15 ms·

Show HN: I made a Web-based Todo App - used: CSS3 3D transforms, Node.js, love

237 points by alexbosworth 15y ago

alexbosworth 15y ago
Obligatory 'this is a first release' disclaimer :D
- libria 15y ago
  Nice, very cutting-edge. Thought you would like to know, though, that it almost brought my browser down (locked up all tabs solid for 8 seconds straight). Using Chrome 14.0.825.0 canary.
- jws 15y ago
  The "I love this app" quote has a space between the period and the closing quotation mark which allows it to typeset the quotation mark by itself on the last line. Yep, that was all I found to complain about. Well, that and my iPad is all the way downstairs so I have to fetch it before I can buy the app. Update: you might also add the extra attributes to the email login field to prevent spelling correction in Mobile Safari.
ConceitedCode 15y ago
Wow! Everything looks amazing. You really did a good job trying to make it look good. Unfortunately, it's not something I would really use.
frankdenbow 15y ago
Can you do a full breakdown of how this was built? Love the page flipping transition!
- alexbosworth 15y ago
  The Page Flip is in Chrome and Safari, but when I started it was going to just be a perk for Safari as Chrome didn't support 3d perspectives. I noticed one day that the beta channel of Chrome had started to support 3d perspectives, but to my distress their support was buggy and left graphical artifacts. I submitted bug reports and luckily in the latest Chromes it works just as nicely as Safari. The big thing I got into on this project is CSS animations. They look a bit scary at first but in practice they are not too complicated. I did a mixture of JQuery animation and CSS transitions on this and both have their strengths. The Node.js code is very simple, it's a small sync script that sits behind nginx. Todos are stored on S3, I used my in-progress S3 library for node.js - can see this here - https://github.com/alexbosworth/Node-S3/blob/master/aws-s3.js https://github.com/alexbosworth/Node-S3/blob/master/aws-s3.j...
  - jjm 15y ago
    Awesome, There is also knox: https://github.com/LearnBoost/knox https://github.com/LearnBoost/knox Both look similar. Any quick commentary on where you plan on taking your s3 lib (features etc..) ?
    - alexbosworth 15y ago
      It's made to copy the JQuery 1.5 "Deferreds", and to copy JQuery's model that easy/common things should be easy, uncommon things should be possible but may be more complicated to write. As for 'bonus features', the only thing I have that most S3 libs don't is support for the S3 feature of uploading very large files in parallel chunks.
  - aashay 15y ago
    Just curious, but why'd you decide to use nginx instead of a node-based web server (i.e. serving stuff up via Express)?
    - alexbosworth 15y ago
      I only use nginx because it is a proven component and I don't think node can improve on that much there
cfontes 15y ago
Nice design... The fonts are a bit rough, i think cannot read them well and I got 28 and 0 eye problems so people with more age and eye problems will have a hard time reading it. maybe making it a little bigger and getting some better fonts try www.typekit.com or something. Anyway great design, the app in itself is not useful for me as ConceitedCode6 pointed I like portable todo lists, maybe an Iphone app ? Congrats !
- ollerac 15y ago
  Ya, awesome design. I'd change the default font to something more readable, remove the coffee stain from the page, let people flip a few pages ahead (otherwise, why use the notebook paradigm?), and change the "i'm a new user" flow -- the form field animation is pretty and ingenious, but it's also confusing, so I don't think it's worth it.
  - icebraining 15y ago
    >let people flip a few pages ahead Apparently, the concept is that you only have two queues/stacks, "now" and "later." I do agree that this isn't very intuitive from the design.
- dmbass 15y ago
  If you scroll down, you will see links to iOS and Android apps.
- alexbosworth 15y ago
  I have noticed that on different screens the font is appearing differently, this is something that I didn't anticipate and I guess is a pitfall of using a custom-created font. This is on my to-do list, adding another font ;) It actually started life as an iPhone app, you can download it for free for Android/iPhone
  - huhtenberg 15y ago
    Have a look at http://swapped.cc/font-smoothing http://swapped.cc/font-smoothing to see what you are getting into with webfonts.
