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Show HN: tyto

jh3y.github.io

179 pointscodez122 comments

Please don't take the this the wrong way, usability is hard and hey, you actually built something, which can be a goal in and of itself, but: please go read a book on usability. Designed for Use by Lukas Mathis [1] is a great introduction. The first few things that stood out for me:

• It's my first time seeing the page, I want to know what it is. I definitely don't want to load a config. The default config should be the first thing the user sees, as it does a reasonable job of explaining the concepts.

• The button for adding a card is tiny and far away for where the cards get added.

• The menu being hidden by default means its items are not at all discoverable. It could still be collapsible, but open by default if you want users to actually use it.

• Pressing ESC in the initial modal ends up in an irreversibly (without refresh) broken state.

• The only way to save appears to be exporting a JSON file. You should look into LocalStorage or IndexedDB as a way to autosave so the user doesn't lose their content by inadvertently closing the tab, navigating or refreshing.

• Deleting a column is instant and irreversible. You should have confirmation, or, even better, undo.

I'm guessing you've built this to fulfil a personal niche, so kudos for getting it built. God knows I never finish anything I build for myself.

[1] http://pragprog.com/book/lmuse/designed-for-use (or if you google hard enough there are ahem totally legit free PDFs)

thx for the book advice :)

Don't worry I won't take it the wrong way. I am looking for criticism, suggestions and feedback.

This was a personal project and a tool I kinda build for myself but then people showed some interest in it and made little suggestions here and there but it has never had a wider audience which is why it's here.

I will certainly look into that book for an xmas gift for myself :)

1. if I load the default config as standard, do you think that that is enough? or should there be some modal still introducing it in some way?

2. how would you tackle this? I have it in the menu as well but I wanted the ability to add a card to a particular column without using dropdowns etc. hence the icon on the column.

3. another user has suggested scrapping the menu altogether and I think this is something I will do and move to icons in the header.

4.Wow, thanks for pointing that out. This may be a bug with twitter bootstrap then as I am using their modal as I didn't want to spend time writing my own for a first iteration.

5.Cool, I will take a look at them, I haven't been too sure on save options. The initial idea was that developers wanted to save something they could then send to a PM who could load the same thing make changes and maybe send back.

6. There is a confirmation if the column is not empty, you should be asked if you wish to do so and that all cards will be lost.

Yeah it was built as a personal thing, I was using post it notes a lot and then I changed desk and had no post it notes or I would lost a post it with a load of things on, simple things like hex colors for some css or ring this person and it kinda went from there.

I really appreciate the feedback so thank you very much for your time to give me it and thanks for the link to the book to, I will certainly look at checking that out.

Thanks again!

As many other have said, this looks similar to Trello. It may be worth looking into how they have their UI set up.

Noticeable differences - In trello, the button which will action something is located close to where you would expect the result.

eg. The new card functionality is at the bottom of the column, the new column functionality is in the top right. Further "more advanced" functionality is hidden in drop down menus for which the indicator appears on hover.

hey alistairjcbrown!

Thanks for the feedback!, it's much appreciated. I am certainly going to take a look into this, many people have mentioned trello.

Thanks again!

I use quite a few web apps and desktop apps in this space, and have experimented with many more. I find Trello one of the most amazing apps I've used, both in it's general design and in the little details. Especially the little details. My expectations of web apps are generally not so high, so when, for example, trello remembers my input when I accidentally close something, it's a surprise.

The most recent discovery I made was that when you hover over a card and press the copy keyboard shortcut, it copies the card. Something I don't use much, but comes in handy every once in a while.

I think studying Trello's functionality would be great inspiration to improve your tool!

hey mercer!

Thanks for your insight, I will certainly look into taking on board a lot of peoples ideas and insights.

Thanks again!

  > 5.Cool, I will take a look at them, I haven't been too sure on save options. The initial idea was that developers wanted to save something they could then send to a PM who could load the same thing make changes and maybe send back.

To me (and I am no usability expert so, ya know, 'grain of salt' and all that), this sounds more like an "Export" operation than a "Save" operation. I agree with the parent that localStorage or IndexedDB would be good, and combining one of them with auto-save would be even better. Perhaps the 'Save' button in the menu could then be changed to 'Export' or something?

