Review my new app: DoneCal (built with Tornado and MongoDB) | Hacker News Reader

Review my new app: DoneCal (built with Tornado and MongoDB)

donecal.com

25 pointspeterbe35 comments

First of all, the app looks really good right off the bat. I also like that you're instantly on the calendar, no busy landing pages.

I do have a few questions, just in random order as they pop up:

1. Some users really dislike, or can't, watch a video explanation. Have you considered adding some introductory text? You can add it on the right just below the intro video.

2. The video starts with a minute or so explaining how to use a calendar app. Honestly, I think most people know by now that things can be stretched, can be a few hours or a day, etc. Why not skip those "basics", and go straight to the more interesting bits?

3. Minor nitpick - your tagging is done using the "@" sign. Why not go with the "#" sign, like Twitter? "@" is now a pretty widely used method of specifying a person. For example, say I want to record the event "had dinner with @nitz", it shouldn't consider it a tag.

4. The first big question I had, and I think most people will have, is "Why use this? What's wrong with Google Calendar/Outlook/etc?" The first thing you want to explain, on your page, is why someone should use this instead of those other calendars. Even if your answer is only relevant to 1% of viewers, make sure they realize it.

Just some thoughts, hope they help.

All valid points. Thanks!

1. A good idea. I could summorize the main points made in the video in text underneath.

2. I think going through basic points are valuable too because they speak to non-techy users too.

3. I'm torn. Perhaps # is a better character for tags. Fortunately it's just a GUI thing as the @ is stripped before going into the database.

4. Good point. I'm just not sure yet where to fit in such a text without adding noise. Perhaps I'll make an FAQ page.

You can use the @ symbol to track the people you spend time with. That would be a nice feature as well

Oh no!!! Brilliant suggestions like that would mean I would need to change the screencast video.

However, in usual timesheets/time trackers you rarely record who you worked with.

true, however maybe this is a feature that sets you apart. tracking projects with the people working on them are very important for organizations who care about data discovery (law firms, government agencies)

I like this, but it's not immediately obvious what it is, and I don't really want to watch a video to get the gist. Could you maybe distill it into two or three bullet points and stick it above the video?

Agree, a bit of a quick sales pitch on the front page so people know what it is and stick around.. looks nice and clean though, well done.

I like that. I'll think about the right bullet points to add and put it near the video.

I have a few comments on this because I feel this is actually very useful to me. I'm working for myself right now, doing some projects I wanted to do a long time ago but I'm also consulting on the side. This consulting thing is really tricky because I'm some sort of firefighter, I just keep working on my stuff until the phone rings and there I go in emergency mode. Thing is, at the end of the week I kind of lost track of whatever I did on that week! So I know I went to the office to take care of some problems thus the phone ringing but besides that what the hell have I actually done? Most of the time I have the feeling I didn't do anything besides that even if I only worked there for one or two days.

Enter OhLife. I'm addicted to it because every single day it reminds me to write some words about what have I done that day. Instead of keeping it as a personal emotional diary I just use it as a work log replying with minimal answers like "consulting" or "project x" but in the end I have no real stats about it, just a work log (which is fine, it was never a problem).

Now you built DoneCal and when I saw the video I was surprised, you actually thought about a better way to do this type of simples logs but with stats. Care to explain why you did it in the first place? Did you have this or any other problem?

As you can pretty much guess by now, I think it would be awesome for DoneCal to remind me of what have I done at the end of the day, just like OhLife does. I understand it might be annoying for most people so either you make it and promote it as the way it works or you add a new option or you just don't mess with it at all.

That's my use case. As for the app itself, it's very nice, good work!

Shameless plug. I use my own app http://shodhel.com/

Here I just type "log.did some work" in search box. And it adds "did some work" to log

You might want to try it.

Have you ever considered using a time-logging application before? Quite a few exist. Some consultants use them to keep track of how many hours they spend working on each project, so they can bill properly.

I'm working on my own productivity tool based on the Pomodoro Technique. If you don't know it, the technique talks about working in stretches of 25 minutes, and recording everything you work on so you can have nice "logs" at the end of the week detailing how much work you got done per day, etc. We're building a webapp that makes working with the technique easier.

I'd be very interested in your opinion on whether this might be something you're interested in, and also on what features might make you use it. For example, we're definitely considering doing an OhLife style email every day, both telling you how much work you did that day, and letting you email new tasks to get done, etc.

Anyway, if you can talk with me and answer some questions, I'd me much obliged. Feel free to reply or to email me: edan@yenhq.com.

"time-logging application"? That's what DoneCal is.

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I meant to ask, had the op ever considered using one before now - it seems that it would greatly help him out, and I'm wondering if they ever explicitly searched for something like DoneCal.

