Show HN: My collection of web-apps that I'm finally comfortable in sharing

by chime • 15 years ago

238 82 15 years ago

chime22• 15 years ago

I made these for personal use and have been working on them for about a year. I always feel like my apps are incomplete but I think they are functional in their current form. I appreciate any feedback/criticism.

E2V: I use this to get calls when one of my servers go down and whenever my PayPal account is hit. It's a little difficult to setup for regular users (email filters aren't commonly used) but it is pretty reliable. It uses Twilio and Cloudmailin.net. I just created an HN coupon for 5 additional calls: https://zetabee.com/e2v/?coupon=hackernews

Text: I use this constantly to note down and plan everything. E.g. here's how I note down random ideas: https://zetabee.com/text/share?n=1058338736&h=MU54djV5VF...

CashFlow: This app enabled me to plan my departure from my old job without going into a financial crisis. It has a slight learning curve but once you get used to it, you can plan your finances very easily. I run hypothetical scenarios with my wife all the time - can we afford a house worth X in October? Should she switch to part time and get a 2nd contract? How much can we spend on a vacation and when?

mwdev• 15 years ago

I really like your text implementation. I've done something similar at http://www.mindwallet.com . I've added a social layer on top. You can post directly to facebook/twitter and keep the posts in context. People can reply in line by adding sub items to your lists. I'm trying to put an api together that lets users create all kinds of apps. I think there is a opportunity for this kind of interface. Maybe we should put our heads together.

Here's my 'how to use page': http://www.mindwallet.com/?ItemKey=787541c7-0860-41ea-a21a-2...

You obviously have a much better eye for design than I do.

Here is an example of how I used some of the social features to live-blog/document the SxSW startup bus stuff:

http://www.mindwallet.com/?ItemKey=787541c7-0860-41ea-a21a-2...

Here is where you can see all the public nodes that are going through the stream(so far it is just me):

http://www.mindwallet.com/home/public

Let me know what you think!

boyter3• 15 years ago

The text implementation is quite nice. I wish I had seen it before I did this, https://github.com/boyter/BATF

One issue I had with it though is I am unable to cut/copy paste multiple rows inside it using standard keyboard shortcuts, but other then that very impressed.

EDIT - For the cashflow, I dont suppose you can add the option to not use pie charts? I find them so deceptive when looking at figures.

chime22• 15 years ago

For multiple rows, press Control+Shift+C, V, X. Since I allowed for autosizing textareas which can store multi-line data, I didn't want to override the normal Control+C/V. shortcuts.

chime22• 15 years ago

I'm not a big fan of pie-charts myself but I think I got just lazy and made those. I'll add an option for regular bar charts.

tomp2• 15 years ago

Text is amazing. A very cool idea, useful, clean, efficient.

I'd like to propose that you add another key to use for expanding sections, as ` is not readily available on some European keyboards (I have a Slovenian keyboard). Maybe Shift/Ctrl+Arrows, or try hooking some F* key that is not in use currently (e.g. F2).

chime22• 15 years ago

I just added Control+/ as the alternative to the ` key. Hope that helps.

chime22• 15 years ago

Ctrl+ zooms in browsers so wouldn't work. How about Control+Shift+Space? I can add that as another alternative.

greendestiny2• 15 years ago

Been a fan of Text for a while now, although I'm not sure I prefer the new styling over the old bulletext one :)

chime22• 15 years ago

I spent a lot of time making sure the new one is better than the old design. It's got more room, closely resembles an empty notepad/text-editor, and keeps the toolbar on-screen even when you scroll far down. I couldn't do that with the old one because of how the html/css was setup. I took my sweet time polishing the UI to be as clean and simple as possible.

Jcasc• 15 years ago

The cash flow app's Balance chart doesn't scale well, the numbers on the axis get cut off when adjusting for money in your account.

Same for income vs expense, using the demo on Firefox for mac.

Otherwise these are awesome, great job!

chime22• 15 years ago

Fixed in FF. Still working on a fix for IE.

sushumna2• 15 years ago

Hey chirag, congratulations. Great apps. EMail2voice is a great idea. ATB.

blakeperdue• 15 years ago

I agree, E2V is a great idea. If you can find a way to simplify the setup, I have about 6 friends who would want to use it.

