Show HN: A pen-first virtual environment for thought/collaboration
temin.co.uk
temin.co.uk
Temin is a tool I built for myself that acts as a virtual environment for sticky notes, graphics and virtual screens (running Chromium). Technically it's two tools, as the HTML5-based drawing app is separate from the virtual environment. I use Temin mostly for big picture thinking, making stories and planning.
I built it when I was having trouble getting a grand vision of the future out of my head (standard 'future of computing' fare). In the real world I kept running out wall space before I ran out of ideas, and for whatever reason all the digital tools I tried weren't working for me.
I find adding/exploring/editing thoughts a pleasant experience in Temin. I'm not sure why, I have some pet theories that writing by hand in environments that are low on typeset words and clinically straight lines and boxes is a big part of it, but who knows. Outside of the articles that crop up on HN from time to time on the benefits of handwriting[0][1][2][3] I have nothing to back any of that up.
95% of the time I use a Microsoft Surface to input stuff into Temin and place the stuff I made using a desktop PC, but the I/O you can use is pretty flexible. I developed it as a desktop app, but as Unity can export to WebGL I spent some time recently getting a browser based version semi-working. The desktop build is embarrassing, the WebGL build doubly so, but it kind of works.
Switching between FPS, CAD/nolcip and pseudo-2D mouse mode isn't very intuitive. In fact, the whole UI/UX is bad.
Due 99% to my poor coding (the way the client and drawing app checks for updates is ridiculous) and 1% being on a $8 p/m hosting plan if this post gets more than a little interest it'll revert to a less feature rich version where you can't add/edit new sticky notes. Or maybe it'll just fall over. Who knows, Temin is the first piece of software I've developed.
I'd like to see if there's a market for Temin beyond myself and a couple of friends, but I don't really know what I'm doing so any thoughts would be appreciated.
I guess I'll just start rooting around LinkedIn and Twitter next week and reach out to any organisations/individuals who I think might be interested in it?
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24519008
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24714990
It links to https://alpha.temin.co.uk/