EDIT:

Also, the use of localStorage could make this 'todo' from the README partly obsolete:

  > online persistence if there was demand. this does however mean accounts which isn't cool but maybe the notion of guest accounts and persistent accounts whereby multiple boards could be saved.

LocalStorage wouldn't enable a user to get their boards from anywhere, but could help, as the parent says, with the 'oops i closed my browser' case.

hey untothebreach!

Yeah export actually sounds much more fitting and the correct wording.

localStorage is certainly something I am going to be looking into to add to this. Another poster had suggested the available save APIs from say google drive, what do you think of that approach?

Thanks again for the feedback!

I like the idea of Google drive...it would also help solve the problem of Accounts if a user could sync their data through their GDrive or Dropbox or something...

Anyway, I have forked the repo. Can't work on it now (at work) but I will try to play around with it this week and might be sending you a pull request or two.

Yeah I do like the idea, to me it is better than having some database for it or the likes. Going to compile an issue list of what's come up in the feedback and start looking into making those changes.

Thanks again for your feedback!

You might consider Dropbox, since the Datastore API seems perfect for the persistence (and live syncing) of data. Try the sample task-list app in a couple tabs: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/182037406/js-datastore-a...

hey smarx!

Thanks for the input, it's much appreciated. This area of improvement for tyto is something that I'm really itching to get working. Will definitely check out the link.

Thanks again for this!

how about exporting/saving/backing up to a cloud storage provider like skydrive/dropbox. That should remove the need to maintain accounts. You can use the javascript dropbox sdk to replicate/backup the local storage file onto the cloud. When a user accesses it via some other computer, simple ask him to login to his dropbox account and you can sync the local storage once the access is available. Just my two cents

hey wiresurfer!

Thanks for your input, it's much appreciated. I am very interested in getting this part of tyto working. Do you think personally that dropbox is the best option for this feature? or do you think maybe offering skydrive, google drive and dropbox would be better? I also need to think about how this would be tackled from a UI perspective too to be honest so any opinion you may have on that would be much appreciated too.

Thanks again for the input! feedback has been great!

I'm not the person you're replying to, but there are my comments.

1. Skip any modals. First time users don't care about loading configuration, and current users don't care about it that often that it merits such prominent placing. Have sensible defaults, and load them automatically.

  1a. Sensible defaults are hard to achieve :) Measure user activity and see how people *actually* use the product, and extract your default behaviour from that.

  1b. There is already a "load" link at the menu, that's enough for users to load config later.

2. Have you ever used Trello? They serve a similar purpose, and have a nice solution to this: the bottom of a column ("list", in their parlance) is clickable, to create a new card.

3. FWIW, I've grown to expect a small gear on the top-right as being the menu, and end up always clicking there when I'm looking for something I can't immediately find on the main interface.

4. There is no #4 :)

5. You could also check into external services that provide a save api, such as Google Drive or Dropbox. Localstorage would be cool, but my usage pattern includes accessing from different devices, and having the data saves somewhere externally accessible is crucial.

6. Undo. Have undo. You can completely forget about confirmation if you have undo. It's not trivial to implement, but man. Have undo :)

And congratulations, it's a cool product :)

BTW: grandparent, I'll look at that book as well, thanks :)

[Edit: formatting]

her erre,

Yeah I noticed I made that mistake too lol.

Thanks for the feedback! it's super appreciated as I can take all of this on board.

google drive is certainly something that would be very cool to be using.

with an undo though, how many done actions would you want to be able to undo?? Because I would store column json as deleted I guess and then retemplate it in at the appropriate position if I can.

Thanks again for the feedback, much appreciated!

About the undo, try and make things simple. The ability to undo only your very last action will probably account for most people's needs.

ahh ok cool, so I will just remember the very last thing and have it as an action in the header maybe? how does that sound?

Thanks for the feedback, once again much appreciated.

On #4, you can avoid it by adding data-keyboard="false" data-backdrop="static".

hey quarterto!

Ahh thanks for that! I obviously had overlooked it. Although it looks like I may get rid of the modals altogether and opt for menu actions within the header and loading a default config. What's your opinion on this approach?

Thanks again for the feedback!

Regarding 2. 'add item button is too small' - I'd personally try a large-ish grey plus icon in the middle of a column, that is only visible when that column is hovered.

hey paulftw!

that's a nice idea too. However, do you think it would work in a nice way? if the column is filled with items then you thanks for the feedback! are hovering over an item and the column then you may go to drag but want to add an item and vice versa. i guess this could be tackled with correct behaviour in event listeners.