Could you pick the most popular email app (Gmail? Yahoo?) and find a way to simplify the setup for just that app? Or build a plugin or browser extension to make it super simply to setup? I'm thinking a little phone icon on each row in gmail, you click on it and a box pops up and says "Hey, want to get a call when you receive emails like this?" They click Yes and boom it's setup.

toufique• 15 years ago

Love the Text implementation. Great work!

Breefield• 15 years ago

These are great! Specifically Cash Flow. I've often wished I had an app on had to see what my cash flow will look like in 20 days, or 30.

chime22• 15 years ago

I love the CashFlow app myself as a user. I originally made a non-VBA-code Excel file ( http://dl.dropbox.com/u/111770/CashFlow.xls ) to do the same thing and used it for a while before turning it into a web-app. The web-app is faster but the Excel was a lot more fun to make.

josh332• 15 years ago

Man, that excel sheet was so good I'm ashamed of mine. Great work all around. I'm loving Cash Flow so far. QuickenOnline used to have a similar feature, but this is way better. I use "You Need A Budget" to plan and budget, but Cash Flow is way better at forecasting.

johnnyg2• 15 years ago

I poked around ZetaBee Text for the last 5 minutes and am getting excited. I liked the concept, but not the keyboard shortcut style of workflowy.com. This is way closer.

The "How This Works" section is great. I got moving fast.

One gripe (or perhaps an oversight). I can ctrl + select a lot of lines, but I can't delete them. I think the concept here is that I can just collapse things, which mostly I'd do, but there are times when only delete will do and I don't see a way to accomplish this task.

Specifically, I renamed the first sheet "HowItWorks" in an attempt to keep the instructions in case I forget. I went to delete the two example sections below and could not.

mberning• 15 years ago

Very nice apps. I like the simplicity and focus. I can definitely see myself using these, especially the cash flow app.

gm• 15 years ago

Excellent.

Interested in what you think is the next level for these apps.

EDIT: I should have said "next step" instead of "next level"

chime22• 15 years ago

If there is enough interest in CashFlow, I will make it easy to run multiple what-if scenarios (premium/paid feature). I do it all the time myself but it takes a bit of manual labor. I think it would be cool if you could just drag-drop-slide numbers and see real-time charts. Having an optimistic, realistic, and conservative view would be good too.

There's not much I think needs to be done for E2V. It's pretty simple and does what I need easily. It already supports multiple users/emails/phones under a single account.

For Text, I want to improve sharing. Right now it's just a read-only share of a specific note + subnotes but maybe I can make multi-user editing (kinda like Etherpad). The history feature works well but I want to make it as easy as using undo. Maybe an option to have more than 10 notes. Right now you can drag the notes left-right to organize them but some people have asked for the ability to archive old notes. There is no 'check off' button or log of completed tasks either. I've never need to go back to check anything but some users have asked for it.

dannyr3• 15 years ago

Chime,

Shameless plug: Check out Profile.io. We built this mainly for developers to show the apps/projects they are working on.

Here's the invite link: http://profile.io/invite/HACKERNEWS

guynamedloren2• 15 years ago

Shamless rip of about.me, also.

dannyr3• 15 years ago

Our pitch: About.me for developers.

staunch• 15 years ago

about.me is a truly shameless rip of flavors.me.

joshu2• 15 years ago

Really great stuff.

I don't suppose you are looking for a job?

saturdayplace• 15 years ago

Chime, in case you're unaware, you definitely want to at least consider an employment offer from joshu (the creator of delicious).

joshu2• 15 years ago

Thank you for the endorsement.

jhuckabee• 15 years ago

These are really great apps. I especially like Cashflow and Text.

I'm not sure how many times I've recreated a similar spreadsheet that I was never quite satisfied with and never did the awesome that you've implemented in Cashflow.

Great work and thanks for sharing.

chime22• 15 years ago

If you want a spreadsheet, here's the precursor to my CashFlow webapp: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/111770/CashFlow.xls

learner4life2• 15 years ago

I love CashFlow and Text. Many places pay bi-weekly, so you might want to add that to your frequency drop down list.

chime22• 15 years ago

You can make it 'week' and put 2 in the frequency. I have gas set as 3 weeks because that's usually how it ends up being for me.

learner4life2• 15 years ago

I ended up doing that. It is just that its a commonly used frequency.

josh332• 15 years ago

You won't want to use "bi-weekly" as it can mean two things: twice-a-week, or every-other week. I don't think you need anything like this since your frequency column makes it very flexible. The term that would be correct is "fort-nightly", although I wouldn't use that either.

boxedin2• 15 years ago

Wow I was just thinking I needed something similar to your text app earlier. That is perfect! Cashflow will be handy too!

