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Rate my Startup: Quicklyst, a note-taking application

5 points by shantanubala 16y ago

Hello HN. I'd like to thank you all for the sheer amount of resources and discussions available on this site that are just a search away. They're great for helping make decisions. I just launched Quicklyst in the spirit of "launch a product you're embarrassed about" and "launch early." Tell me what you think. http://www.quicklyst.com/ It's a note-taking app that has an outline-style textbox. It has automatic Kindle delivery for notes (yeah, I copied Instapaper on that one), printable study guides, and a DuckDuckGo zero-click info feature. I tried my best to keep the interface simple, but I have explanations of the features at: http://www.quicklyst.com/guide And one question: Should I go freemium? I figure it's easy to switch to freemium, but hard to switch back.

blhack 16y ago
There seems to be a bug... If I start a new note (the note I started is called "Bananas are great because:"), add a line, then add another line by pressing enter...then press tab to indent, it won't let me do a ( character. I wanted to make: Bananas are great because: They are full of potassium ---(Thanks, Honey I Shrunk The Kids) but it wouldn't let me make the ( symbol. Cool though :). As far as charging for something like this...I don't know if I personally would ever pay for it. What benefit am I getting from this that I don't get from emailing notes to myself?
- shantanubala 16y ago
  Thanks for the feedback! I'm fixing that right now.
blitzo 16y ago
could you explain the technology behind the scene?
- shantanubala 16y ago
  It runs on Google App Engine, and I'm using the standard webapp framework on App Engine, using the basic Datastore API. I use jQuery for the basic interactions and jQuery UI for the buttons and icons (as well as some of the CSS-related stuff). I use Jinja2 for templates, and the gae-sessions package for session management. I use the DuckDuckGo JSON API to get the zero-click info. Overall, there's not a whole lot of code to be honest, since I use so many third-party tools.

5 points by shantanubala 16y ago

blhack 16y ago

There seems to be a bug... If I start a new note (the note I started is called "Bananas are great because:"), add a line, then add another line by pressing enter...then press tab to indent, it won't let me do a ( character. I wanted to make: Bananas are great because: They are full of potassium ---(Thanks, Honey I Shrunk The Kids) but it wouldn't let me make the ( symbol. Cool though :). As far as charging for something like this...I don't know if I personally would ever pay for it. What benefit am I getting from this that I don't get from emailing notes to myself?

shantanubala 16y ago
Thanks for the feedback! I'm fixing that right now.

blitzo 16y ago

could you explain the technology behind the scene?

shantanubala 16y ago
It runs on Google App Engine, and I'm using the standard webapp framework on App Engine, using the basic Datastore API. I use jQuery for the basic interactions and jQuery UI for the buttons and icons (as well as some of the CSS-related stuff). I use Jinja2 for templates, and the gae-sessions package for session management. I use the DuckDuckGo JSON API to get the zero-click info. Overall, there's not a whole lot of code to be honest, since I use so many third-party tools.