I'd be interested in any more input you have on this behaviour and the opinion of others on this approach.

thanks again for the feedback, it's much appreciated!

Very neat. I'm the kind of person who likes having everything laid out before him, i.e. I don't like organization that relies too much on depth. For example, I usually prefer prefixing my file names rather than splitting them into subfolders.

It's a version 0.0.1, so here's my 2 cents: the only thing that really bothers me is the menu. The whole UI is quick and responsive, but this menu opens very slowly. The thing is, I don't think you actually need it. Why hide tools that users will probably interact with a lot? There's so much space in the header, left to the logo. Just put the buttons there and forget about the menu.

You're not the only one I see making this "mistake": not appropriately using the space available, especially when there are only a few elements to show. The greatest misuse I see is dropdowns [1]. On a personal level, I hate them (because, like I said, I prefer having all my options available before my eyes). But on a more general level, dropdowns are often used for a few items only, and remove any sense of hierarchy. They're just hidden lists of frequently-used options, put on the same level of importance.

To give an example related to your app: "add item" is on the same level as "email". But the former is both frequently used and non-penalizing (you can undo it easily), whereas the latter is rarely used and makes you leave the app, which might make the user lose some valuable data.

[1]: http://jgthms.com/dont-use-dropdowns-for-a-few-items-only.ht...

Hey bbx. Thanks very much for the feedback. Yeah the menu is a strange one, because I wasn't sure whether people would like something tucked away or something they could see but then having just icons for buttons, do you think that would communicate enough? or is it worth it for people to just have that short learning curve for what the icons do? This was my first prototype; http://jsfiddle.net/WtGYx/2/ I had icons in the header for that one. It's really great to have people to discuss this with because obviously UX is important as the goal is to make it as simple and intuitive as possible. I have to kinda agree on the dropdowns front ha. Thanks again, really appreciated.

Well, I think the solution is to NOT have something tucked away (like the current menu). You have space in the header, use it! Especially for buttons that will be frequently used.

And don't use icons only. Users went mad when GMail replace text-buttons with icon-buttons. [1] Just use text! Or use text with icons, but not icons only.

[1]: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/2473038?hl=en&ctx=mai...

Ahh ok that's really good to know, I'll take a read of that article there.

How about flat buttons? Your opinion on them?

Thanks again by the way, this is really helpful!

I really really really wish I could take feedback as well as @codez is taking in this thread. Incredible attitude man.

Congrats for launching. Good luck!

hey nizazpk!

haha thanks very much for the compliment!

I am always interested to share things and what makes it even better is when people will have some insight, suggestion, opinion or criticism that I can take on board as the more feedback, the better a piece of work can become. It really helps and I'm really amazed and grateful for the amount of feedback tyto has received.

Thanks again!

Looks good!

The one thing I'd like to see changed is that the button to create a new card is dangerously close to the button that deletes a column.

Adding a card is a frequent action so deserves such a prominent spot, deleting a column is not.

Perhaps you should add an 'edit column' mode where moving, creating & deleting columns is exposed: e.g. on double clicking the space around columns?

hey sambeau!

the positioning of the new card button has been a piece of feedback that has come up a fair bit it seems and I'm really happy people have brought it up. I wasn't too happy with it's placement but wasn't sure where to put it but knew there needed to be that functionality.

Hmm interesting about an edit mode for columns. Could you elaborate on this? I would have had maybe the ability to move and delete a column but adding a new one should be from the header menu no? Your opinion is very appreciated so thanks for your feedback.

Thanks again!

I'd hate to re-design your app in an off-the-cuff remark… but… hey-ho!…

My thinking was that editing columns would be a rare even - you'd set your board up once and then use it with perhaps an occasional decision to add or delete a column.

Your real-estate is valuable and should remain uncluttered - a UI element (be it label, icon, button) must earn it's place especially in prominent positions - the top right of a column is (in the western world) a valuable place plus each column has a limit to how many UI elements they can support before getting confusing.

Thus, the decision you have to make each time you place a UI element is where are the prominent positions where UI can go? What are my most common interactions? Where can I put my less common, yet still essential, interactions?

So - here the obvious thing to do is to concentrate on the cards - creating new ones, moving them from column to column, deleting them. I'd give prominence to these interactions as their buttons are the ones that will be consistently pressed.

