Comment by tskulbru | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tskulbru | Hacker News Reader

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I'm a solo dev building a handful of apps across different niches..

- Kvile ( https://kvile.app ) — A lightweight desktop HTTP client built with Rust + Tauri. Native .http file support (JetBrains/VS Code/Kulala compatible), Monaco editor, JS pre/post scripts, SQLite-backed history. Sub-second startup. MIT licensed, no cloud, your requests stay on your machine. Think Postman without the bloat and login walls.

- Mockingjay ( https://apps.apple.com/us/app/mockingjay-secure-recorder/id6... ) — iOS app that records video and streams AES-256-GCM encrypted chunks to your Google Drive in real-time. By the time someone takes your phone, the footage is already safe in the cloud. Built for journalists, activists, and anyone who needs tamper-proof evidence. Features a duress PIN that wipes local keys while preserving cloud backups, and a fake sleep mode that makes the phone look powered off during recording.

- Stao ( https://stao.app ) — A simple sit/stand reminder for standing desk users. Runs in the system tray, tracks your streaks, zero setup. Available on macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android.

- MyVisualRoutine ( https://myvisualroutine.com ) — This one is personal. I have three kids, two with severe disabilities. Visual schedules (laminated cards, velcro boards) are a lifeline for non-verbal children, but they're a nightmare to manage and they don't leave the house. So I built an app that lets you create a full visual routine in about 20 seconds and take it anywhere. Choice boards, First/Then boards, day plans, 50+ preloaded activities, works fully offline. Free tier is genuinely usable. Available on iOS and Android.

Really neat! Also as a Linux user, I deeply appreciate the linux support :-)

A few questions and comments:

| Kvile |

- Awesome, really happy to see a reasonable take on this (open source, offline-first, no telemetry, no acount, etc). Do you think at some point you'll try to monetize it in some way?

- Looks like build assets didn't get attached for the latest release (v0.2.1) in Github: https://github.com/tskulbru/kvile/releases/tag/kvile-v0.2.1

| Mockingjay |

- Awesome, definitely a valuable project. I'll be sharing this with some friends who could really use this.

| Stao |

- The website says it's open source, but I couldn't find a link to the source repo. I looked at your github repos and didn't see it in there either.

- Great idea! I'm so bad about forgetting to stand so something like this could be super useful.

Kvile: Thanks for letting me know! havent noticed, since i mostly just use it myself. Will get it fixed!

Stao: Hm yea this is a mistake on my LLM when it generated the website for me (i couldnt be bothered). It probably got confused since i released it for Linux. Its not open-source. Yes! Exactly, thats why i made it, i ALWAYS forgot. I still do, but far less frequently than before, using Stao helped me a lot.

I'd love to try Stao, but the app shows a blank window/canvas on Windows 11. I hope you could take a look at that!

I will look into it!

I also just shipped two more apps today:

- Biblewise — a Bible trivia game I originally built for my niece and nephew but ended up with three modes: adventure (progressive levels across 6 categories), daily challenges with streak tracking, and a timed mode. Built with SwiftUI + SwiftData, offline-first. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/biblewise-bible-quiz-game/id67...

- Neimr — a collaborative naming app with Tinder-style swiping. Create a survey for baby names, pet names, business names, etc., invite your partner/friends, and it finds which names you all agree on. Built with Flutter + Firebase. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/neimr-find-names-together/id67...

I love the idea behind MyVisualRoutine as a father with a disabled kiddo, thanks for sharing.

The app is beautiful - much better than I could build - what tech is it using if you don't mind me asking? Is it flutter, react native, something else? Just want to get better at mobile dev.

Thank you so much! Then you know my pain. All apps i found were either shit, real shit, or didnt solve my personal need. Hopefully this might help others the way it did for our family. The app is built using flutter because im going to release it on Android too very soon, and I couldnt be bothered creating it twice. Initially the idea was more of a game-like-app, and then it made sense to use flutter. Now though, its not really game-like and couldve just as well been native (apart for me not bothering doing it twice). If i wouldve done it again from scratch, for this app, i would still have chosen flutter.