That's what DoneCal is trying to solve with the Bookmarklet. Did you check out the video on that? http://donecal.com/help/#bookmarklet

I'm not familiar with OhLife but a feature I've been considering for DoneCal is an email that is sent out at (configurable) the end of the work day that says something like: "What did you do today? Click one of the shortcut links to type in the box below"

Good job, and example of the flexibility of simple web app + decent API - you've given me a great service, and I can hook it up to my own workflow exactly the way I want, rather than hassle you for features that only suit my own use case.

Would definitely code up a proper home page that explains the features (and perhaps why it's not a direct replacement for something like Google calendar). For instance, the CSV reports are really important for me (and I'm sure others) for whipping up those invoices at the end of the month.

EDIT: not sure if putting the current date as a fragment on the default URL is a good idea - it makes it hard to bookmark.

The API will probably get more advanced in the future. Hopefully one day someone will build an iPhone app or something that works similarly to the web app but using the API to store the data "in the cloud".

I'll need to think about the anchor link thing. It's got some benefits but also some disadvantages such as bookmarking. Will think about it.

This is simply great, exactly what ive been looking for to log simple health/training related events.

I think that a "Home" button is missing somewhere in the interface. When I look at the Help/API/About page, I dont want to scroll down to find the "Home/Calendar" button. I clicked on "Hi Nicolas", but it brought up the settings. Maybe insert two icons there, one to go home (house-like), and one for settings? (gears-like) ?

If I get it right, the main advantage of this is over google calendar is that you tag events and then see piecharts describing how you time was spent. If I am right, I would strongly advise to talk about the charts in the video, since the video is not that readable and is not putting the emphasis on this.

I saw your application last week and I did not understand at the time what was the point over Google calendar.

I really struggled to keep the video short without feeling rushed. Statistics and reporting is a key feature but I hope those features will just appear if you start using it.

Very nice! And I like the simple API. I've been wanting a nice web accessible calendar view for my stuff that I usually keep in Emacs Org Mode, this looks like a good choice that shouldn't be too much work to integrate.

It would be good to be able to modify and delete items from the API though. Any chance you'll add this?

Also, the video is very nicely done, did you do that yourself or have someone do it for you?

Thanks!

The API will most likely become more and more advanced with time. I need to keep it slim for now and only develop features that people actually want and need.

I made the video with something called Snapz Pro on a mac. I'm a Linux person but this app was awesome.

Interesting app, I have a few points:

* When I watched the intro video it didn't quite fit in the fancy box (required a scrollbar). Given the size of the video, this seems unnecessary. (Chrome on Macbook Pro)

* I'm sorry if this sounds harsh but I wouldn't consider using this product unless it could sync with Google Calendar or give me some way to import (and export if necessary) my existing events.

Nice work, is there no caldav featured? And I think you didn't mention that fullcalendar was used?

Regards

You're right! I completely forgot to mention FullCalendar. About page now updated and ready for next release.

Cal DAV features are coming. I'm putting this on Hacker News for exactly that kind of feedback. However, I'm more going to trust the feedback of actual users (if I get any) and see if they really ask for Cal DAV features. Who knows, perhaps they'll ask for RSS/Atom first.

Looks ok, not sure why I would want to use this over GCal, it needs to be made a little prettier, it looks like a generic Gnome app at the moment, you need some rounded buttons and stuff :P (but seriously it does need to be made a little prettier)

It's got plenty of rounded corners! :)

A lot of people use Google Calendar to keep track meetings and birthdays and then use Excel to track time spent. DoneCal is an improvement on the Excel but with an appearance more like Google Calendar.

Very small point of feedback - the back arrow at the top left is not in my character set in Chrome on OS X Snow Leopard.

Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/yU00o.png

Is there any chance you could get an SSL certificate for this app?

Yes definitely. This app was launched yesterday and it hasn't got that far yet.

I'm also going to add OpenID login so Google et al. can take care of that security concern for me.

It would be nice if you could import calendars. Especially if you could just enter a URL to a CalDAV calendar and it would automatically import updates on a regular basis.

Fair point. But DoneCal is more suited for past events so to import for example all US holidays wouldn't be super useful. Google Calendar is otherwise great for future events.

True. However, say I'm going to a meeting, I don't want to have to put "Meeting in room x, 13:00 to 14:00" in two separate calendars. Especially if my normal calendar is populated as simply as clicking "accept" on a meeting request.

It would feel inefficient and a bit of a nuicanse to me to have to go into a second calendar and re-enter the information...

Do you need to go into day view to change the time? If so, maybe days could have a day view icon (perhaps the date number could be a link).

Well done. Looks cool, but I need syncing with my Android phone. So this cannot replace Google Calendar for me.

The more I think about it, and read peoples feedback here on HN, the more I realise that the strength of DoneCal is in its time-tracking features. I.e. past events. Google Calendar is better for keeping track of upcoming meetings.

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