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Show HN: MonkeyMind – A shortcut-driven to-do list for your Mac's menu bar
- startingpoint 6y agoHey HN, Benedict the developer here. I built MonkeyMind as a scratchpad for thoughts while in deep focus. Whenever something pops up in my mind, I needed a place to put it and get back to work. Pen and paper can do the trick, but something with a Spotlight-like shortcut would be better. And that is what MonkeyMind does. A simple global keyboard shortcut to add items and an app that lives in the menubar and gets out of your way. Let me know what you think!
- BrowserMeeting 6y agoBenedict - this app looks awesome! Will install this when I get OS X reinstalled on my Mac! I have been looking for something like this that keeps me out of apps while I am in code mode!
- ebcase 6y agoCongrats on making this, it looks slick. Would you consider adding sync functionality, so that the same list works on multiple machines?
- startingpoint 6y agoThanks for the kind words. Sync is definitely something I'm considering, but I can't promise any timelines.
- revertts 6y agoIt looks like there's a single 5-star review by "Benedict B." Did you review your own app?
- jusujusu 6y agoI don’t have the answer to this, but giving your own app 5 stars seems totally reasonable and fair. It’s like voting, everyone has one vote, why on earth would you not vote yourself if you’re on the menu?
- revertts 6y agoI think the small upside (a single 5-star rating contributes very little to app ranking) is outweighed by the potential downsides (it can be a turnoff if the user sees that because it strikes of astroturfing, which seems a hot topic these days; it violates app store guidelines, though there's a close to zero chance of that being enforced). To me it seems like unnecessary risk for little benefit. Edit: And product reviews are not the same as voting. :)
- myrloc 6y agoI really like the idea. However, the fact that I can only purchase it from the Mac App Store is a blocker for me, since I primarily use my work Mac, where I'm logged in w/ my work Apple ID. Seeing as there's no way to share or transfer apps between my work Apple account(s) and my personal Apple account, I'd have to buy two copies, which I don't want to do.
- oblongx 6y agoI really like the app but that monkey icon turns me off big time, allow me to not have the monkey and I'll buy it for sure.
- drcongo 6y agoThis is definitely something I need, thanks. One small feature request: Would be nice to have a keyboard shortcut to show the list too.
- startingpoint 6y agoGreat idea. What exactly would you do with that? Simply open up the list and look at the past entries?
- dddddaviddddd 6y agoI could see keyboard based navigation, e.g. press keyboard shortcut to pop open the menu bar list. Then navigate through them with the up/down arrows, press spacebar to toggle completion status, then hit escape to close the menubar list.
- drcongo 6y agoExactly this. Arrow key navigation already works, so being able to open it with a shortcut, and hit enter or space to toggle would make this complete.
- nikolatt 6y agoLooks great, thank you for sharing! A question I have about macOS development - where should I start in order to learn how to make menu bar and shortcut driven UIs?
- dep_b 6y agoRay Wenderlich has a nice basic tutorial around creating a simple menu bar application. I just used it for my own application and it seems well up-to-date. I thought it was this one: https://www.raywenderlich.com/450-menus-and-popovers-in-menu-bar-apps-for-macos https://www.raywenderlich.com/450-menus-and-popovers-in-menu... A global hotkey is not something I have experience with but it seems that there's a library called Hotkey: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/47760135/global-keyboard-shortcuts-for-a-mac-tray-app https://stackoverflow.com/questions/47760135/global-keyboard...
- startingpoint 6y agoThat's pretty much the same place where I started as well (the RW tutorial). For the library: HotKey is exactly what I used. Simple to set up, works with the Xcode Package manager and does exactly what it says.
- nikolatt 6y agoCool, thank you both for the information!
- programmarchy 6y agoPlease, don't forget about the Dock! I personally hate when apps crowd my Menu Bar when they don't need to e.g. Dropbox, NordVPN, Keybase etc. I always try to disable the Menu Bar icon for an app if possible, and if I can't I will delete the app if I can find a suitable alternative. There are so many advantages to a dock icon: - Richer, colorful icon - Support for badges, configurable by user - Won't be hidden by the system (macOS will hide icons in a crowded Menu Bar) - Can be hidden by the user (Dock Autohide) - Icon can be repositioned by the user The Apple HIG makes it pretty clear that most apps don't need the Menu Bar, and should use the Dock instead. But we're in a vicious circle where users have been trained to use the Menu Bar (even though it's inferior), so that's what developers do.
- conradludgate 6y agoDamn I love this. I think I might save this for when I get a mac, but since I'm on Linux right now, I'm going to copy this idea with my rofl menu I think
- ybahubali2018 6y agoThis is really nice good job. I have one suggestion. It would be nice if this app can fetch data from reminders app of MacOS and put them in the menu bar along with the ones added.
- startingpoint 6y agoI like that idea, but I also want to keep the user experience really simple. Would you want to display a single list from Reminders? Or show all reminders alongside? And the other way around: would you add to Reminders from MonkeyMind?
- DSingularity 6y agoYes to adding to reminders from MM. Reminders syncs to mobile — that can be convenient!
- ybahubali2018 6y agoYes this looks like a good idea. But i wanted the reminders also to be able to display in that quick toolbar rather opening another app(Reminders). It would be nice to merge them and show or choose a list that we wanted to show.
- sgeorge96 6y agoShould have named the app goldfish.
- startingpoint 6y agoDamn, that's a great name too...
