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Ask HN: What's the best tool you used to use that doesn't exist anymore?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the best tool you used to use that doesn't exist anymore?

#551

Post by falcolas »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #312
jmiserez wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tab Groups Still works, I use it on a daily basis. It's just an addon now. It will probably continue to work for a few years, they've been wanting to get rid of it since 2013 ( https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=836758 ) and it's still there. But I'd be glad to hear of any alternatives!

I've seen this plugin but I don't understand the use case. Group of tabs = a browser window. Am I missing out on a productivity boost?

You could easily name tab groups, and view previews of tabs within a group on one screen. It was also fairly trivial to move tabs between groups, when compared to the "joys" of dragging tabs between windows.

Anything to do with browsers could be boiled down to "replaced by using windows" - but there are some definite benefits to sticking within one window.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best tool you used to use that doesn't exist anymore?

#552

Post by colllectorof »

PDAs.

- ASUS MyPal (which I have and it still works) had much better battery life than any of the smartphones I ever owned.

- It had a consistent interface that wasn't a confusing clusterfuck of random shapes and expectations.

- The hardware was durable and extensible through compact flash slot.

- I could install software on it without going to a centralize store or going through some elaborate jailbreak. And while there wasn't a million free apps for it, there were good free apps, and finding them was actually easier than finding something on Google Play.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best tool you used to use that doesn't exist anymore?

#553

Post by mangeletti »

Adobe Fireworks.

Technically, it still exists. But, it's been abandoned for years, so it no longer "exists" than any more than the bytes of any other defunct program.

Sketch is far superior to Fireworks, so it no longer matters, but the abandonment of Fireworks actually caused me to completely stop designing websites, for years. It was too painful to use anything else, so I just gave up on it and started using Bootstrap to "design" sites.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best tool you used to use that doesn't exist anymore?

#554

Post by tremendo »

bitwize wrote: post #377

Autodesk Animator. That program was the tits back in the day; and I used it to re-create scenes from Ren & Stimpy as well as make my own animations. Yes, I know there was an open-source release. I couldn't get it to work.

https://github.com/AnimatorPro/Animator-Pro Direct descendant (by Jim Kent) of Cyber-Paint on the AtariST. Also Tom Hudson of CAD-3D went on to AutoDesk with 3D Studio.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best tool you used to use that doesn't exist anymore?

#555

Post by codezero »

I quite miss webOS and my Palm Pre. The swipe area off screen was a great way to interact with the UI without reaching up to the touchscreen.

There was a lot to like about webOS in general too. It's too bad they came to market so late and sold to HP.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best tool you used to use that doesn't exist anymore?

#556

Post by Grue3 »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #312
jmiserez wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tab Groups Still works, I use it on a daily basis. It's just an addon now. It will probably continue to work for a few years, they've been wanting to get rid of it since 2013 ( https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=836758 ) and it's still there. But I'd be glad to hear of any alternatives!

I've seen this plugin but I don't understand the use case. Group of tabs = a browser window. Am I missing out on a productivity boost?

The tabs don't load into memory unless you switch to that tab group. Also it's much easier to work with one window. You know how before tabs were invented, you had to open each website in a new window. It was a pain in the ass. Tab groups is just the next step. They are like meta-tabs.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best tool you used to use that doesn't exist anymore?

#558

Post by neurobuddha »

Grue3 wrote: post #151

Google Reader. There are no replacements that a) update fast enough, and b) allow search for free. I know, I tried all of them. Firefox had an amazing plugin called "Ubiquity", which was basically like command line for your browser and you could write custom scripts for it. It was seriously better than anything that exists today. They stopped developing it for some reason. Tab Groups is another feature that's now aba…

Not free, but Inoreader is very, very good: http://www.inoreader.com

I never did the Google Reader thing, so I'm not sure how they compare though.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best tool you used to use that doesn't exist anymore?

#560

Post by joshmarinacci »

dgallagher wrote: post #503
sarreph wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds to me like you're describing Affinity Designer - you might want to check it out if you haven't already. It's relatively very cheap and one of the few pieces of software that I use daily that I am very happy paying the list price for! I vaguely remember having Jasc installed as a kid and it was indeed great!

Affinity Designer is really great for vector graphics, and exporting to raster. Super fast. Super easy to learn. Their developers are very active. They have a beta available to owners. I've encountered a few minor bugs in their App Store version, downloaded the beta, and noticed it was fixed.

link (also in the Mac app store)

https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/designer/

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