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Comment by huhtenberg | Hacker News Reader

> I've spent the last two years developing a todo app

Without seeing what you have, a general remark would be that everyone and his cousin has clocked at least some time developing at least one ToDo app. It's a right-of-passage thing for a lot of developers, just like a Weather app is the same for UX designer wannabies.

BTW, what set Wunderlist apart is not the features first and foremost, but their bold in-your-face marketing rooted in very pretty visuals and a fake arrogance routine. Whether they had proper hierarchies / first-class subtasks was quite secondary.

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(OP here) I've set up a quick website with more detailed descriptions and some screenshots: http://tuskarr.tilda.ws/

I'm absolutely aware of the rite-of-passage thing, but I'm doing this because I NEED a proper, working todo app. My life will crumble without it. And I'm prepared spend my time and money on it. In any case, there's no going back to Wunderlist now.

As for marketing, I'm not worried. All I want is a working todo app, and it will be great if it turns out to be useful for other people.

I wish you had put an email sign up option in your site. You're missing out on potential alpha users.

Done. The signup box is up and running (scroll to the bottom of the page).

Add it to the top! People don't scroll that far down :)

Email form is there at the bottom.

Break a leg.

It looks like something I would use, so I hope you're able to get it out there.

My 2 cents - "Tuskarr supports first-class subtasks" might be a fine description on HN, but an average user won't know what that implies

I wrote this text in an hour, specifically for HN :) Of course the description for the general public will be more accessible - and supported by screenshots.

(Which reminds me that I should be doing the screenshots now.)

The combination of the screenshots and sales pitch convinced me!

This sounds awesome, I'm looking forward to testing!

Looks really nice. Unfortunately, I usually don't want my task list associated with dates. I just want a list of stuff I need to get done (actually, A lot of lists of stuff). Once in a while I'll want to associate a reminder date but that's about it for the way I work.

Have you tried WorkFlowy? It is basically lists of lists.. of lists and so on.

Never liked there UX though, but the concept.

It is fine, occasionally a neat idea or concept emerges, but I just use Org mode and Agenda now. I always see or hear people eventually giving up on Emacs for some pretty new editor (VS Code) or finally quitting vim because they "feel more productive" somewhere else. Or using some new and random TODO app. Meanwhile, I have been using the same system for 7 years and I know it will work on any platform any time and my data is all plain text and not under control of any third party. Finally, I have a depth of features most TODO apps /still/ lack. But there is a huge reluctance to embrace this work style, but I think it is a short term gains / long term gains problem and most people end up with whatever is shiny and in the moment, but it will get abandoned over the long haul. My text based system will work in 10 years. Will whatever shiny and new TODO app?

You're right of course. I guess I'm going to give Orgzly another try.

> what set Wunderlist apart

A nice wood texture (not even joking, was totally sold on the visuals in the early days)

> just like a Weather app is the same for UX designer wannabies

20 year UX veteran, this is the first I've heard of this (o; Not a criticism, certainly made me smile, but I've not heard or seen this before.

(that said, I work mostly in enterprise, this might just be a mobile thing)

Behold... https://dribbble.com/search?q=weather+app

I'd argue that's visual design. A subset of UX.

UX primarily starts with user research, then a metric shiton of postit notes, paper prototypes, a bit of testing and then some hi fidelity mockups

> Without seeing what you have, a general remark would be that everyone and his cousin has clocked at least some time developing at least one ToDo app. It's a right-of-passage thing for a lot of developers, just like a Weather app is the same for UX designer wannabies.

Its funny, because it true. :D

"rite of passage"

right of passage is probably more like the right of way :)

Looks like it switched in the 1970s

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=rite+of+passag...

I'm no language expert, but I don't think there was any "switch".

As Wikipedia says, "[rite of passage] is the Anglicisation of rite de passage, a French term innovated by the ethnographer Arnold van Gennep in his work Les rites de passage."

"Right of passage" may mean something similar to "right of way", and may be used my mistake when people mean "rite of passage" but there was never a switch in how "rite" is spelled.

No, it didn't switch. "Right of passage" is a thing, but it's a completely different thing from "rite of passage".

Compare:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_passage

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rite_of_passage

Indeed. Sorry for a brain fart.

What set Wunderlist apart is that they have been the archive of my project ideas for the last who knows how many years. While other apps came along and disappeared, I was sure Wunderlist was just "there" when I needed it.

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