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Nova by Panic

nova.app

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Re: Nova by Panic

#481

Post by naravara »

patrickaljord wrote: post #468
mwcampbell wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It boggles the mind that anyone who can write code would ever use a closed source operating system. Some of us want our work to actually reach people who don't write code or sysadmin their own computer, i.e. most people in the world. I, for one, think my effort is wasted if it doesn't benefit those people. So while working exclusively on a free-software platform is tempting from an ideological purity point of view…

Working on a free software platform is not mutually exclusive with reaching the majority of end-users. You can develop web apps for example or use cross platform toolkits for native apps. That's what I do and it works great.

When you use Nova and then go back to something web based, like Atom, it becomes clear why that’s not ideal. It jut feels snappier.

Re: Nova by Panic

#483

Post by wwright »

Thorrez wrote: post #469
amelius wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same happens with html and browser bugs all the time.

If it's an open source browser (Firefox or Chromium-based) can't you submit a patch?

That patch will likely take weeks or months to reach end users

Re: Nova by Panic

#484

Post by XCSme »

xavdid wrote: post #22

I really like their pricing structure here. If you want updates forever, it's functionally a subscription (which makes sense - constant updates require constant dev work). The key difference is that if you stop paying, you keep everything you've paid for previously (the app and all past updates). That's a _great_ way to do a subscription.

I have a similar, but slightly different pricing structure for my self-hosted analytics app[0]:

- Users can pay a monthly subscription, and while they are subscribed they receive updates and have access to support

- Users can also purchase a lifetime license (cost is about 12-14 months of the monthly subscription) which includes lifetime updates

Initially I only had the lifetime pricing but I recently added the subscription, my reasoning was that by having the subscription:

- It assures potential buyers that product will still be maintained

- They can try the product for a fraction of the normal cost (eg. pay only $7.99 instead of $99, so the risk is a lot lower)

- They can have the option to support me and the development as long as they're using the product

After I added the monthly option (I actually show it as the default one), the sales are about 50%-50% for each option (monthly vs lifetime).

There are also buyers who "hack" the scheme by getting a subscription and cancelling within a month, so they get the product but won't get any updates or support. I did expect this to happen, but I think it is actually a good thing, as most people who do this wouldn't have purchased the lifetime version anyway.

I personally don't like the SaaS pricing in general, especially because it is so over-priced. As a solo developer I am having a hard time finding affordable services to use. For example I use GitBook to publish my docs, their pricing is reasonable at $8/user/month, only that it starts at 5 users and forces you to pay $40/month. I would have gladly paid the $8/month for my usage, but $40/month for hosting a single docs website is absurd. The biggest problem is the so-called subscription fatigue, when you reach one point where paying for all the subscrptions you need adds up to a huge monthly amount. Not only that, but you also get all those monthly invoices that you have to take care of and pay taxes on. Buying a product is so much easier, you pay once, one invoice, you can use it as much as you want without worying about data caps.

[0]: https://www.usertrack.net/

Re: Nova by Panic

#486

Post by acdha »

Thorrez wrote: post #469
amelius wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same happens with html and browser bugs all the time.

If it's an open source browser (Firefox or Chromium-based) can't you submit a patch?

That is likely to be non-trivial to develop unless you’re very comfortable with large, complex C++ projects and then you have to convince them to accept and ship ship it. That’s better than not having the option but it’s not for the faint of heart.

Re: Nova by Panic

#487

Post by hivacruz »

Coda was one of my first real editor. Sure it wasn't complete but it helped me getting better before switching to Sublime Text.

I just pushed a theme for Nova called "Hivacruz", the same I created for other applications. Hope it will please some developers.

It is a nice piece of software. Props to Panic.

Re: Nova by Panic

#488

Post by sho_hn »

acdha wrote: post #486
Thorrez wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's an open source browser (Firefox or Chromium-based) can't you submit a patch?

That is likely to be non-trivial to develop unless you’re very comfortable with large, complex C++ projects and then you have to convince them to accept and ship ship it. That’s better than not having the option but it’s not for the faint of heart.

True. In my experience though, it tends to work out. If 100 people are affected by a bug it's a drop in the ocean in the grand scheme of things, but now you only need a 1 in 100 chance of someone being up to the task! And the others can help with info and testing along the way.

Re: Nova by Panic

#489

Post by leadingthenet »

SirHound wrote: post #419
tobr wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I genuinely think it'll be years before they can charge for this with a straight face. Well, I payed for it a few days ago, and I don’t remember seeing any crooked faces. I very much enjoy it so far. Considering the scope of the project and the high quality of the design in every nook and cranny of the app, I think it’s a bit of a miracle that something like it even exists. Not even Apple makes Mac apps of this cal…

If it’s just a few hiccups why not leave it in the oven for another month before charging?

To encourage continued development, for one?

Re: Nova by Panic

#490

Post by Brendinooo »

slmjkdbtl wrote: post #460
Brendinooo wrote: post #2

> Here's a little editor story for fun. During beta we found some bugs in Apple's text layout engine that we just could not fix. Our solution? Writing our own text layout manager… from scratch. Not only did this fix the bugs, but it also boosted our editor's performance. We're not messing around! Seems like there's nobody better than Panic at doing this sort of thing. They're willing to push Apple's UI forward, but t…

Can you share what bug did you encounter with the apple text layout engine? I too have written simple text layout code for a text editor (dealing with wrapping, tabbing, cursors and all those things), and those are the most logically chaotic and ugly code I've ever written, turned out buggy and not maintainable, I'm interested to know how other people did it

I pulled that quote from the article; it wasn't me developing for the Mac!
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