Show HN: QuickSend | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: QuickSend

moeedm.com

64 pointsmoeedm42 comments

Spend less time writing emails and more time doing what you really want.

I don't mind this sort of marketing most of the time. I do mind that you're abusing "Show HN." People generally use this "tag" to ask for advice which is so generously offered here. By using it as a part of your marketing ploy you're reducing the usefulness of the said tag and stealing from the trust the community has built for eachother over time.

How sad it is to see HN get big enough to be gamed liked this...

I wouldn't call this a marketing ploy - it's a landing page for an app he designed and is looking to have built. We use "Show HN" to get feedback from our apps, and this is one of those cases.

Is he getting it? In spades!

Is he making money off of it? I don't see how he could, with an unbuilt app.

I see no marketing ploy here, just a clever app that I would love to see come to fruition.

I actually think there needs to be an explicit tag for landing pages on HN. This sort of thing seems to be increasingly common, for example:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2260581

Personally, I don't think a web page saying that you might make something, together with an e-mail signup, is news. That said, people are free to disagree (as with, e.g., Offer HN posts). I just think we need clear labeling.

How do you determine the intent of the poster, whether it was a marketing ploy or a genuine plea for advice?

I call it a marketing ploy because "Show HN" carries a strong implication that an existing product is being showcased. This implication is being used to drive click-throughs. This is a beautiful landing page and the author is clearly a very capable designer, is it too much to ask for higher standards of honesty in our precious corner of the web? Any of these titles would have been perfectly fine:

Show HN: Help me build QuickSend

Show HN: QuickSend, an app concept

Or even simply, QuickSend

My apologies if the format isn't correct.

This is in no way a marketing ploy, but a sincere effort to find someone who would be genuinely interested in working on it and to gather feedback. Someone mentioned adding in a email opt-in field for example, which was a great idea.

Again, apologies if it has felt like anything else.

Apologies for being overly harsh. Seeing content tailored to hit the front page on HN is a bit of a sensitive spot, I understand there was no malice in your choice of title. I do love your idea, hope it sees the light of day.

Notice the small footnote:

Sadly, this app doesn't exist. If you think it should and write cool Mac apps, email me, or message me on Twitter. I'm Moeed, by the way.

I like that it is in the footer. Could be a little larger though.

Beautiful landing page. I think it's worth clarifying up front whether you support gmail or if this is just a facade for Mail.app.

It's not quite clear who the target market for this is.

Otherwise - looks amazing.

Per the footer note: "Sadly, this app doesn't exist. If you think it should and write cool Mac apps, email me, or message me on Twitter."

gutting. clever though.

That sliced in half font thing going on the header is doing my head in, and my sense of aesthetics isn't even particularly honed.

But yeah, looking good other than that.

Sparrow already does virtually all of this. The only real differences are the Subject thing (not sure how this saves you time, other than pressing TAB once), and displaying images from the address book.

It's just unnecessary.

for example:

Subject: Sparrow already does virtually all of this

Body: The only real differences are the Subject thing (not sure how this saves you time, other than pressing TAB once), and displaying images from the address book.

OK, but then you sort of have to be careful what you put in the first line, and then it's really no different.

Anyway, I would think that most of the time suck in email comes from replying to others' messages (which already have subjects), not creating messages from scratch when you're not even in the mail program. (If you do that a lot, maybe you should stop increasing everyone else's email burden...)

Never mind the fact that this is vapourware, but I'm just not sure I would use such an application.

What separates this in terms of functionality from the likes of google's free compose mail chrome extension.

I don't argue that the looks are nice, but in my opinion panel notifiers or buttons such as these are rather infuriating to use.

As someone else has mentioned, Keyboard shortcuts would make this a more attractive option.

Keyboard shortcuts would be an absolutely essential feature of the application. You could be in a browser, Photoshop, full screen app, and just press control + n and the interface pops up. All you have to do is type. After the first email, you'll have the workflow memorized. Shortcut > Type email > message > enter.

Ok, well I'm sold, only problem is I'm not a mac user.

I would say cross platform it, but it seems to be a mac-centric app.

Doesn't Quicksilver already offer this same functionality? I'm also unsure if I would use this app.