Then you are left with what to do with the ui for setting up a board. You generally have two options - chuck the UI into a lesser-used area of the scene (generally a lazy idea) or (my preferred option) add a mode.

Modes get a bad rap as they are considered to be 'non-discoverable' but I find that a good mode is often a simpler solution - you get a clean slate and all your good UI positions are available for reuse.

SO - a good column editing mode would involve an option to switch into a mode where you can no longer edit cards but instead manipulate the board - add/delete columns, move things around.

There are various possibilities for entering the mode - the most obvious of which is a button. However you could play around with clicking the area between columns - as its a large unused target area. The downside might be that it isn't obvious what you'd have to do to discover it - the temptation then is to add instructions.

Have a play - I suspect it might work.

hey sambeau!

thanks for getting back to me.

there are some good points you make there. A button or switch to go into column edit mode would be most appealing to me I think personally. I like that idea and I will certainly have a play with it.

as for adding cards, where do you think this should live? some people have suggested at the bottom of columns. This does sound good, my only problem is that what if the user has to scroll to find this functionality? with an icon at the top of the column this is clearer IMO, if columns had a mode then I guess the remove column icon wouldn't be visible at the same time as the add item icon. I'd value your opinion on this part of the UI.

Thanks again for your feedback and input!

Add cards should have pride of place at the top. You don't want to scroll to find it.

hey sambeau!

thanks for getting back to me. Where would you prefer to see this? or how? I like the way the icon is now as it isn't intrusive although some people claim they want something more like trello offers for adding cards. I have thought maybe a button below the column title like a faded anchor for adding cards maybe? your thoughts?

Thanks again for your input and insight!

It's great. I used it right now as I often have things I need to remember but I can't just dumpt it in my team's Trello. I think you can go ahead and brand it as a light weight Trello for a niche that wants privacy/is lazy and just wants something quick.

LocalStorage can take you miles ahead if you indeed make sure people use this as I described above. I certainly would.

hey why-el!

Thanks for the feedback!, it's really appreciated. That's a pretty good way of summing it up, you're more than welcome to share it as that :P

I am certainly going to look at adding the localStorage feature, that will certainly add a lot to tyto.

Thanks again for the feedback!

You can create multiple boards in trello, mixing personal and business. This means you can keep all of this stuff in the same system, but not have them appear in your Team's trello.

Isn't that way simpler? That's how i do it anyway.

This is something I would like to provide but whilst keeping it disconnected from a database. Integrating with google drive or the likes is what appeals to me most at the moment.

True, except that currently there is no way to silence Trello or scope notifications to one board. If I am there, I will get distracted.

this is interesting to know wrt to trello.

Thanks.

So basically it's a lightweight version of Trello? Seems great anyway and I will probably try it out for my next project.

Hey Kiro,

Thanks for the feedback it's much appreciated.

Ah yes trello! I was having trouble remembering that name. It's been a couple of years since I briefly used that. Has it always required a sign in off the top of your head?

My goal wasn't a lightweight trello but to be compared to is a great compliment so thank you very much and many thanks for the feedback.

If you do try out tyto, please let me know how it goes for you, I'd be very happy to take on board any suggestions or feedback you have from using it.

Thanks again!

Sometimes the page loads just blank, with no modal. Can't get it to do it now but it happened on my first load.

Hey jalada,

Yeah I had this issue once or twice when developing it but I made the assumption that maybe grunt-watch wasn't catching up or something but someone else has said the same thing.

Do you mind me asking which browser you are using? I developed it using firefox and chrome. Another user has suggested maybe (if my interpretation is correct) getting rid of the intro modal completely which would solve this problem.

I really appreciate the feedback so thank you for commenting.

I was using Firefox when it happened :)

Good work!

Thanks for that. I am certainly going to see if I can tackle that issue.

Thanks again :)

The screen is also blank (forever) if you have cookies blocked. This is so common that I guess very few people whitelist cookies. Still, I thought you might want to know.

hey gavinpc

Thanks for the heads up! will certainly keep that in mind.

Same for me, using Firefox 26, on the first few loads, but thereafter it seems to work consistently.

In Safari 5.0.5, dragging doesn't work.

hey kps!

thanks for the feedback. I thought `draggable` was supported in safari but maybe this isn't the case. I'll have to have a little look into this.