Waooooo, I just look at Kvile and Stao and My Visual Routine. Great work!!! My favourite is Stao, definitely will try it, but before I need a standing desk. Keepo the hard work!

Nice thing about Stao is that even though its targeted towards users of standing-desk, just the whole part of standing up and walking about a bit is hugely helpful for you back. Anyway, thanks for the kinds words!

Love this! Had the same idea as Mockingjay for emergency situations where you don’t have time to upload, e.g. robberies, attacks, etc… will give it a try!

Let me know what you think!

> MyVisualRoutine ...

> All apps i found were either shit, real shit, or didnt solve my personal need.

Wow, what an amazing coincidence. I made something that looks pretty similar from the looks of it just a few weeks ago because I found the same thing. If I knew your app existed I probably wouldn't have made it. I wasn't even thinking of selling it, just made it for my kid because it makes following various daily routines easier.

It's a mostly vibe coded (well, I made tons of visual and technical decisions but didn't look at the code much except some spot checks) PWA that can run offline on an iPod Touch.

It has some quirks and hidden features for day schedules, timers, etc.

There's plenty of yank in there (yours is almost certainly built better) but it works pretty well for most daily routines.

You can check it out here: https://girls-routine-planner.huppie.nl/

Hey man, this is great! There can never be enough apps of this kind. Keep it up, it looks awesome!

Yeah, totally agree. Maybe it can inspire your app too, wish you the very best and a lot of sales.

Some of the hidden features:

- If you add a task to a routine and end it with a question mark it becomes a conditional where you can add specific tasks or subroutines on the yes or no condition.

- Make it 'weekday?' and it becomes a switch case for the week.

- 'is it 7:30 yet?' becomes a conditional that automatically detects if it's before that time. I use it for e.g. 'before breakfast' (at 7:30) -> go play (with a timer until 7:30)

N.b. 'fun' fact, my daughter wanted an avatar with clothes that you can earn. The idea was pretty easy to implement but getting nano banana (using a great Claude nano banana skill) to generate the correct images took... some practice. I think I spent more time on the images for the avatars than all the other features combined. It took way too long to realize simple stuff like "nano banana won't generate transparency, only a fake white/grey checker pattern"

Also learned the last iPod touch (great device by the way) has a really low screen resolution which can be quite challenging at times.

absolutely loved the idea of mockingjay, i was also working on a similar kind of project which also had function to upload files, photos with end to end encryption, anti sniffing, zipping it and then uploading or working like bit torrent, breaking it into multiple files and storing in server in batches.

That sounds awesome, and much more advanced than what im doing

thank you for Kvile, postman is slow and super bloated :0

do you have plans to add it to brew? :3 it's more convenient way for updates

Yea I will do it one of these days when i have the time, but yes I agree

Beautiful apps! Well done

I like the idea of Kvile, I hate Postman with passion -- but I'm having difficulty getting started - I expected a screen to start creating a network request; it asked me to add a folder so I did it and now the Collections is spinning (it's an empty folder, so not sure what's it doing?) and I still don't have a screen to create the HTTP request itself. Do I need the .http files, i.e. Kvile doesn't give you the editor?

There was a bug, should be working in the latest release!

> and a fake sleep mode that makes the phone look powered off during recording.

That's going to be used for recording women in public.

there's a line between functionality that can be abused and that which is very likely; the author is obviously on the former side of this line so you can take your crusade somewhere it could be useful.

I'm not on a crusade. I'm telling you what it's likely to be used for in case you didn't think of it yourself. Pointing out that it's likely to be used for nefarious purposes is not equivalent of making an argument that it shouldn't exist.

I can appreciate that it's useful for journalism while also warning you that not every user is going to be a journalist. It's possible to have a conversation without being in a fight all the time.

Exactly, you basically said what I was going to say.

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