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Show HN: ChronoFlo – Create timelines you can share on the web

29 points by alexkearns 6y ago

alexkearns 6y ago
I posted about ChronoFlo six months ago. And got no response from the community. Since then, I have added a ton of new features, including hand-drawn style timelines using RoughJS: More info about hand-drawn-style timelines here: https://www.chronoflotimeline.com/blog/entry/hand-drawn-timelines-using-roughjs/ https://www.chronoflotimeline.com/blog/entry/hand-drawn-time... Here's a timeline we created about US presidents: https://www.chronoflotimeline.com/timeline/shared/3114/USA-Presidents-Timeline/ https://www.chronoflotimeline.com/timeline/shared/3114/USA-P... I am the creator of this. Would love to know what you all think?
- edoceo 6y ago
  Second link is 404
  - alexkearns 6y ago
    Fixed. Thanks!
- datene 6y ago
  I'm getting a horizontal scroll on mobile, portrait on a Pixel 3 Chrome. Looks interesting, works well. I think the design could be a bit tighter
  - alexkearns 6y ago
    Thanks. Will take a look.
Gys 6y ago
Looks beautiful with a lot of attention for detail. Well done. To me the dark theme with stars makes me think of space, horoscopes, fortune telling. Not sure if that is good. All though I like it, I cannot think of a use case. Maybe you should give visitors more suggestions on how to use it. And something to get me started quickly. Maybe add a button prominently to select something I could have, like a calender (I noticed from the faq that you can import ical and rss). Or maybe by giving me a link to some interesting public rss feed. Add a long list of public time based rss feeds with import buttons? i think being able to quickly get started with something even mildly useful is now missing. You have to think more about connecting / importing existing time based (or maybe not even that) content. The customization comes later, as a next step, once I have something that I like. How about git repos? Make it look interesting so people want to embed on github. Good publicity :-)
- alexkearns 6y ago
  Thanks for taking the time to give feedback. Some good advice there. The feeds idea is a great suggestion.
Hitton 6y ago
It looks neat, but seems really niche. I'm not sure there is a market for such tool. I could see it used in education, but I'm not sure that teachers/schools would want to pay subscription for this.
- alexkearns 6y ago
  Thanks for taking the time to offer feedback. It is definitely niche-ish. I don't expect this to turn into a billion dollar company. But a few thousand or so paying customers would be nice! I am thinking the following markets: 1. Company history timelines (for company's celebrating an anniversary) 2. Educational timelines for use in schools and universities 3. News timelines created by journalists covering a major new event 4. Legal timelines 5. Personal timelines
  - sumthinprofound 6y ago
    2. Educational timelines - might be worth looking at curriculum for different age levels and offer pre-built timelines for various subject matter (with links to wikipedia perhaps) for each of the timeline events that can be offered to schools.
    - alexkearns 6y ago
      That's a good idea. We have created one educational timeline on US presidents (https://www.chronoflotimeline.com/timeline/shared/3114/USA-Presidents-Timeline/ https://www.chronoflotimeline.com/timeline/shared/3114/USA-P...) but could do with creating a lot more.
sagz 6y ago
looks great. tried the US presidents timeline and UK Coronavirus timeline. I feel the contrast is too low in the US timeline. both timelines look low-res pixelated on my hidpi phones. scrubbing on the bottom timelines runs janky on Chrome and Samsung Internet Browser on Pixel 5. also janky on Safari on iPhone 12 pro.
sam_goody 6y ago
Thanks for posting pricing clearly and up front!
kossTKR 6y ago
Looks awesome! I remember creating a timeline app in Vue a few years back, this looks pretty solid in comparison. I'm sure you can find a market in the news/corporate identity field especially if you make it highly customizable and easy to drop in.

29 points by alexkearns 6y ago

I posted about ChronoFlo six months ago. And got no response from the community. Since then, I have added a ton of new features, including hand-drawn style timelines using RoughJS: More info about hand-drawn-style timelines here: https://www.chronoflotimeline.com/blog/entry/hand-drawn-timelines-using-roughjs/ https://www.chronoflotimeline.com/blog/entry/hand-drawn-time... Here's a timeline we created about US presidents: https://www.chronoflotimeline.com/timeline/shared/3114/USA-Presidents-Timeline/ https://www.chronoflotimeline.com/timeline/shared/3114/USA-P... I am the creator of this. Would love to know what you all think?

edoceo 6y ago
Second link is 404
- alexkearns 6y ago
  Fixed. Thanks!
datene 6y ago
I'm getting a horizontal scroll on mobile, portrait on a Pixel 3 Chrome. Looks interesting, works well. I think the design could be a bit tighter
- alexkearns 6y ago
  Thanks. Will take a look.

Gys 6y ago

Looks beautiful with a lot of attention for detail. Well done. To me the dark theme with stars makes me think of space, horoscopes, fortune telling. Not sure if that is good. All though I like it, I cannot think of a use case. Maybe you should give visitors more suggestions on how to use it. And something to get me started quickly. Maybe add a button prominently to select something I could have, like a calender (I noticed from the faq that you can import ical and rss). Or maybe by giving me a link to some interesting public rss feed. Add a long list of public time based rss feeds with import buttons? i think being able to quickly get started with something even mildly useful is now missing. You have to think more about connecting / importing existing time based (or maybe not even that) content. The customization comes later, as a next step, once I have something that I like. How about git repos? Make it look interesting so people want to embed on github. Good publicity :-)

alexkearns 6y ago
Thanks for taking the time to give feedback. Some good advice there. The feeds idea is a great suggestion.

Hitton 6y ago

It looks neat, but seems really niche. I'm not sure there is a market for such tool. I could see it used in education, but I'm not sure that teachers/schools would want to pay subscription for this.

alexkearns 6y ago
Thanks for taking the time to offer feedback. It is definitely niche-ish. I don't expect this to turn into a billion dollar company. But a few thousand or so paying customers would be nice! I am thinking the following markets: 1. Company history timelines (for company's celebrating an anniversary) 2. Educational timelines for use in schools and universities 3. News timelines created by journalists covering a major new event 4. Legal timelines 5. Personal timelines
- sumthinprofound 6y ago
  2. Educational timelines - might be worth looking at curriculum for different age levels and offer pre-built timelines for various subject matter (with links to wikipedia perhaps) for each of the timeline events that can be offered to schools.
  - alexkearns 6y ago
    That's a good idea. We have created one educational timeline on US presidents (https://www.chronoflotimeline.com/timeline/shared/3114/USA-Presidents-Timeline/ https://www.chronoflotimeline.com/timeline/shared/3114/USA-P...) but could do with creating a lot more.

sagz 6y ago

looks great. tried the US presidents timeline and UK Coronavirus timeline. I feel the contrast is too low in the US timeline. both timelines look low-res pixelated on my hidpi phones. scrubbing on the bottom timelines runs janky on Chrome and Samsung Internet Browser on Pixel 5. also janky on Safari on iPhone 12 pro.

sam_goody 6y ago

Thanks for posting pricing clearly and up front!

kossTKR 6y ago

Looks awesome! I remember creating a timeline app in Vue a few years back, this looks pretty solid in comparison. I'm sure you can find a market in the news/corporate identity field especially if you make it highly customizable and easy to drop in.