- swah 6y agoTickTick has a nice "quick capture" experience too. Will try this. -- edit -- This has a super reasonable price of 2.5 EUR in Brazil. I forget the term now but its of course a discount due to lower purchasing power. How does Apple calculate that?
- mertnesvat 6y agoLooks nice and slick will give it a try. Thanks for sharing Benedict :)
- Brajeshwar 6y agoCool. Downloaded and using it. Nit-pick but can you please have right-click to access the setting menu? There used to be a dead-simple MacOS App called Anxiety that does something similar to this but it somehow died. I don't use TO-DO Apps to do my tasks, I calendar pretty much everything but I want a very simple task-lister for things such as "Call Ram", "Remind Kid to learn to Type", etc. This serves the purpose. I tried Tot[1], another interesting simple tool to do a similar function but MonkeyMind is simpler for me to for these small tasks. Feature Request: Can we make this have a Powerpack option for Alfred. So, I can keep this running in the background but use Alfred to add tasks. This is the same request I asked the Command-E[2] guys too. 1. https://apps.apple.com/in/app/tot/id1491071483?mt=12 https://apps.apple.com/in/app/tot/id1491071483?mt=12 2. https://getcommande.com https://getcommande.com
- startingpoint 6y agoThanks for the kind words. I'm glad MonkeyMind is useful to you. Quick question about the right-click: What exactly do you mean? Right click on the settings icon or anywhere in the list? As for Alfred: it's probably simpler to just set up a separate keyboard shortcut for MonkeyMind.
- Brajeshwar 6y agoI want to right-click on the icon and access the menu right away. Alfred; Ok. Just wishing that I used just one single Keyboard Shortcut for both. I use Alfred very often, so if I can continue to use that and do something like -- CMD + Space > "MM Get a Haircut."
- wcpines 6y agoFor Alfred powerpack users, there is a workflow for this. I use it all the time :) https://github.com/surrealroad/alfred-reminders https://github.com/surrealroad/alfred-reminders
- Brajeshwar 6y agoNice. I will check it out. Quite a while back, I did away with all sorts of Clipboard app, after discovering Alfred's "Clipboard/Snippet Viewer".
- Bogdanp 6y agoCongrats on launching! I have to say, though, this looks uncannily like my own app, Remember, that I launched a few months ago: * https://remember.defn.io/ https://remember.defn.io/ * https://apps.apple.com/ro/app/remember-quick-reminders/id1493354028?mt=12 https://apps.apple.com/ro/app/remember-quick-reminders/id149... * https://github.com/bogdanp/remember https://github.com/bogdanp/remember Right down to the key bindings and some of the marketing copy[1]. [1]: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/remember-6 https://www.producthunt.com/posts/remember-6
- reacharavindh 6y agoNo affiliation with either of you. But, it does not look the same to me. The linked HN post is a simple MacOS top bar tool that shows my list of to-dos that may be activated by key bindings if I wish. Yours looks more like the default Cmd+Space action - Spotlight available in MacOS. I personally prefer the simplicity of the app that lives in the top bar as it comes with lower cognitive load by not needing to remember some keywords to summon your tool that is not in my active view.
- danpalmer 6y agoRemember looks great. > This application is not Open Source. I'm providing the source code here because I want users to be able to see the code they're running and even change and build it for themselves if they want to. In that vein, you're free to read, build and run the application yourself, on your own devices, but please don't share any built artifacts with others. Minor bit of feedback, it would be great to add a licence file to GitHub to expose this a bit more clearly and in a more standard way. I have no problem with this choice, but I can see some users missing this licence-esque bit of the README.
- keesj 6y agoFWIW, in terms of user interface I think we’re all consciously or subconsciously inspired by the apps we use everyday such as Spotlight and Alfred. For example, here’s my todo list menubar app launched many months before Remember: https://wip.chat/menubar https://wip.chat/menubar I bet other people will reply with similar looking apps launched months before mine :)
- pdepip 6y agoAwesome! Looks similar to a short-cut driven note taking tool I'm building - https://mmap.it https://mmap.it Major difference is mine is focused on longer form documentation and comes with an inline markdown editor. Congrats on the launch!
- athenot 6y agoThis is a much more polished version of what I do, which is to keep a note (in Notes app) called Brain Dump, and I jot down anything that is cluttering my mind, which I hold on for fear of forgetting. Just the act of writing it down helps; it's a reassurance that it's ok to let go of those thoughts because they are saved elsewhere. What I like with MonkeyMind is the minimal amount of friction involved, as well as automatic timestamp.
- startingpoint 6y agoI had the same notes file, and a piece of paper where I would write stuff like that down. I'm glad you like it!
- aantix 6y agoI thought I was the only one. I’ve had repetitious thoughts and originally thought they were repeating because there was some thing missing, some nuance that I hadn’t explored. But once I would write them down, sometimes they would just go away. It must have been a fear of forgetting.
- chriswphoto 6y agoI would give up Todoist if I could view todos on my phone as well :)
- startingpoint 6y agoMaybe I should consider adding sync and creating MonkeyMind for iOS as well...
- haack 6y agoLooks slick, great job on launching! Any possibility of a way to purchase outside of the AppStore? I appreciate this is extra effort for possibly little extra reach but I have managed to survive without signing into my icloud and hopefully won't ever.
- startingpoint 6y agoNot as of right now. I am considering other distribution channels like Gumroad. Would that work for you?
- haack 6y agoThat would be amazing. Feel free to update me using my email (in profile) if you want.
- amardeepsingh 6y agoLooks good. Checking it out.