Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: CompressX, my FFmpeg wrapper for macOS

compressx.app

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 173 posts

Re: Show HN: CompressX, my FFmpeg wrapper for macOS

#51

Post by hieu_dinh »

Topgamer7 wrote: post #49
hieu_dinh wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FFmpeg is not bundled with the app. User will have to install it separately and link it with CompressX. Hope this explains

He's commenting on the spirit of software released under permissive licenses like GPL. By selling software built on the backs of free developers, you're effectively profiting off of a significant amount of their work. I hope you donate a nice chunk of money to ffmpeg. https://ffmpeg.org/donations.html

10% of last month revenue was donated to FFmpeg. Thanks for clarifying

Re: Show HN: CompressX, my FFmpeg wrapper for macOS

#52

Post by hieu_dinh »

egorfine wrote: post #44

Amazing! Congratulations and so happy for you. Could you please share the marketing side? I'd love to start a side project as well but I have exactly zero ideas on how to get initial traction.

You can start with getting your idea validated first by making a small demo or MVP and share it somewhere. For me, I use Twitter as the main channel to build an audience and share everything I do publicly there

Re: Show HN: CompressX, my FFmpeg wrapper for macOS

#53

Post by egorfine »

hieu_dinh wrote: post #52
egorfine wrote: post #44

Amazing! Congratulations and so happy for you. Could you please share the marketing side? I'd love to start a side project as well but I have exactly zero ideas on how to get initial traction.

You can start with getting your idea validated first by making a small demo or MVP and share it somewhere. For me, I use Twitter as the main channel to build an audience and share everything I do publicly there

How large you think should the twitter audience be to get initial traction for an MVP?

Re: Show HN: CompressX, my FFmpeg wrapper for macOS

#54

Post by hieu_dinh »

jjice wrote: post #23

I swear the best looking software like this is all built for MacOS. Maybe there's a lot of it on Windows as well, but I don't see a ton of it on HN (maybe just the demo?). Is the ecosystem part of this? Is it that the application demographic leans towards MacOS? Is the dev and monetization experience better? I'm really curious if anyone know why I see so much good native indie software for MacOS specifically.

In terms of UI/UX, I believe Apple provides the best development toolkit and guidelines for developers. I'm not using any custom UI component for CompressX, it's just a few buttons, toggles and a video player, but the overall UI looks good enough and consistent with other applications in the macOS

Re: Show HN: CompressX, my FFmpeg wrapper for macOS

#55

Post by jwells89 »

jjice wrote: post #23

I swear the best looking software like this is all built for MacOS. Maybe there's a lot of it on Windows as well, but I don't see a ton of it on HN (maybe just the demo?). Is the ecosystem part of this? Is it that the application demographic leans towards MacOS? Is the dev and monetization experience better? I'm really curious if anyone know why I see so much good native indie software for MacOS specifically.

A lot of it is the frameworks available in Apple platforms. AppKit and UIKit are both wide and deep, providing just about everything needed to build polished apps while also providing well-supported “happy paths” for most tasks.

I can whip up a decent looking AppKit UI for a moderately complex desktop app that can handle the rigors of accessibility settings and internationalization in an afternoon without importing a single third party dependency. That’s hard to beat for indie dev projects.

Re: Show HN: CompressX, my FFmpeg wrapper for macOS

#58

Post by ta1243 »

ghusto wrote: post #45

You're being modest in describing it as an FFmpeg "wrapper". Although technically true, I can see a lot of thought and effort went into the UX, and I think that's where the value lies. Good job!

Yes that's exactly right, the extremely complex and clever code in ffmpeg that's understood by about 12 people in the world and is the basis for the entire media consumption in the world isn't where the value is, some gui frontend is.

Do you work for microsoft?

Post reply on HN