Thanks again for the feedback!

codez, for those focusing on the UI aspect, I'd say those are minor issues. If you'd like to make this more usable, add templates/examples somewhere for things like Quad Charts [1], Kanban [2], Zachman Enterprise Architecture [3], Lean Canvas [4], Business Model Canvas [5], etc. Great job!

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quad_chart

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban_board

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zachman_Framework

[4] http://blog.spark59.com/2012/the-different-worldviews-of-a-s...

[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Model_Canvas

hey oso2k!

Thanks very much for the feedback! That's actually a pretty awesome idea to add different templates for those things. My question for that is though, how would a user choose this from a UI perspective? Would they say define in config a special template and then use that? Maybe I can come up with ways to change the current templates to work in this manner and provide them as templates that could be swapped out. Or, would you like to have something like that become available from clicking a button? I think I could do that using requireJS.

Thanks again for this feedback and input! This is a really cool idea and a feature that would be pretty awesome to get implemented.

Much appreciated! :)

Congrats ! I like the lightweight minimalist approach. The email feature is really neat ! A reason why I tried but stoped using trello, asana or others is because I thought it was overkill for early stages, and all we needed was a todo list inside a mail, but the mail clients doesn't make it easy and practical...

I agree with the feedback on the menu, and the possibility to rearrange the items in the same column.

hey edelans,

Thanks for the feedback, minimalist and lightweight is certainly my aim.

Yeah the email feature is something I am quite happy with, that came from one of my other projects where I have made a chrome browser extension for sticky notes that you can drag around a page and then email back to yourself (can be seen on my github).

Yeah the menu feedback seems consistent so certainly something I am going to look into. I am wondering if I might need to implement the drag and drop slightly different to get rearranging working properly as intended but I'll take a look.

Thanks again for the feedback, it's much appreciated.

Nice little project. I'm not quite sure if it's a bug or if I just can't figure out how it works correctly: Drag and Drop of entries. Whenever i drag something it seems to be push to the bottom. I think it would be better if I could freely rearrange the items. E.g. from position 2 to position 4.

Keep the good work :-)

hey darklegend!

Thanks very much for the feedback, it's really appreciated.

Hmm yeah that would seem to be the ideal behaviour for sure. I just gave it a go and it seems you can rearrange downwards but not upwards and also not as you would wish. So if you drag something down in the same column it will go to the end of that column. This definitely isn't ideal. I had initially started implementing using my own draggable implementation but then reverted to using html5 draggable with contenteditable. I ran into some styling issues when dragging items whilst trying to remain responsive. Basically the items were styled at 90% of the column width but when you dragged them out they grew to 90% of the page and then shrunk back again when they were dropped but I was unable to hack the drag move in a way to maintain size without there being some jump in width which I didn't think looked pleasant.

This could certainly go down as an issue if you would like to add it or I can add it to the repo.

I'll try to keep it up and thanks again very much for the feedback, it's really appreciated!

It's nice! I'm actually curious about naming it tyto. It reminds me of Josip Broz Tito (a historical figure form equally historical Yugoslavia) who, by local legends, got his nickname Tito because he would hand out tasks by pointing at it and saying "Ti, to!" (translated roughly "You, do that!").

hey Monk_NT!

Thanks for the feedback, it's much appreciated.

Well I wasn't sure what to name it but that kinda just stuck for me ha. Haha that's a good little story that I was unaware of, thanks for that!

Thanks again for the feedback!

I like it, my local Trello! :)

Just one small suggestion, it'd be nice if columns were draggable as well.

Hey bromagosa!

I do take a massive compliment when people are mentioning Trello :)

Using it locally allows you to do whatever you want with it too!

... columns draggable... Now why didn't I think of that?! That's a really good idea, thanks! I can certainly look into that as a feature to add, that would be pretty cool. I would probably need to play around with that a bit as I can see there certainly being some behavioural issues when implementing that but I'd imagine it to certainly be doable.

Thanks again for the feedback! it's really appreciated.

hey all!

just wanted to say to all those that have given feedback, input and insight into tyto and/or have starred, forked or started watching the repo

"THANKS VERY MUCH!"

All of it has been very good and so helpful with taking the project forward. I wasn't sure if people would take their time to show interest or give some insight etc. so once again it is very appreciated and thanks for your time. I will try to get changes implemented and new features and things ironed out as soon as I can and report back.