martinshen 15y ago
Gorgeous design! I don't know how practical it is.
thricedotted 15y ago
Wow, slick and simple interface. As somebody who was always better at carrying a new paper list each day than dealing with things like RTM or Google Tasks, but also doesn't always have something to write down new things to do, I think this just might be the app I never knew I wanted. I'll be trying it out over the next few days. One question -- why is the password input in plaintext on the Android app? I don't like the thought that somebody could get hold of my device and see my password just sitting there in plaintext if they just went to settings...
- alexbosworth 15y ago
  Thanks - Watch for an update that will fix this on the Android App
  - creeble 15y ago
    Yes, wouldn't want someone else to do my tasks for me!
cheez 15y ago
This is insane. Well done.
nc 15y ago
Wow... love the design & the UI realism. I would iterate on the font for the actual to-do though. It's very hard to read.
amdev 15y ago
Well done.
Agustus 15y ago
Very good "Your browser is not compliant page." The Opera browser is CSS3, 3D Transform, Node.js capable. If you are doing certification using a browser check, do the following: Tell the user their website is not optimized for their browser, suggest the browsers as you have it on your site, then provide the user with the option to continue ahead with their current browser. Here is a link to the logo so you can add it: (http://media.opera.com/media/images/icon/Opera_512x512.png http://media.opera.com/media/images/icon/Opera_512x512.png) Edited to be more constructive and helpful in addressing the issue.
- alexbosworth 15y ago
  I am working on Opera, I tested it half-way but it has some issues I will have to work out before it will work perfectly.
  - Agustus 15y ago
    Thanks for including the Opera browser!
  - pornel 15y ago
    In the future, could you just put a small warning, instead of blocking page completely? I don't mind if I get page without some 3D transition, but a complete block gives an "F*U" impression, even if you are just working on making it perfect.
there 15y ago
why do i get logged out every time i refresh the page?
- alexbosworth 15y ago
  I'm curious too, I have heard about the remember me not sticking, but can't pin it down :(
speg 15y ago
Very svelte! Maybe I'm being an idiot - but how do you turn the pages? I can only see today and tomorrow.
- alexbosworth 15y ago
  Do It (Tomorrow) is based on a simple concept where you can just look at what you have to do today and push less important things to later. The "days" aren't literal dates, add todos to today - they will stay on that page forever until you cross them off or delete them. The pages are more like 'now' and 'later', at least that's how I use it. Boing Boing did a nice review of the iPhone App and they explained the concept better than I probably can http://boingboing.net/2011/03/08/of-the-many-many-fac.html http://boingboing.net/2011/03/08/of-the-many-many-fac.html
  - hammock 15y ago
    Yeah the way I do it I have two todo lists- one for Today, and one for This Week. Each night I move stuff from my This Week list into my Today list to be done the next day. That's how I will use this.
bigohms 15y ago
like it. login isn't persisent with a cookie or something, so everytime i'm getting the same welcome msg.
- alexbosworth 15y ago
  Login stickiness is using localStorage and no cookies are used, but that seems to be causing problems for some people :( I am trying to get this one sorted
ldar15 15y ago
So, 502. Can you please (seriously) write a post about what your server setup is and what its like to be deal with the rush of traffic. I'll be doing it one day soon and all the info I can get would really help!
- dschobel 15y ago
  Ummmm, he may not be the best person to ask...
  - notJim 15y ago
    Failure is the best way to learn! I know because I do so much of it! And bonus if it's someone else's failure.
    - alexbosworth 15y ago
      Sorry I'm not sure what happened - it seems like screen died?
      - jat850 15y ago
        Google "node.js upstart" - there are a lot of good examples on how to get your app to respawn after crashes, run on startup, etc.
      - jhuckestein 15y ago
        Launching a product that's running in a screen session. I don't think it's a good idea, but I can't help but feel impressed in some way I don't understand.
- alexbosworth 15y ago