Thanks a lot.

EDIT: Is there an option to clear a whole sheet? and in the cashflow, you only allow the american format of dates.

Oh and with cashflow, how is someone meant to handle long term use? Update their own balance?

chime22• 15 years ago

I will add options to clear/disable specific rows or entire sheet (with confirmation). I'll see if there is an easy way to switch the date formats at the client-side.

You do have to update the balances manually but if you have something like Mint, that takes minutes. I update the balances any time I want to review my finances. It seems simpler than having users add their bank accounts etc. like Mint.

boxedin2• 15 years ago

Definitely better than adding a real bank account. I can't use Mint because it's not in my country. (I am in Ireland).

zcksjdn• 15 years ago

Just spent a couple minutes in CashFlow and I'm looking forward using it more. I set up an account with Mint a while ago hoping I could do something similar but this is just so much better for what I wanted to do.

chime22• 15 years ago

I am a heavy Mint user myself. I track my past expenses using their tools. I use CashFlow to predict my future balances. Just remember to manually update you current balances (bank, credit card) on CashFlow any time you want to do any form of analysis. It takes a minute or two for me to update my balances (login to Mint, refresh, copy-paste balances).

ilconsigliere• 15 years ago

Great stuff.

How about using the pricing model of pinboard.in for each app? I'd sign up :)

ses• 15 years ago

These are really nice and I like the style, I'm particularly impressed with the cash flow one.

I would even say you're too harsh on yourself in thinking your apps are incomplete, compared to many other freely available web apps I'd say they're actually very well rounded.

huhtenberg• 15 years ago

Text is incredible. It is simple, unobtrusive and everything just works the way one would expect it to. I know how hard it is to design something as clean, simple and functional as Text, so - Great job, Chirag. Thank you for sharing this, made my day.

macmac• 15 years ago

Looks great. I especially like Text. An export option would be great (maybe .org, .md and pdf).

chime22• 15 years ago

I have export on my todo list. For now, try clicking History. You can copy-paste from that. You can also share a node + subnodes and copy-paste from that or print to PDF. The shared note page prints very cleanly.

lamppost• 15 years ago

Funny that no one has mentioned E2V. It's the only one that hit the 'I wanted to do that' criteria for me. I think the lesson is that you need to work hard to educate your user to get it to catch on. Think of specific killer use cases. I would recommend going to the nearest business school during interview season and posting a bunch of flyers that say something like "We'll call you when you get the email that's going to change your life". Maybe target med school applicants similarly, anyone who's checking their email every 5 minutes waiting for the big one. Don't target developers, they already know how to forward emails to text message. This is also the easiest to monetize without charging. If people give you 5 email addresses, the domains may well give you insight into what they care about most. Targeting advertising rocket fuel (applying to Goldman, are we?).

chime22• 15 years ago

You're absolutely right. Setting up email filters or even realizing why someone would need E2V is not easy to grasp for most typical end-users. I love coding and designing but sales & marketing is something I haven't spent much time on. ZetaBee isn't a startup for me at this point (http://ktype.net is my full-time project) so I haven't even thought of how I'd monetize/market ZetaBee. Only reason I even added a PayPal purchase option to E2V is so I don't go broke when someone gets 10000 emails sent to their phone.

codeslush• 15 years ago

Dang - you're an app churning machine! I just looked at your profile and checked out all your projects....WOW! Talk about some achievements.

GREAT JOB with these apps! I especially like Text and CashFlow. Very, very usable.

AdamGibbins3• 15 years ago

These are really awesome, thanks for sharing. Expecially liking Cash Flow, though I have two feature requests:

* I'd like to plan multiple scenarios at once, so the ability to save, create new and duplicate different cash flows would be useful.

* I'd like the ability to move multiple rows at once quicker.

* I'd like you to monetise this so I don't feel guilty requesting things, I'd happily pay an upfront fee (pinboard.in style?).

Thanks!

chime22• 15 years ago

All the things you mentioned are in the pipeline if there is enough interest in this app (and judging from this thread, it looks like there is). Feel free to keep using the app. In time, I will add these as paid features. I want the multiple what-if scenario feature myself.