THANKS AGAIN!

p.s if you know of people that would be interested in getting involved or using tyto please share it with them so it can get better exposure and a wider range of feedback, insight etc.

well done on building this. Sometimes making is its own reward.

Some feedback:

I had no idea what it did and the opening screen about loading config etc was confusing. I would have preferred like a tour with tooltips instead. Though once you get into it and play you soon figure out what it does.

As a fellow maker - I generally have really basic UI and leave menu items visible and learn from these forums what to do with them. So I suggest expanding your menu and have it always available. (like the menu animation though, could be a little faster).

What problem were you trying to fix? Did you try something like Trello.com before you decided to build this? It's cool if you built it just because.

hey mhsutton,

Thanks for the feedback, yeah I was happy to get something done that I am happy to use and share. My idea has been to create something easy enough for people to use and customize and make their own.

Yeah the loading config modal seems to have thrown a couple, that was another comment that was made. Someone also suggested maybe ditching the intro modal and just letting people discover for themselves.

as per the menu, thank you for that, that's been brought up and I'm thinking based on other feedback of moving the menu items into the header so you don't have to open and close it. the tab was something else I created as a UI component and I guess I just wanted to have a go at using it in real world environment.

I had used trello quite some time ago but couldn't remember it and I guess the thing I like with tyto is that I don't need an account and its just a simple UI. My main thing was to implement whilst learning and brushing up on some tech using templating languages like handlebars.

Thanks again for the feedback and I'll look at moving the menu.

> My idea has been to create something easy enough for people to use and customize and make their own.

> ... the thing I like with tyto is that I don't need an account and its just a simple UI

power to the people. I like Trello and while this is lacking features, it's already miles better because now I can fork it and self host it and others can do the same. I dislike how the web has become service orientated and wish I had more time to spend building alternatives to popular services that were Free and open source.

well done!

also, checklists. I would love love love to have checklists.

hey ish!

Thanks for the feedback, it's really appreciated. This is my aim, I want people to be more in power and control of the tools they use. With tyto, you could make it completely your own and behave as you wish without worrying about the backend part of it. All I ask is that if people do come up with something cool or host their own version they just share the link in the README. This is purely because it's really interesting to me to see how people are using it or what ideas they have come up with.

Checklists? Do you mean checklists on the actual cards themselves? This would be a really easy change. You could change the template for items and have that up and running pretty quick I think. It might require some changes to how the email template works and how json is generated but I can't see it being too major.

Thanks again for the feedback it's really appreciated, I'll see if I can take a look at how checklists would work or if you happen to have a go, let me know, I'd be happy to help or hear about it.

@codez: the intro modal had me confused as well so I realigned a few of the elements - http://imgur.com/a/FQkUm - to make it more self explanatory...yup, having a slow day at work :)

hey jinesh!

That's awesome, thanks for that, it actually does look much better like that. I may change the template to fit in with that structure if you're ok with that. Some people have expressed not having the modal at all so I may change the default behaviour to not show it on load (this is just an option in the config).

Thanks again for the feedback! it's really appreciated and good work!

Sure @codez, feel free to use it (y)

Thanks!! I'll look to make that change :)

Good stuff!

I love it, but is there a reason why you limit the height of the box in your demo app? I'd much rather have it use up all of my screen height, and scroll the entire page, rather than the white rectangle part like it does now.

hey sspiff!

Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated. Err, I guess I just put it together with styling that worked for me. The great thing about how it's written and using less, tweaks can be made real easy so I can certainly look into making changes to it so it works in a way that fills up more screen real estate. I'll look into this, if you'd like to add it as an issue to the repo, feel free or I can add it later.

Thanks again for the feedback!

Hi, thanks for the reply! I see you already mostly fixed the issue, with the box now scaling relatively to the screen height. I'll file an issue about the scrolling behaviour.

hey sspiff,

yeah dustywusty submitted a pull request with some pretty good little changes in.

I am actually trying to think of a way of sort of hosting discussion on the different issues but kinda struggling on a strategy with regards to how to get people to supply their input. I can use issues on github but when it comes to UI and UX design I'd love some kind of forum almost for it to show balsamiq mocks or the likes.

Any idea with regards to this issue would be awesome.

Thanks again for the input! it's really appreciated.

