Show HN: Phaser – Trello for software development, with Vim built in | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Phaser – Trello for software development, with Vim built in

phaserapp.com

68 pointshpvic0348 comments

"it's trello for software development".

I think that's called Trello.

Phaser does some nice things that Trello doesn't do that are specifically related to software. For example you can group Stories into "Arcs", which are like feature sets. This way you can filter stories by Arc and quickly see the progress of each individual Arc.

Additionally, Phaser allows you to quickly create many stories in a single text box, which is great for when you need quickly add a new feature set.

There are more examples which I'm sure you'll see if you actually try the product.

Seems like a painfully small niche of people who will use this, but good luck!

>>There are more examples which I'm sure you'll see if you actually try the product.

I think he's pointing out that Trello is designed for software development as well. This is a problem with the pitch that will prevent people from trying your product.

Trello isn't specifically made for software project management, but I see your point. I'm not sure exactly what a better pitch would be. The one I have in my head is that Phaser is "Trello meets Pivotal Tracker".

It's not clear what Phaser has that Trello doesn't, other than more specific names for things, and the Arc idea, which doesn't seem specific to software, other than the name.

You also get the following with Phaser:

- create and group many stories at once with indentation. you can optionally use Vim for this

- stories have statuses that keep track of state: Started, Finished, Delivered, Accepted, and Rejected.

Those two things and Arcs are what make it different. I plan to add more features in the future which will make it more specific to software, such as robust statistics and predictions around story completion.

I mean, it kind of is. It's been abstracted certainly, and kanban was used for all kinds of project management before software but it was made by a software company that makes tools and products for programmers, who scratched their own itch first. Their initial customer base is developers because they're building on their existing Fog Bugz (and stackexchange a little bit, because of Joel), and you need to differentiate yourself more than you are.

Even based on the screenshots on your site, I'd look at that and say "I'm just going to use Trello".

I would just not bring Trello into the picture at all. Everyone who has knowledge of online management tools is going to compare you to them without your help. What you are doing is an online kanban tool for software development, with vim-like functionality in the browser.

Maybe something like "An opinionated kanban workflow for software projects". Make more out of the fact that you're doing less than your competition. You're exactly the right tool for a particular audience, play to that strength.

I see what you are saying. Thanks for the feedback.

Actually, it very much was made with software project management in mind. The problem Trello was trying to solve was that the traditional way of doing tickets (Trac/FogBugz/Jira) doesn't give a manager a very good high level view of what everyone is working on at the moment and how projects are progressing. Trello was designed with that goal in mind and, frankly, does a pretty good job of it. It also works well for many other types of projects, because it is extremely flexible and unopinionated about how you do things, which was in mind as well, but was also somewhat incidental.

Source: I worked on Trello for six months before I left Fog Creek.

I think Trello's not being process-specific is an advantage. Every company I've worked at has had fairly different processes, so a tool that's tightly-coupled to one wouldn't work that well, just in my experience. It's also not clear to me that the coupling is essential. For example, what's the difference between a phase in Phaser and a column in Trello? They seem like the same thing, but with a very specific name.

You're also using a lot of terminology specific to your process in the pitch, which I don't understand, because I'm not familiar with your process.

The arcs seem like a nice idea, if I understand them (basically a way to filter tasks horizontally across all phases), but again I think you're usage of process-specific terminology is hampering your ability to pitch the feature.

A phase in Phaser is equivalent to a column in Trello.

You aren't tied to a specific process in Phaser. You can create a different set of phases for each project and you can change them at any time.

I understand your point on the terminology. There may be a way for me to make it less complicated.

I'd argue thats called Pivotal Tracker

The idea behind Phaser is really Pivotal Tracker as a custom kanban board.

It's interesting, but the vim editor has the same problems that most near-vim tools have: my muscle memory (trained with my vimrc) is all wrong. Escape is an awkward key, so I exit inset mode with jk and kj. $ and ^ are weird, so I jump around the line with L and H. My leader key, my plugins, etc are all sorely missing, and trip me up here way more than a purely non-vim interface.

What I'd really love would be a web tool like this with a plugin for actual vim. I currently use a TODO.txt file (kept on dropbox) that I open with <leader>et for my personal task managment. If there were a plugin that would let me edit tasks like Phaser (indentation-based) in real vim, but then could be displayed and further managed by your web interface, I'd love it.

I understand where you're coming from.

Keeping a text file synced with the web interface would be super cool. It would certainly be a fun engineering challenge. I'll keep that idea in mind.

hehe, i had a feeling this would be the case. vi is not vim.

reminds me of this:

http://haldean.org/docstore/?vim-problems

I think naming Trello is a dicey move. Trello is a great product. It's incredibly simple -- a huge asset for most users -- and very well implemented.