  The issue was pretty mundane, the server script is very simple - so I assumed it wouldn't need to have a lot of monitoring overhead to deal with traffic spikes. Even though it's a very simple script the volume of traffic used up all the memory on the machine leading to server death, then my restart script turned out to be wrong :(
jasonz 15y ago
My favorite part is the "I am a new user" button - very slick!
- etruong42 15y ago
  It's very cool. It takes the "don't make me think" principle to the next level by forgoing "options" like "Register a new user" or "Create a new account" and instead makes the action a simple fact. I am a new user!
gary4gar 15y ago
I never knew all this was possible with CSS. Amazing! Good work :)
Cafesolo 15y ago
Love it. Great design. Some thoughts: - I tried to drag some tasks from "today" to "tomorrow" and couldn't. Ended up marking a task as done instead. - The animation when you click the arrows is a little confusing and hard to follow.
- sghill 15y ago
  Seconded. The design is just great. I also tried drag and drop. Both between today and tomorrow and a way to change the ordering. It'd be great to see that functionality. Really nice work, guys!
cmwright 15y ago
There's a bug in Chrome 12.0.742.122 where when you logout an extra book shows up on the bottom right of the original book. This looks great, I love the page turn animation.
- alexbosworth 15y ago
  The Logout extra book bug is a Chrome bug, but they have fixed it in the beta channel and this problem should go away when they roll out Chrome 13
mellifluousmind 15y ago
Mm... I love the look and design of your web app. Just wondering, were you the only person worked on that app? or did someone else provide the design (i.e. graphics, CSS styling)? Personally, I applaud you for coming up such a great app. I can only wish I can achieve the level of work that you do, but I think I care too much about Internet Explorer users to come up with something that require Firefox/Chrome/Safari... it is definitely a fine balance or choice you make.
- alexbosworth 15y ago
  I coded it and did participate in the design, but I definitely didn't make the App alone! Do It (Tomorrow) is an Adylitica production - you can read about my company here: http://adylitica.com/ http://adylitica.com/ - our team: http://adylitica.com/team http://adylitica.com/team. IE support may come in the future, but it is very labor intensive as IE is really far behind, even in IE9.
smfullman 15y ago
I like the font-face feature of CSS3. I just whipped up a font based on my handwriting, and now it's on my blog.
AshMokhberi 15y ago
I have to commend you, to are the mobile apps also built using html5 and css3.
- alexbosworth 15y ago
  Thanks! The mobile Apps are written native to their respective platforms
jjm 15y ago
Can I ask what provider are you using?
- jethroalias97 15y ago
  Looks to be EC2. IP: 184.73.182.11 Whois: Amazon.com, Inc. AMAZON-EC2-7 (NET-184-72-0-0-1) 184.72.0.0 - 184.73.255.255
Cyph0n 15y ago
Wow. Just wow. When I clicked the link on HN I never expected something that good. I was especially amused at the login/signup trick. Frankly, the whole thing caught me off guard. Hats-off to you sir.
redthrowaway 15y ago
Awesome. One minor complaint: I added some tasks, thought, "man this is cool", and signed up--at which point you erased my tasks. Not a huge complaint, but they really should be transfered over to your newly-created account.
- thetimbanks 15y ago
  This could easily be done using local storage. I'm guessing the author has already run into this problem and is working on it though.
  - redthrowaway 15y ago
    Local would defeat the purpose of a web app, as I'd have three different copies on my iPad, iPhone, and laptop. He's already storing login info, so associating a few hundred bytes of text with that shouldn't be too difficult.
    - thetimbanks 15y ago
      I suggested local storage only for the case where a new user (not logged in) has added some tasks and then decides to sign up. The tasks in local storage would then be added to the user once it is created. The local storage acts as a temporary storage location while the user is created. Having this work across platforms is not necessary.
jessep 15y ago
This is cool. I'm one of the guys who makes WorkFlowy.com, so I always check out new to-do/list making apps. I'm almost always like, "This is super lame," but not this time. This app actually seems quite nice. I'd like to be able to flip forward/backward in the planner, as that aligns with the metaphor nicely. Anyway, nice work.
