Show HN: 5iler – a repurposable minimalist notepad

by sidyadav • 12 years ago

46 61 12 years ago

Interesting app. I actually like it because I use a paper planner that is laid out in columns like the app. (like this: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UQkLuS4qZtA/UTyyzpS9suI/AAAAAAAAAH...)

ThatFontFace44• 12 years ago

In Chrome, the font is rather difficult to read. For example, l and t look very similar.

Great idea - it looks very promising :D

tenpoundhammer• 12 years ago

I agree in chrome this is super hard to read. I like the idea though.

sidyadav19• 12 years ago

Thanks! :)

Had a few complaints about the font, working on adding customization in the next version.

edwinyzh• 12 years ago

why not just change it to a better default font? It's cool, btw.

sidyadav19• 12 years ago

After some digging, I realized this was a Windows + Chrome issue with a particular font size and I was able to fix it!

Check it out: http://5iler.com/me

newsomderek• 12 years ago

I'm interested in what 5 categories people would use in their own 5iler?

Goopplesoft• 12 years ago

Mine would be: todo, random, scratch, thoughts/ideas, notes.

sidyadav19• 12 years ago

Since I built the first prototype a few weeks ago, it's been changing every day for me! Interesting to observe the change in contexts.

Right now it's: Thoughts, Code, 5iler, Today, Private

cshimmin2• 12 years ago

Cool idea, not sure I like how the web app hijacks Command+N keys though (I use these often to switch between browser tabs). Lately I've been using a similar ~5 categories, and just emailing things to myself. I put the "tag" in the subject line have gmail filter them into labels.

sidyadav19• 12 years ago

Thanks!

Out of curiosity, which browser are you using? As far as I'm aware, I didn't build in any Cmd+N hijacking into the app (I did do Cmd+S for syncing/saving though, and Cmd+1,2,3,4,5 for switching between files -- is that what you mean?).

dylandavidson• 12 years ago

Yea, he means Cmd + Number I believe. In Chrome Cmd + 1 goes to the first tab, Cmd + 2 to the second and so on. So it can be somewhat annoying for someone who frequently uses those shortcuts to change tab.

sidyadav19• 12 years ago

FYI: I am planning to open source the code within the next two weeks. Please get in touch if you're interested in contributing!

hello@5iler.com

darkstar999• 12 years ago

5iler (pronounced ‘filer’)

No. This isn't intuitive at all.

Five-iler?

sidyadav19• 12 years ago

I'm guessing you're not a fan of the movie Se-seven-en :)

jwarren• 12 years ago

Is that really the most constructive thing you could say and the most constructive way to say it?

resu_nimda• 12 years ago

Probably not, but I agree that it's worth mentioning.

It doesn't follow any common verbalization of the '5' character. It's also at the front of the word, so you have no clues to start you off on the right path. Even when you know how to say it you still want to say "five" when you read it. I would give the name a very low usability/accessibility score, and frankly it pushes me towards not using the product ("yeah I use this thing called filer - if you want to check it out it's actually spelled with a number five, and then 'iler' - yeah I don't get it either"). If we're going with the 5 theme I would have preferred 5note or 5notes.

webmaven• 12 years ago

Mentally, I pronounced it 'Vile-er' (as in roman numeral V).

guptaneil• 12 years ago

Neat, minimalist idea. I like it.

Small nitpicky feedback: Your keyboard shortcuts say to use cmd + 1/2/3 to switch files. In Safari, that will load the first/second/third bookmark. The correct shortcut for Safari is ctrl + 1/2/3

sidyadav19• 12 years ago

Thanks! I'll update the Shortcuts modal to reflect this.

jimmyhmiller• 12 years ago

Three finger swipe on the mac app would also be wonderful. Any chance of open sourcing this?

V-22• 12 years ago

On Windows there is no Cmd button at all...

Jonovono• 12 years ago

Looks nice. I have been using http://selfcoded.com/justnotes/ instead of evernote, but I will check this out!

adestefan3• 12 years ago

You might want to fix your shortcut help. I don't have a cmd key on my Linux system.

sidyadav19• 12 years ago

Thanks! I'll update it to reflect OS/Browser.

hluska2• 12 years ago

I like 5iler a whole lot and I second adestefan's advice. I use a Linux system and don't have cmd keys. I'm wondering if, since some browsers (at least Chrome + Safari) use cmd+1/2/3 to switch tabs, if maybe replacing cmd with ctrl would be easier for everyone involved?

Great app and excellent design. Call me a fan!

jogloran• 12 years ago

Text editor-like tabbing behaviour (new line preserves last line's tab level) for indented lists would be quite useful.

sidyadav19• 12 years ago

That makes sense. I'll try my best to include it in the next version!

lobotryas• 12 years ago

Cool idea, nice implementation!

