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Microsoft to shut down Wunderlist in favor of its new app, To-Do

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Re: Microsoft to shut down Wunderlist in favor of its new app, To-Do

#231

Post by VladimirGolovin »

trashabout wrote: post #217
VladimirGolovin wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing a good spec forces you to think through what you're developing in an orthogonal way. (OP here). This. A thousand times this.

Did you follow any standards when writing? I am currently looking for ways to document and model our process and business rules.

I just wrote well-structured, dense, coherent / "mentally type-checked", bulleted-list prose, often copied directly from Workflowy. Some of the critical parts were described with FP-style pseudocode, for greater exactness.

Re: Microsoft to shut down Wunderlist in favor of its new app, To-Do

#232

Post by aerique »

bitexploder wrote: post #176
huhtenberg wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've spent the last two years developing a todo app Without seeing what you have, a general remark would be that everyone and his cousin has clocked at least some time developing at least one ToDo app. It's a right-of-passage thing for a lot of developers, just like a Weather app is the same for UX designer wannabies. BTW, what set Wunderlist apart is not the features first and foremost, but their bold in-your-face…

It is fine, occasionally a neat idea or concept emerges, but I just use Org mode and Agenda now. I always see or hear people eventually giving up on Emacs for some pretty new editor (VS Code) or finally quitting vim because they "feel more productive" somewhere else. Or using some new and random TODO app. Meanwhile, I have been using the same system for 7 years and I know it will work on any platform any time and my…

You're right of course. I guess I'm going to give Orgzly another try.

Re: Microsoft to shut down Wunderlist in favor of its new app, To-Do

#234

Post by developer2 »

VladimirGolovin wrote: post #216
developer2 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your barrier in gaining popularity once you launch is going to be cross-platform support. It sounds like you started wholly with Android, with other platforms coming further down the pipeline. These days a product that does not have apps for at least Windows, Android, iOS, and OS X severely limits its customer base. Android essentially represents only a subset of phones and tablets. An app like yours is useless to ma…

Yes, we started on Android, because that's the most efficient way for me to dogfood the app. Another reason why we didn't start developing for more platforms in parallel is that the concept was unproven. I wasn't sure it would work. (Under "the concept" I mostly mean the approach where all non-snoozed or dateless tasks are shown in Today, and you swipe away the tasks that are not yet "ripe" to be done -- whereas in t…

First of all, clearly the advice I'm giving is a bit too early for where you are at presently. I think that's giving credit to you for the quality of the work you are producing. Basically, I want this app. You might want to dial back just a tad on the intricate details, out of fear you may wind up never shipping an initial version. Being a software dev myself, I understand that you could spend another year (hell, even 2-3 years) completely hashing out every minute detail. However I think that what you have is getting to the point of being "above and beyond what is necessary" that you need to stop tinkering so much, and find a way to ship something sooner rather than later.

When you get around to desktop clients, ignore the seemingly negative consensus regarding Electron[1] if you think it's the right fit for you. All the negativity I've read about it is from "purists" who aren't specifically singling out Electron; rather they are hating on all non-native implementations. I noticed the mention of Xamarin on your site; never heard of it, but I'd be weary as they seem to be oriented more towards mobile whereas you're looking for a cross-platform desktop solution which is where Electron shines.

If your goal were to be the gold standard for apps, you should be developing using native OS X APIs; the performance you get from a native implementation on OS X is astounding. However, if you do native OS X you're putting yourself in a position to do native Windows and possibly Linux apps, and the collective work required for native-everywhere obviously does not come easy or cheap - particularly if you are doing this as a solo project without assistance from a team.

Electron is a perfectly fine balance for most UIs that are fairly simplistic, which is going to be true even for the most advanced todo-type app. Extra bonus being that if you put in the effort to plan out the Electron app side-by-side with your web/browser-based app, you can share the frontend development between the two, resulting in less overall work.

[1] https://electron.atom.io/

Re: Microsoft to shut down Wunderlist in favor of its new app, To-Do

#235

Post by hexsprite »

I think the beauty of Wunderlist came from it's simplicity.

On another note, I think that for most busy people mere to-do lists are passé. It's too easy for things to fall through the cracks, to create overwhelming lists where nothing is prioritized.

What you need is an auto-scheduling planner that turns your to-do list into a schedule in your calendar. And then if you don't finish things, they move forward in priority order until you get it done. Gives you smart reminders only when you have free time.

If that sounds interesting to you check out Focuster http://focuster.com

We're bootstrapped and having a great time listening to customers and building a product whose time has come.

Re: Microsoft to shut down Wunderlist in favor of its new app, To-Do

#236

Post by trashabout »

VladimirGolovin wrote: post #231
trashabout wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you follow any standards when writing? I am currently looking for ways to document and model our process and business rules.

I just wrote well-structured, dense, coherent / "mentally type-checked", bulleted-list prose, often copied directly from Workflowy. Some of the critical parts were described with FP-style pseudocode, for greater exactness.

thanks!

Re: Microsoft to shut down Wunderlist in favor of its new app, To-Do

#237

Post by ernestrc »

VladimirGolovin wrote: post #13

Damn, now I need to move faster. My app must be ready by the time they close Wunderlist. I expected an eventual closure, but not that soon. I've spent the last two years developing a todo app that would be a good replacement for Wunderlist (and Astrid, if anyone still remembers that). The app will include with some major / critical features both those apps lacked: proper hierarchies / first-class subtasks, automatica…

#!/bin/sh\n

vim ~/todo.md

Re: Microsoft to shut down Wunderlist in favor of its new app, To-Do

#238

Post by aquadrop »

stymaar wrote: post #54
VladimirGolovin wrote: post #13

Damn, now I need to move faster. My app must be ready by the time they close Wunderlist. I expected an eventual closure, but not that soon. I've spent the last two years developing a todo app that would be a good replacement for Wunderlist (and Astrid, if anyone still remembers that). The app will include with some major / critical features both those apps lacked: proper hierarchies / first-class subtasks, automatica…

> I went full waterfall on it, the spec is 266 pages long and took half a year just to write. Why would you write a ~9k “loc” long spec over 6 month instead of coding it directly ? The only reason I can think of, is if you want to out-source the development. Is there any good reason to work this way on a one-man project ?

It's so you won't have multiple 'ooh' moments a year in coding - "I need to change that base thing, will require large rewrite". Or at least decrease possibility of it. Six months seems a bit too long even for 266 pages specs though.

Re: Microsoft to shut down Wunderlist in favor of its new app, To-Do

#239

Post by Terretta »

VladimirGolovin wrote: post #160
afarrell wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the spec is 266 pages long and took half a year just to write How many times did you make paper/cardboard mockups and user-test the interactions?

Quite a lot. Instead of paper, I preferred on-screen prototypes created in Photoshop and displayed as images on a phone screen.

Check out: http://www.appcooker.com
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