AdamGibbins3• 15 years ago

Thanks! Keep up the awesome work.

jpastika• 15 years ago

Chime, I admire and thank you for letting the HN community take a look at your creations. As a developer, I know I am sometimes reluctant to let my peers see what I'm working on. I really like the simplicity of TEXT and can't wait to try out Email to Voice. I'm about to launch a public application that I have been working on for about a year and will set up a filter to have Email to Voice call me when someone signs up! Here's to hoping my phone rings a lot, and to your continued hacking and success.

AdamGibbins3• 15 years ago

Text request: Ability to cross items off, sometimes I want to mark things as done but not totally erase their history. This allows me to review my progress at the end of the week etc and its also fairly satisfying to see stuff that you've completed. Add this as an option if you're worried about feature bloat.

Email To Voice request: Support for UK phone numbers, happy to pay extra for this.

chime22• 15 years ago

Text: I've wanted to add check/cross off feature since I built Text. The previous incarnation of Text ( http://untodos.com ) had that as an important feature. The problem is how does one log nested completed tasks and show them to the user in a readable format. Say you have 3 nested task: Wedding > Arrange Flowers > Setup florist appointment and you check off the middle or the bottom one. What do I log/show you later when you want to review your checked lists? I thought about logging everything from a task up to the top most parent but that could get weird.

E2V: I just have to dig into Twilio API and then figure out the pricing plan. I've added this to my todo list. Thanks!

thekevan2• 15 years ago

Very nice! What did you use to build these?

chime22• 15 years ago

Mostly JS/JQuery on front-end and PHP/MySQL back-end. Nothing out of the ordinary.

thekevan2• 15 years ago

Thanks for the inspiration to keep moving!

maguay• 15 years ago

Thanks chime7, I really like your Text app and will have to go give CashFlow a try! Great work!

sushumna2• 15 years ago

Would like to hear from you how you could realize Zetabee alone through your blog chir.ag

bk• 15 years ago

Text is really a great lightweight outliner implementation.

Indenting works for multiple rows at once, but moving them up/down does not. This would be a key feature for reorganizing nested outline sections.

Also, since I just used the demo, does sharing allow others to edit or only to view?

chime22• 15 years ago

Indenting multiple rows by dragging gets complex and I want to make sure it is stable across the various browsers before I push that feature. For now, it's pretty easy to select rows and copy/cut paste them. I use that feature all the time (with keyboard shortcuts mostly).

As of right now, sharing allows others to only view, not edit.

racerrick• 15 years ago

I really like these. Thank you for sharing.

troels• 15 years ago

Text is impressive. That's exactly how I write freeform notes in my text editor. Not sure if I could get used to using a web app for this, but I might give it a try. I think perhaps the toolbars are a bit distracting - a more minimalistic design would be suitable for this kind of application.

krmmalik• 15 years ago

Thank you for putting this together. Cashflow is brilliant. I've always been looking for cashflow functionality in online personal finance apps like Mint/LoveMoney/WeSabe etc, but this app does exactly what i need it to do.

The best bit is, i always struggle to put my own spreadsheet together to workout the cashflow, so for people like me who need help with the underpinnings, this is a great solution.

Thanks again

JonoW2• 15 years ago

Excellent work Chime. Do you have any plans to try and generate income from your apps, or are they just a fun side project?

chime22• 15 years ago

I might make premium paid features when I get some time. For now, they are just fun (and useful for me personally) side projects.

chubs• 15 years ago

Good on you for launching. Congratulations, i hope you make a nice bit of money for your efforts :)

sangaya• 15 years ago

Thanks for sharing! The apps look great and work like I would expect them to.

You've also reinforced the notion that "ideas are worthless, execution is everything". I have had a near mirror of your CashFlow screen on my home office whiteboard since November. I kept saying, "I'll work on that after this semester.." or "I'll focus on that after this major project wraps up at work.." now I find myself saying, "Guess I'll use CashFlow by chime!"

chime22• 15 years ago

If you had made yours before mine, I'd certainly be using your version. I only make something because nobody else has.

tianyicui• 15 years ago

Just tried ZetaBee Text, it's really great! Switched from WorkFlowy.

Feedback:

1. Why you have to limit length of the title?

2. Please add line-based bold, italic and color support. When list gets long I really needed them!

Show HN: My collection of web-apps that I'm finally comfortable in sharing

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