Feature request: please implement lists either as a keyboard shortcut or as a text macro. Both ordered (numbered) and un-ordered preferred.

BTW, for anyone who didn't catch it: you can change the name of each notepad. Just double-click the name, type what you want and it'll be saved.

sidyadav19• 12 years ago

Thank you! As a matter of fact, Markdown support is the next big thing I'm working on, and I plan to look into incorporating lists.

beefman• 12 years ago

I'm probably in the minority, but I would vote against markdown support. There are tons of minimalist markdown editors out there (have a look in the Mac app store for starters). At least make it switch-offable.

I'd vote against list automation too, because it changes the way the cursor and keyboard behave.

URL detection would be nice though, since it only affects the visual display and mouse behavior.

I'd also vote for a constant-width font option. Preferably Consolas or one of its knock-offs.

It would be nice if the line number, column number, and number of characters in the buffer were reported in one of the corners.

Comments based on the web version (Firefox Mac).

cliveowen2• 12 years ago

Really nifty and very well done.

If you have time down the road you could think of implementing one feature that every modern text editor for some reason lacks: autocorrect. TextEdit on Mac has some form of autocorrect but mostly sucks, I don't know why in 2014 we're still using the backspace but I feel it's time to move on.

brightghost3• 12 years ago

isn't the same auto-correct system in TextEdit.app available by default in any cocoa text-fied on OS X? And if you think that system 'mostly sucks', perhaps it is because you are vastly underestimating what a difficult feature it is to implement?

cliveowen2• 12 years ago

I didn't say it was easy and I'm not underestimating anything, that doesn't change the fact that autocorrect on Mac sucks.

brightghost3• 12 years ago

I don't get what the 'insert line divider' is meant to be. It seems to just insert a large, fixed amount of whitespace characters?

sidyadav19• 12 years ago

Try it out! It's a hyphen-based separator I found myself using to divide chunks of text. For now it almost functions as "sub-notes" feature.

The keyboard shortcut is Cmd/Ctrl + /

brightghost3• 12 years ago

Yes, I did try it out-- for me at least, on FF/Win7, it just inserts about 20 whitespace characters.

alokedesai4• 12 years ago

For the desktop version, I'm having problems with undo. Occasionally, if I delete something, I won't be able to undo it.

sidyadav19• 12 years ago

This may be a known issue: it has to do with the fact that whenever Dropbox syncs, the undo state is reset. If you haven't setup Dropbox sync and have been experiencing this, let me know.

alokedesai4• 12 years ago

Yeah I actually haven't synced Dropbox, though I can't seem to reproduce this on a consistent basis. Huge fan of this though, definitely going to be something I use on a consistent basis.

comrh• 12 years ago

Nice, I really like it.

My suggestions might be out of line with the minimalist philosophy but:

1) Code coloring or at least code blocks

2) The ability to open two at the same time, side by side

jonathanmarvens• 12 years ago

I absolutely love this!

sidyadav19• 12 years ago

Thanks!

gniquil• 12 years ago

Great job! Like the concept. But here's another nitpick.

I see when you activate a file, the animation first shrinks the file a bit and then expands it out. Is it possible to remove the shrinking? It makes the app "feel" a bit jerky. I think the reason is when you shrink the activating file, all other files expand by a bit. This causes the whole screen shifting a bit, leading to a somewhat jarring experience for a split second.

dmd• 12 years ago

Two requests:

1) I'd like the titles to be Markdown-friendly headings instead of C comments, personally.

2) I'm not sure if this is within scope - maybe this is just something to do on my own in Dropbox - but it would be neat if there were an 'archive' button. Let's say I'm done with one of my files and I want to clear it out. Push the button, and that file would be moved to archived/DATETIME.txt or something like that, and cleared.

sidyadav19• 12 years ago

Hi! Thanks for the feedback.

1) I'm working on implementing Markdown and will be using friendly headings once we sort that out.

2) I love this idea! In fact, it's been on my wishlist for some time now -- I plan on shipping it this week. I've been calling it "Snapshot Backup", but I think "Archive" is a much better word for it. Thank you :)

sidyadav19• 12 years ago

Update: I've implemented the "Archive" feature. Thanks again for the suggestion! http://5iler.com/

mwalsh• 12 years ago

I really like this, especially that it handles the tab key properly. I find it frustrating that it hijacks ctrl+tab and ctrl+shift+tab as well though. I use those to switch browser tabs. I'm on Linux + Firefox.

luchosrock• 12 years ago

Good idea! it works pretty good in FF but in Chrome when I type "-" nothing gets printed, and when I type = it prints "-".

Show HN: 5iler – a repurposable minimalist notepad

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