Comment by arkitaip | Hacker News Reader

Comment by arkitaip | Hacker News Reader

+ Whoa, those aren't thumbnails - they are actually interactive site widgets? Cool, even though I don't really understand the underlying mental model; why would I want to interact with miniature versions of sites (other than it's cool, of course)?

+ App feels super fast. The site widgets were rendered instantaneously.

+ Yay dark mode by default.

+ I like the overall design. Feels very native to Chrome/Firefox with auto dark mode and styling in general.

- I don't get the purpose of the software. Is Pad a cloud based bookmark manager with interactive site widgets? Where's the "keeping tabs" portion of the app other than it visually organizes the sites using the widgets?

- I wanted to add a new site but hit the New Pad button - several times. Maybe it's the unfamiliarity of the term 'pad' or that I didn't expect that there are two levels of organization (pads -> sites). Maybe it's just me.

Thanks for this amazing feedback and trying it out!

Yes, Pads are like the group or tab, and sites the individual asset.

Right now when you hit new pad, it just fires a window prompt which may get blocked lol - need to swap this out for in-app dialog windows, I will do this ASAP so others don't get blocked as well, thank you.

(Edit: oh, you mean you thought to add a new site it was "new pad", got it - maybe I can make this more clear, again thank you for such great feedback here)

I edited my description comment a bit, but yes you are basically correct, a visual bookmarks manager that can be utilized cross-browser and device without an account, and where you can quickly check and interact with multiple sites that may or may not relate to each other. Also, I want to add more devtool-like features such as maybe exposing the page console, load times, different viewport sizes, etc.

The long-term goal is a launcher of sorts with a built-in browsing experience. A browser wrapped in a browser where you can "install" webapps. Iframes aren't gonna cut it, though...

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