Show HN: Spase.io – A new kind of planner | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Spase.io – A new kind of planner

spase.io

81 pointssahil5058 comments

So this is neat in terms of the technical prowess it took to put together. I really want to make that clear up front because its impressive in that regard. The animation is super smooth (at least on chrome), and it looks really cool. Its amazing whats possible on the web these days.

The actual functionality of this tool itself confuses me. Why would I ever want to visualize my schedule in this manner and with this kind of a UI? When I go to make a new appointment of visualize my week/month/year/life I have never yearned for a UX that looked anything like this. Furthermore, dragging to whatever I want to see (ala google maps) potentially way far in the future would make me pull my hair out. I don't really understand how it solves anything around this problem space. I dunno maybe I just don't get it. Regardless my hats off to the people who made this and I wish them good luck.

Thank you! It took a while to put together, but the reason I made it was to literally help me look forward to the day.

I found that with my previous calendar, a lot of attention was lost to the past.

Any thoughts about the "Grid" mode, and "Shift" which might speed up navigation?

Sahil sahil@spase.io

Hey HN -

My name is Sahil, and I'm excited to share this v1 of Spase.io with you. It's a 3D planner where time moves forward, instead of in 7-day loop-de-loops, so that when you see stuff in the future, it really looks like the future.

So if you have a project deadline, a birthday party, or a reminder to do laundry, that event will actually register spatially in your mind as in the future.

Spase.io clearly not as powerful as Google Calendar or Todoist but it does hack your brain to focus on the future.

What do you like about this v1, and what do you want to see it become?

- Sahil

I dont see any points in the 3D for the given "problem" (shedule planing). No value is added right now.

For example, if you could have multiple calendars on top of each other (with transparency to view layers below) that would be some actual value.

Right now its just eye candy. I for one dont need eye candy.

Please, please add an easter egg where I can mark tasks as complete by firing at them with a Doom2-like shotgun and they explode!

Hahaha is this the one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4VHUXV77hA

Will add to feature list asap.

Oh yeahhhh! Also, play Doom 2 ASAP! iddqd ftw.

Tried it on mobile, got blue screen with no info. Backed out, did not upvote.

For this v1, mobile is read-only :/

But on desktop you could make an account, create events, and then read events on your phone!

Please make it say that when on mobile! :)

Done!

Still blue screen for me after typing in a handle on iOS.

Sorry about the blue screen. Just now I added a note which recommends joining on a desktop first. Will add whole mobile signup flow in v2.

It does not seem to work on mobile ( chrome, S7) :/ looked cool on paper though

Right, the 3D view doesn't show on mobile. It's a condensed 2D view on mobile.

I must be doing something wrong as I just get a blue screen with nothing to interact with. Is there a special handle to use ?

Nope you're not doing anything wrong. I just gave no directions lol.

To get going, head to spase.io on desktop, make an account (with your handle of choice) then you're good to go.

Desktop is where you can create, read, delete events. Mobile is read only (for now).

Thanks for the reactivity !

Looks pretty (not really smooth in Firefox, but still). I'll stick with 2D, though.

If you like the time-distance mapping idea, this 1D calendar might be worth trying: http://www.oneviewcalendar.com/ (i'm not affiliated in any way, just used it for a while). Some old threads on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=oneviewcalendar.com

Cool, thanks for linking the threads

I have an idea that I haven't had enough knowledge to build, that is new visual for folders hierarchy based on physical sense ux.

This kind of visual navigation would help user to define their own physical nested shapes like House, Rooms, Desks, Folders Files etc. This eliminates the weak points of dumb nested folders. This also helps in real physical world in putting personal items somewhere in the house, because in computer world you can "search"!

It would be interesting to see urban visual to store items in weird hierarchy such as year > month > date > items.

Good stuff

Interesting. Are you thinking like a 3D Dropbox or 3D Finder/Explorer?

Kind of 3D Explorer, the same way you put stuff in your house. Home directory is a whole house, then rooms for several categories, something like that. It's not a new idea I think some people had tried.

There are several 3D file managers, like this pretty old one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fsn_(file_manager) (featured in Jurrasic Park)

Oh, and MS Bob. Not really 3D, but maybe a bit closer to the house/room/desk analogy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Bob

FYI, smooth in Chrome, but quite a slow frame rate in Safari. Also takes 90-100% of a whole core when it's animating at all, on a 2.9Ghz 2017 Mac Pro.

Thx for the heads up. Is the frame rate in Safari consistently slow?

Seemed to be, whenever it was moving.

(High processor usage with both browsers, BTW, not just Safari.)

Sorry but this seems like a classic 'if you have a hammer everything seems like a nail'. There is no problem with the two dimensions that a traditional calendar has. Want to know whats in the future? Turn the page or look further to the right and to the bottom. This just makes it harder to see certain groupings like months/weeks etc.

Is it ridiculous to say that there is some value in mapping time to distance?

I think this would be better implemented by making a linear calendar. In either case, the UX of navigating through time is bad.

Nice tech demo. Looks more like a good UI for making a game. Not sure what advantages it has over an existing 2D version though.

Thanks for the compliment. In my mind the biggest advantage was - and reason for building it - was to help me take a Day 1 approach to life. That every moment is the youngest you'll ever be. Not quite so apparent when all the days of the year are projected on a flat surface and arranged in rows.

Cool idea and great execution! The paper airplanes are a nice touch.

I'd suggest making it a little more clear which day is selected and a lot more clear which item is selected (plus editable text/color/date).

Also, is there a way to make my calendar private? Public-by-default doesn't seem wise.

Would love a tech write up :)

Thanks for the feedback! Definitely features I should implement. Would love to get a back-and-forth going at sahil@spase.io if you have more ideas!

Nice work. It's a little too heavy (not snappy enough) for my personal taste, but I like the concept and the site is overall impressive. Have you thought about making a desktop or mobile app? Might make it more responsive.

I'm sure this works great at impressing people who wear ties, or as demo reel for FUI work, but I couldn't even bother waiting for the intro animation to finish. Do not want.

Well, I do sometimes like to think of life as FUI work

Extra note: if you'd like to share feedback via email, hit me up at sahil@spase.io

I'll be sure to respond in < 15min!

Any feedback at this stage will go a long way into improving the product.

I can see using this with an AR or VR system.

Super Medium? https://www.supermedium.com/

Cool idea. Do you see yourself using this in Oculus or Vive?

Btw the Supermedium guys are great. I think they worked on A-Frame, which was really key to making this.

I would once the resolution is good enough for programming

Yeah, we created and maintain it!

This reminds me of the computer UI in movies from the 90s.

reminds me of fsv, the 3d file manager

http://fsv.sourceforge.net/

It's A Unix System https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFUlAQZB9Ng

Actually thought about building a 3D Dropbox. May do that next...

Seeing something that I am dreading physically "looming" in the distance would poke my anxiety button pretty hard.

Looks pretty cool

Hey thanks

After sign up the login link you get emailed seems to have an API key in it, but doesn't log you in.

Ah might be an edge case - can you click the login link from the same device & browser you made the account on? i.e. not your phone

Reminds me of The Brain/Personal Brain and the Firefox 3D view (no longer available).

Mozilla/Firefox has done some amazing work with 3D

On iPad it doesn’t respect the “Request Desktop Site”

It revert to the /_phone

I can literally hear my battery die as my Intel "GPU" tries to apologise for JavaScript's 3D-capabilities.

No way I would ever use this. But I have to admit that it is a nice demo and certainly a good portfolio project.

It’s a Unix system, I know this!

Context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxIPcbmo1_U

Blast from the past

Reply on news.ycombinator.com