I spent about 60 seconds looking at your homepage. I didn't convert. Here's my impression:

You say it's like Trello. So I like that. And then I see a screen that is much more complicated. I glance at it. Then skip past. Ok, phases. Phaser. Ok. So it's like, a way to keep tasks separate without just using a separate task board. Ok.

Moving on, now there's "arcs"? I see what you did there, with "story arc" and all. But wait, now my super simple trello issues are grouped into phases and arcs? And if I use this as part of my bigger process, then my phases and arcs are split or spliced into my sprints. Also, there's already an agile term for what you're calling "arcs" -- epics.

But I don't give up. I want to get it. I go back up to the top screenshot. Ok, it's 3 lists, just like Trello. But wait. Why is the first column green? And why is the top option bold? Do you select it? And then it changes what happens in the other 2 columns? But that's not like trello at all. And it's also not intuitive I don't think. And one list is "arcs" but the other 2 are "phases"?

And what are the "This week: 18..."? Number of stories completed? created? Why do I need to see that on every single page?

Also, I skipped right over the Vim section. It seems pointless to me. That is solving a problem I do not have. But hey, I can see others may use it or it could even just be a bit of a gimmicky feature that does get it some attention.

Anyway, and more important than all that, congrats on shipping!

Hmm. A few comments:

- I love Trello and have used it for years. It's probably my favorite piece of software. You couldn't pay me to switch. I use it for software development, by the way, and it works fine.

- I don't use Vim. (I use ed, and yes I'm serious.)

- The site not being responsive is a turnoff. Trello is responsive.

Other than that, I think I'd use it if Trello didn't exist.

Would be nice if there was a more frictionless way to try it out, either via some sort of oauth login or a demo link

That's a good idea. Thanks for the heads up.

Developer here. I built Phaser to scratch my own itch. I took inspiration from both Trello and Pivotal Tracker, and I think the result is pretty good.

Please let me know what you think.

i think its neat. i use vim religiously and can't type/navigate without hjkl anymore, so even though this is for a small niche, its cool

I signed up just to play with the in-browser vim, which is cool.

1. I can't bring up the editor on firefox. Clicking the '+' in a phase doesn't bring up the editor, etc.

2. :w doesn't work on chrome either, it gives this error: "cannot call method set of undefined" http://imgur.com/hnS1AMA

3. But still it looks like the story arc was saved: http://imgur.com/JUiuKbw and there was a 'saving..' message on the status bar suggesting that there's an autosaver. However, after reloading the page, sad face: http://imgur.com/aLSMgsE

Give me a sec to check it in Firefox. It's very alpha and I've been doing everything in Chrome.

Second Edit: Use the tab key instead of spaces to create indentation. That's what is causing the "set of undefined" error.

Edit: If you reload, then click "New Stories +", it should work. The + button on the individual phases is not working right now in Firefox. Willfix.

What did you use to integrate vim? Is it something open source or proprietary?

I used Code Mirror to get the Vim functionality: http://codemirror.net/ . It's open source.

So, its Vim keybindings, not actually Vim?

That is correct.

To target a broader market, you might consider dropping the "Vim built in" and explain it as "Create stories efficiently in plain text with our editor that uses familiar key bindings from Vim. Alternatively, use your favorite editor and paste the text in. Phaser's story parser will slurp them up for you."

Trello, that tool my company has been successfully using for software development for years, which already supports vimish (forgive me!) movement and edit keybindings?

I'm not seeing the point here, Trello is excellent, and already great for software teams.

Maybe this product makes sense if you know what trello is?

Sure. Or if you know about kanban boards, which have been around for a long time.

I love the minimalist design, it's a truly beautiful product. Congrats!

I like the ability to slurp in stories from VIM. Thats very slick.

It wasn't clear to me what the 'I prefer vim' option in the signup form is for. Does it control a setting or is it just a survey?

I love the idea and it wakes my inner nerd up.

It looks cool. However, I really wish there was some tour. It's quite confusing initially.

Didn't try yet, but would you mind considering to provide this as product that is installable on private network?

That would definitely be an option.

I second that request. It looks really nice, but SaaS - free or not - is a no go for projects that involves sensitive or classified data.

I'm getting "TypeError: Cannot call method 'set' of undefined" when trying to save...

I skimmed (busy day, sorry). Is this a web front end for Cucumber stories?

Basically, yes. It's like Pivotal Tracker as a custom kanban board.

It's an interesting concept. Good luck!

Please consider adding SSL page for signup and login

Love the design.

phaser? http://phaser.io/

No. Why !?

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