Hey nice project you got there!(if you're the developer)

At first it wasn't really working actually(I guess it was the config/menu thing), but after few reloads everything went smooth...

This is Dope! Starred :)

Thankyou very much, it's in it's infant stages, I'm just seeing if there is any interest in it and getting some feedback. I'm more than happy to take on suggestions etc.

Thanks again!

I'm actually why it didn't start up straight away for you. Do you mind me asking which browser you were using? I am currently only really playing with it in firefox and chrome but I think I have seen where you load the page and nothing happens but when you refresh it arrives so to speak ha.

I had that same issue with Safari on Mac. One refresh did the trick.

Yeah this is strange, I am going to look into this and maybe if the intro modal disappears then this bug may disappear too hopefully.

Thanks again for your feedback, it's much appreciated!

If you like this, check out my app:

http://listwerk.com

I'd say it's a little more polished, though still in need of some key features, namely a mobile app.

hey blehn!

I haven't had a good look at your app because it requires a sign up, although the home page looks good. However, as there is no demo of it in action without me poking around I can't truly make an opinion of it unless signing up etc.

That's where tyto differs and that's where its charm lies. It's intention is that there is no account necessary and that the UI is simple and maybe not completely polished to most peoples tastes. The source is completely open and it's aim is that it's easy to learn the codebase and what's going on so that people are free to take it and make it into whatever they want, however they want, wherever they want.

tyto is definitely going to be made mobile friendly in the future and that's a major goal to have it working responsive to device.

I hope that clears it up a little.

in early conception I had toyed with the idea of tyto being an acronym for 'tool you take over' for this reason.

Thanks for sharing!

JIRA Classic Task Board

https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/AGILE/Using+the+Cla...

I had a look at the CoffeeScript source. Is there some reason why you're not using CoffeeScript's `class`? It would save you having to do all the `tyto::foo` and `tyto = this` stuff.

hey bshimmin!

I did start out using class in coffeescript but I couldn't get it to work quite how I wanted to at the time but I was brushing up on my coffeescript and it is a really valid point and therefore I shall probably revisit this to refactor into that form. It does make sense after all.

Thanks for the feedback!

Pretty cool demo. Just a little tip for op, @codez, if you apply float: right; to the menu container (.actions) the buttons will look better while sliding in/out.

hey heydanreeves,

Thanks very much for the feedback! and thank you very much for that little tip, haha I spent a while thinking, hmm this doesn't look right, it's funny how like when you're stuck into something you can sometimes overlook simple things that are going to fix an issue. "float: right;" palms face

Thanks for the feedback, it's really appreciated!

Just a small suggestion:

CoffeeScript recommends the use of 2 spaces for indentation (I'm seeing a tab of size 8 in your code on github).

hey elwell!

thanks for the heads up, this has been noted and it's my fault. I use tabs constantly because I find it easier to read and I haven't been converting back or tidying up correctly so jslint will kick up a fuss as will coffee linting I would imagine.

I am certainly going to look into this and see if there is some preprocessing tool that can help me and my hard coded ways haha

Thanks again! I'll look to sort this out.

Serialising the config json object to localStorage and pulling it back out again on a reload would be useful.

Hey onion2k,

Thanks very much for the feedback.

I will look into using localStorage, this has also been mentioned in another comment. Have you experience with this yourself?

I'll have a google around, are there any drawback with that approach you can think of?

Thanks again for the feedback, it's really appreciated!

Yes, I've used localStorage. It's supported well across all the main browsers, it's reasonably quick, and it'll store more than enough data for your app. It's really just a case of doing (assuming you include JSON2.js);

  var ls = window.localStorage;
  var config = JSON.parse(ls.getItem('config')); //load the config

  ls.setItem('config', JSON.stringify(config)); //save the config

That's pretty much it. You'll need to protect against the config not being there, but that's just a matter of using a default empty object if config is null.

Thanks a lot for this, it's really helpful to get an idea of how this would be used.

How would you suggest this is used then?

People have the option to save a file or to localStorage?

Or should it just do it in the background without people knowing or maybe it's set as a config option?

You opinion on this is really appreciated so thanks again!