- div 15y ago
  At first I wanted to be able to flip forward / backward as well, but on second thought, maybe only being able to add todo's for today and tomorrow is a plus ?
badhairday 15y ago
Obviously you are shooting for a realistic UI. I don't think the current strikethrough image is very realistic since I do not draw the same line every time I cross an item out in real life. I suggest you make use of a sprite image to implement multiple lines.
duck 15y ago
Very simple and great idea! I would use this if it would do landscape view on my Android tablet. Any plans on doing that?
- ErikRogneby 15y ago
  Landscape on android phone as well. Many slide out keyboards are to the side. Getting a 502 bad gateway from nginx on the web version at the moment.
shii 15y ago
You will take http://thn.gs http://thn.gs from my cold, dead hands.
- aymeric 15y ago
  Wow, I love the UI but I found it a bit buggy (show new task when I click on tag)
  - shii 15y ago
    Has been working great for years here, no bugs to speak of across 3 browsers and 3 OSes. Notifo notifications are amazing. UI is second to none. Flawless local/offline sync, so no downtime ever. Tagging system works great, and it's how I know what to do next all day. My only gripes are 1) no mobile version (it works on my iPhone, but it's not the optimal experience to have to drag left and right. a dedicated app would be better imo) 2) there's no faqs/documentation/getting started guide/features/nada. No help desk if you're stuck or having problems. Despite all this, it has lots of users still apparently. Contacting the developer valentin shergin (yandex guy) is a shoot and miss. Development seems to have slowed down a lot, but there's some new features popping up here and there. Mostly active in Russian community.
iamwil 15y ago
How long did this take you to do?
swah 15y ago
This is beautiful.
Groxx 15y ago
Very nice job. Only two problems jumped at me, and mostly because everything else is so smooth: 1) switching a task's date should make the other side slide to make room, rather than jump. 2) finishing / unfinishing a task doesn't always respond to clicks, especially after a minor drag. Not sure what's going on to cause this. Beautiful and live demos are the best :) Fantastic work!
zyfo 15y ago
Slick. Two suggestions: 1) On Android, remove the delete confirmation. Undo bar would be better than pressing that ugly OK button. 2) Keep it at Today/Tomorrow only. It's a great anti-feature.
grantjgordon 15y ago
Super slick! The concept of just limiting people to today and tomorrow should keep us from descending into the swirling always-planning-but-never-doing-vortex-of-doom. Only complain: the handwritten font you chose, while cool, renders very jaggily in chrome on windows.
grantjgordon 15y ago
Also, in chrome on windows 7 the text-shadow on the explanation paragraph renders as white because you forgot to add the blur pixel. This looks nice: text-shadow: black -1px -1px 1px;
melissamiranda 15y ago
Looks great. teuxdeux.com is similar in pushing incomplete to-do's from the past into the future. This one is nice, really simple, and fun.
creeble 15y ago
Bug: Email address is case-sensitive for login.
newman314 15y ago
Does not render properly on webOS. =(
depr 15y ago
Perhaps add a clear button for both days, pressing the (-) button isn't fast enough. Also, when adding a task while in edit mode the button doesn't show up until going out and into edit mode.
smunz 15y ago
It seems like your server(s) have gone down: I'm getting an '502 Bad Gateway' from nginx. Would love to try it out!
- josegonzalez 15y ago
  It's at times like these where I wonder if the Node.js community overhypes their "webscale" framework. Evented or not, if your server doesn't have the resources to serve up the requests, things are going to break in fun ways.
parallel 15y ago
My plea to the HN community; stop solving the same problems. If you really want to make something that people want then find something that people don't already have. This may be outside you area of immediate experience. (Note - this comment was made without seeing the app - getting 502.)
- duck 15y ago
  stop solving the same problems Eh... what? If we didn't stop solving the same problems we would still be using WordPerfect and Google wouldn't exist. And without seeing it how do you know what it is even doing?
  - parallel 15y ago