Sure, using Alfred without the power pack

    ctrl+space 
    "Mail" 
    cmd+n 
    "person@example.com" 
    tab(x3) 
    "Subject"
    tab(x5)
    "Message Body"
    shift+cmd+d

Tabs may vary.

I have no problems without using Alfred, Mail is always open : cmd+tab

I would have no use for the original app in the link, I mean how hard is it to just do cmd+tab and cmd+n in Mail ?

The reason is I can leverage muscle memory with alfred. I don't need to look at my screen to determine which app is mail. I can slap ctrl+space and type mail in the time it would take to cmd+tab to it.

The morality of doing this type of stuff has been discussed before.

morality? hardcore...wouldn't think morals would even play a role

I mean "selling a product that doesn't exist yet to test the market". Can't find the links though...

Moeed isn't selling anything - he's testing a concept before spending a lot of time creating it. That's not unethical - it's smart.

My first thought when seeing this - I WANT IT. I'll buy a license as soon as it's available.

The only way this could've been executed better is with an opt-in to be notified via e-mail when it's available.

Hi Josh,

Thanks for the kind words! You also had some great advice and now there is a email opt-in form on the website.

A few people have showed interest already, so QuickSend just might see light of day!

Cheers everyone!

"Skip the subject field and just start typing your message. QuickSend will turn the first paragraph of your message into the subject, saving you time."

Meanwhile, the body of the text has to do with meeting for dinner and the subject has to do with the baseball game tomorrow.

So, that was my first question. How are we skipping the subject line? Oh, it builds it off of your text! Wait, it doesn't seem like it did? Maybe he is only sh owing the 2nd paragraph? No idea.... That was my stream of consciousness.

Other than that, I don't have a mac, but don't really find writing emails on my windows box cumbersome. Is the mac email app that problematic?

The interface suggests the user has used the application more than once and is familiar with the workflow.

After the first email, it will be quite apparent to the user that the first line would become to subject, which will become an action without the user thinking too much about it.

Also, lets just assume that John knows about the Baseball Game tomorrow, but has no idea about the dinner plans.

Hope that clears it up!

How about if the first line begins with a '>', the paragraph that follows is not included in the body.

Example 1:

>I actually want a subject

This is my message

Example 2:

This is my first paragraph (and subject).

This is my second paragraph.

So what happens how when someone makes this app, and doesn't involve the original guy?

Unfortunately, hovering and clicking in menu bar area is difficult for me (the icons there are just too damn small).

Whenever I have a choice between keyboard shortcut vs menu bar clicking, keyboard shortcut always win.

If QuickSend window shows up ala LightBox via keyboard shortcut (with the same UI and all its promises) however...

and if the price is right, I might buy it (but it needs to be able to handle multiple email accounts).

Nice landing page. I did have one question under the first paragraph it says: "...the to field will be pre-selected so all you have to do is start typing." How would it know which contact to fill the "to:" field with?

By preselected he means it will be the active field. So you can "start typing" - type "Han" and "Hannah" will pop up. You just don't have to manually click on, or tab to the contact field.

Exactly.

Also, please realize this is just a concept and further research will be put into the it if it goes into development. A swift workflow is the biggest goal.

I disagree with the motive of lowering the friction to send email. I want to spend less time answering email by receiving less of it. Anything that makes it easier to generate more email means I will receive more email.

I think using email to shoot off "quick questions" (such as the message depicted on the page) to people is an abuse of the medium - that's what Twitter and iChat are for.

This is a good point. One of my pet peeves is receiving mail with poorly thought-out subjects. Whether it's a phrase that doesn't mean anything to the recipient, or something that's incomplete as a summary of the contents.

Often it's a sentence fragment, such as "Can you," followed by a continuation of the sentence in the body.

I like it. I hope this gets built.

Unfortunately, there's not really any more room in my menu bar. http://cl.ly/4vlI

ah!!!

great product name (even if it's vaporware at this point) ... it's refreshing to see a name that's crisp, memorable, and comprised of PROPERLY SPELLED WORDS! bravo to whoever came up with that name

most desktop mail apps will open a new message window at the touch of a hotkey. what's the point of this?

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