In a few things I've made that use it I do it in the background so state is maintained between sessions (load the data during initialisation, save it on any state change). It's important to inform the user that it's storing things locally, and include a UI element that allows the user to clear all the data easily, and possibly let users switch storage off (for shared computers). I use it in mobile things so that's not really a problem for me.

hey onion2k,

this insight is really appreciated as it will really help to improve tyto. How would you suggest maybe showing this information to the user? a modal or pop up? or something less intrusive just like a spinner when it saves? Or should there be some intro that asks the user if localStorage is ok to be used? Maybe a disappearing banner? then a button could easily be added to the header for removing said data maybe.

I guess I will really need to assess how many buttons make their way into the header really. What's you opinion on drop buttons or maybe some of the actions being icon buttons and some text plus icons? I'm just thinking of screen real estate and the responsive element.

on mobile I would like the traditional hidden menu I think when it comes to it.

Thanks for the insight and feedback again, it's really appreciated.

>> It's supported well across all the main browsers

IE < 8 does not support localStorage. May not be an issue depending on your target user-base.

hey niyazpk!

Thanks for the heads up!

I'd hoped to avoid older browsers as burdening myself with the stress of backwards compatibility in my spare time doesn't seem too appealing. However, in saying that, if there was demand I would be more than happy to investigate. I use mac so I tend not to encounter IE too much if I can help it.

Thanks again for your input!

Thank you for open sourcing it, for people like me who are learning how to code it s awesome!

Thanks!

hey knes!

Thanks for the feedback, well I have used it to brush up on a few things and I've tried to write it in a way so that it's easy to pick up so I hope you find it useful.

If you have any questions, suggestions or other feedback, don't hesitate to contact me. I'm more than happy to help people out.

Thanks again for the feedback!

Very nice. As mentioned below, it shouts for a UX/ExD review, but I'm impressed nonetheless.

Hey sekasi,

Thank you very much for the feedback!

It's in it's infant stage and I am certainly embracing the UX comments, they are very appreciated. Plenty for me to make changes to and put back out there. So, any suggestions are very welcome.

Thanks again for the feedback!

Does now work on Firefox 19 (yeah, I know..). The popup does not display. Only blank board.

Hey zytek,

Thanks for the feedback!

Hmm have you tried refreshing the page? This does seem to be an issue currently.

Otherwise maybe there is an issue with requireJS or bootstrap modal.

Thanks again for the feedback!

Looks like one could use this as a agile style whiteboard/stickies replacement.

hey leokun,

Thanks for the feedback! yeah that was kinda the intention and inspiration with tyto, I wanted something simple that people could use. Maybe it could work on a smartboard or something.

Thanks again for the feedback, really appreciated!

I like it. Minimalist, but all the required features for a good task management app.

1 point by codez 9 minutes ago | link | edit | delete

Thanks very much for the feedback! It's really appreciated. Any suggestions or the likes I am more than happy to take on board. I am just trying to get some exposure so I can see if it will gather some interest. Thanks again.

Good job for a pet project, excited to see how it progresses over time.

hey bcoughlan!

yeah me too! that's why I wanted to share it at this stage and see if could generate enough interest to take it much further. The more feedback generated, a better picture can be made of how far it can go and in what direction. To be honest I am just really pleased that as many people have provided feedback and shown interest as they have. It's majorly appreciated.

Thanks again!

Blank white box for me

hey easytiger!

I'm sorry to hear that, have you tried refreshing as some others have had this problem too it seems.

Thanks for the heads up!

Love the little owl logo and the wing movement. Keep that.

hey loceng!

glad you like it! it was a little thing I wanted to add so it wasn't overkill but was just there to sort of add a little something if you know what I mean.

Thanks again for the feedback!

How would this compete with Trello?

Hey bukka,

That's not the intention with tyto.

tyto has come out of a common problem with managing and organising things for me personally and colleagues past and present, and my wanting to see if I could implement my own tool for tackling that issue.

The codebase is meant to be easy to read so that people can easily take it away and make it their own.

Looks like Trello.

Hey sidcool,

Thanks for the feedback.

That isn't the intention with tyto but people do seem to be bringing up trello.

Thanks again!

I wasn't trying to sound condescending. It's a very well made application. Thanks for your efforts!

Oh no sorry, I didn't take it that way at all so no worries.

Thanks again for your feedback, it's really appreciated. Feedback for tyto has been great.

This is awesome!

hey wehadfun!

Thanks forthe feedback, much appreciated!

Very cool

hey erict19!

Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated

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