    I didn't say stop improving on solutions that miss the mark. I just think there is a lot of unexplored territory for software developers. People like to solve problems they have and understand. To do list apps are the classic example for developers. I'm just saying there's a lot of opportunity out there if you step outside your comfort zone. All I know about this app is that it's a web based todo app. I was clear on this so to pick me up on it is a bit out of line. A better response would be to point out how it improves on what's already available.
    - rs 15y ago
      >> A better response would be to point out how it improves on what's already available. For starters, the UI is something that I haven't really seen before and its pretty neat. Second, I do like the concept of today/tomorrow - think that's a nice way to encourage planning and doing
- gemenon 15y ago
  Sometimes what people don't already have is the right solution to a problem that has already been "solved".
  - parallel 15y ago
parallel 15y ago
I'm a big fan of taskwarrior, a CLI todo list for linux. I find I use it more than web based ones as I'm always in the console so there's little mental mode switching to use it. Basically not having to go to a browser or touch the mouse makes all the difference. I'd love it if someone made a todo web app that could sync with taskwarrior. You then get the online slick interface of the web app with the low friction accessibility of the console interface when in the zone at work.
- mise 15y ago
  Must check it out. First thing to try would be to link its configuration folder from my Dropbox folder to get cross-PC syncing.
  - parallel 15y ago
    Yeah - this works well and there are no catches. The data is in a few human readable files and there's a path in the config file (.taskrc) pointing to the directory where they live. So you just move the data folder to your dropbox and edit your .rctask file accordingly. Of course you need to do this for every computer, so it makes sense for the few machines that you usually use but you don't really get the available-anywhereness of an online app.
- dorian-graph 15y ago
  I use Taskwarrior on Linux and Mac and that's a pretty awesome idea. Where/how does task store the todo list data? I'll have to do some research. Edit: So, it stores it in text files and apparently there are web interface/Android versions in the works. https://github.com/sullivant/taskwarrior-web https://github.com/sullivant/taskwarrior-web
sushumna 15y ago
Awesome user interface and feel. Congrats. Some quick observations: Footer Fonts, "add new task" etc are not legible [on chrome browser].
nreece 15y ago
(shameless plug) I wrote a simple to-do app (weekly planner) for my own use (now has a few thousand users): http://weekis.com http://weekis.com
- packetslave 15y ago
  Wow, promoting your own similar app in someone else's Show HN is pretty stale.
  - kristiandupont 15y ago
    "Show HN" isn't a promise of free advertising. The point is to get feedback (and to show off, of course) and pointing to competing products can be great feedback and add to the discussion in here.
  - nreece 15y ago
    One to-do app doesn't fit all. Everyone has their own working style and schedule flexibility, so it makes sense to try out as many options. You can read more about the intention behind my to-do app at http://apps.ycombinator.com/item?id=1466775 http://apps.ycombinator.com/item?id=1466775
- p3rs3us 15y ago
  Yep, not a right gesture to do, considering your app is kind of rival to op's initiative.
  - anandpdoshi 15y ago
    Both are free apps and and its kind of cool to compare them. I think this is relevant.
samyz33 15y ago
very cool!!!..keep it up guys!!
TheRealmccoy 15y ago
Hey, This is really cool. I am sure you are going to move some of the procrastination from the world, away. I am going to use this over any "To Do" app. Thanks for building this...
machosx 15y ago
Love the UI!
gulbrandr 15y ago
Very nice design and implementation. I could not resist to see your JS code. In http://tomorrow.do/dit.js http://tomorrow.do/dit.js line 676, why the spinner image is in this file as a data URI?
- alexbosworth 15y ago
  Thanks - There is no real reason for that :/
keke_ta 15y ago
This is awesome. User Interface is pretty cool as if to write a memo on paper.
necenzurat 15y ago
This shit ROCKS Truly the ultimate procrastination app
eLobato 15y ago
Veeeeeeeeeeeery class! I was about to send you an email to help you build an android app for this but you already done this. Wow.

