposed to do exactly?

Hi ApolloRising.

We don't have menu bar item by design but it is easy to add if there is good reason to have one. We wanted to avoid people checking menu bar instead of working -- preferred way is to hide controls during work phase and get 'fuzzy' idea of time left by checking at tree growth.

Windowless mode is turned on in Preferences -> General -> Use transparent window. That way you can leave tree somewhere so it looks as part of the desktop (depends a lot on your wallpaper).

I personally use windowless mode, move controls up, then stick a tree on second monitor, few pixels below the bottom so it looks like it is growing from the bottom edge of the screen.

Please let us know more using contact form on our site.

Edit: Many thanks for your support of course :)

Not sure if it is because I am running 10.9 (latest) or that I am using multiple monitors but there may be a bug in windowless mode since once I check the box it vanishes and is not available on any of the 2 monitors I am using. (Macbook pro 2014 retina). If you want I can send you a few screenshots to illustrate.

Please do contact us if this does not help: When you switch from or to windowless mode app window does not change position at all, it only becomes transparent or not. Zen Timer uses normal window so it has to be visible in Mission Control. As a last resort, you can use 'Center and Reset Position' menu option that can be found in Window menu when Zen Timer has the focus.

I almost just bought this when I realized, "Wait, where will this thing be the whole time the tree is growing?". A menu option or something would be good for me, since I have 3-4 apps (Firefox, Sublime Text 3, Terminal, and iTunes) in full screen mode all day and I don't want a fractal tree growing in a full screen app or on my left-most desktop.

BTW (related to a comment below), the music is one of the reasons I almost bought the app. For me, that kind of music wins every time. It made the whole experience more awe inspiring and mystical (or something), which identified with the kinds of things I tend to like in this context.

Hi mangeletti. Colleague of mine uses single crowded monitor, similar to what you are doing. He leaves Zen Timer in the background, occasionally glancing at tree growth to get an idea about time left. I prefer two monitors of course. Both are valid ways to use the app. It is ten minute job (plus MAS review time) to make menu bar timer but that didn't seem as 'zen' to us. However let's discuss that (if you want use contact form on our site), it is easy to add on/off option for that.

Shoot! I actually just went to buy it (you had me sold with your quick reply) and found that it requires 10.9+ :(

I'm on Mountain Lion with both of my MacBook Pros. I won't be upgrading until I sell these and buy a new one (which will be at least a couple months - waiting for El Capitan, as I've heard too many nightmare stories about Yosemite).

In the meantime, your eagerness to connect (e.g., via HN this morning) with your customers is going to help you greatly. I'd definitely add the menu option, if it's easy, but make sure it's polished and looks great on a Retina model (Mac users have grown accustomed to helpful menu items on apps like this).

Thanks for your kind words. Sorry to hear that you can't try it out immediately. Among other things it was an exercise in writing Swift code and Swift requires 10.9 as minimum. We would like to support few older OS versions but Apple says no.

I made a similar demo too with the HTML canvas http://yangcanvas.com/randomtrees

Hi jlemberg. That's one nice demo and we seem to share algorithm at its root. <- yeah.

What's with the final one pixel "branch" sprouting out of the tree at the end, after the leaves fill in? Bug?

Some solutions are to imaginary problems, has to be said though that none of the trees outside my window look anything like the 'bushes' shown here!

Very nice! Reminds me of a small project I did a while ago (minus the pomodoro part): http://binarymax.com/tree.html

Thanks binarymax! Yeah I can recognize the algorithm, very nice. We wanted something different from progress rings while doing pomodori. There is ton of things that can be added too, this is just a start. Always a careful tradeoff between realistic rendering, speed and minimalistic approach that Apple uses lately. One year ago Zen Timer would be much more skeuomorphic.

Love the idea. I imagine the tree could be more organic and interesting though. Lots of animations have beautiful growing trees, maybe I'm thinking of Braid?

Hi, Zen Timer developer here. We do have plans to introduce new algorithms and leaf shapes over time. It is very easy to customize app as it is but with introduction of more different algorithms tree shape will be even more unique. Right now algorithm makes sure that each tree has unique shape, introducing drift and wind as random math parameters.

Thanks for your thoughts!

Are there good, researched algorithms for natural looking plant growth? I have hankered after creating a growing vine for years, but nothing looks natural (vs extending vectors)

Prusinkiewicz did some good work in the 1990s:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Przemysław_Prusinkiewicz http://algorithmicbotany.org/

I think the typically referenced softwares in this space are X Frog and SpeedTree.

The developers of XFrog have a few references listed:

http://xfrog.com/company/about/

http://graphics.uni-konstanz.de/publikationen/1998/creating_... (A Modelling method and user interface for creating plants, Lintermann et. all.)

http://graphics.uni-konstanz.de/publikationen/1998/plant_eco... (Realistic modeling and rendering of plant ecosystems, Deussen et. all.)

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