237 points by alexbosworth 15y ago

alexbosworth 15y ago

Obligatory 'this is a first release' disclaimer :D

libria 15y ago
Nice, very cutting-edge. Thought you would like to know, though, that it almost brought my browser down (locked up all tabs solid for 8 seconds straight). Using Chrome 14.0.825.0 canary.
jws 15y ago
The "I love this app" quote has a space between the period and the closing quotation mark which allows it to typeset the quotation mark by itself on the last line. Yep, that was all I found to complain about. Well, that and my iPad is all the way downstairs so I have to fetch it before I can buy the app. Update: you might also add the extra attributes to the email login field to prevent spelling correction in Mobile Safari.

ConceitedCode 15y ago

Wow! Everything looks amazing. You really did a good job trying to make it look good. Unfortunately, it's not something I would really use.

frankdenbow 15y ago

Can you do a full breakdown of how this was built? Love the page flipping transition!

alexbosworth 15y ago
The Page Flip is in Chrome and Safari, but when I started it was going to just be a perk for Safari as Chrome didn't support 3d perspectives. I noticed one day that the beta channel of Chrome had started to support 3d perspectives, but to my distress their support was buggy and left graphical artifacts. I submitted bug reports and luckily in the latest Chromes it works just as nicely as Safari. The big thing I got into on this project is CSS animations. They look a bit scary at first but in practice they are not too complicated. I did a mixture of JQuery animation and CSS transitions on this and both have their strengths. The Node.js code is very simple, it's a small sync script that sits behind nginx. Todos are stored on S3, I used my in-progress S3 library for node.js - can see this here - https://github.com/alexbosworth/Node-S3/blob/master/aws-s3.js https://github.com/alexbosworth/Node-S3/blob/master/aws-s3.j...
- jjm 15y ago
  Awesome, There is also knox: https://github.com/LearnBoost/knox https://github.com/LearnBoost/knox Both look similar. Any quick commentary on where you plan on taking your s3 lib (features etc..) ?
  - alexbosworth 15y ago
    It's made to copy the JQuery 1.5 "Deferreds", and to copy JQuery's model that easy/common things should be easy, uncommon things should be possible but may be more complicated to write. As for 'bonus features', the only thing I have that most S3 libs don't is support for the S3 feature of uploading very large files in parallel chunks.
- aashay 15y ago
  Just curious, but why'd you decide to use nginx instead of a node-based web server (i.e. serving stuff up via Express)?
  - alexbosworth 15y ago
    I only use nginx because it is a proven component and I don't think node can improve on that much there

cfontes 15y ago

Nice design... The fonts are a bit rough, i think cannot read them well and I got 28 and 0 eye problems so people with more age and eye problems will have a hard time reading it. maybe making it a little bigger and getting some better fonts try www.typekit.com or something. Anyway great design, the app in itself is not useful for me as ConceitedCode6 pointed I like portable todo lists, maybe an Iphone app ? Congrats !

ollerac 15y ago
Ya, awesome design. I'd change the default font to something more readable, remove the coffee stain from the page, let people flip a few pages ahead (otherwise, why use the notebook paradigm?), and change the "i'm a new user" flow -- the form field animation is pretty and ingenious, but it's also confusing, so I don't think it's worth it.
- icebraining 15y ago
  >let people flip a few pages ahead Apparently, the concept is that you only have two queues/stacks, "now" and "later." I do agree that this isn't very intuitive from the design.
dmbass 15y ago
If you scroll down, you will see links to iOS and Android apps.
alexbosworth 15y ago
I have noticed that on different screens the font is appearing differently, this is something that I didn't anticipate and I guess is a pitfall of using a custom-created font. This is on my to-do list, adding another font ;) It actually started life as an iPhone app, you can download it for free for Android/iPhone
- huhtenberg 15y ago
  Have a look at http://swapped.cc/font-smoothing http://swapped.cc/font-smoothing to see what you are getting into with webfonts.

martinshen 15y ago

Gorgeous design! I don't know how practical it is.

thricedotted 15y ago

Wow, slick and simple interface. As somebody who was always better at carrying a new paper list each day than dealing with things like RTM or Google Tasks, but also doesn't always have something to write down new things to do, I think this just might be the app I never knew I wanted. I'll be trying it out over the next few days. One question -- why is the password input in plaintext on the Android app? I don't like the thought that somebody could get hold of my device and see my password just sitting there in plaintext if they just went to settings...

alexbosworth 15y ago
Thanks - Watch for an update that will fix this on the Android App
- creeble 15y ago
  Yes, wouldn't want someone else to do my tasks for me!

cheez 15y ago

This is insane. Well done.

nc 15y ago

Wow... love the design & the UI realism. I would iterate on the font for the actual to-do though. It's very hard to read.

amdev 15y ago

Well done.

Agustus 15y ago

Very good "Your browser is not compliant page." The Opera browser is CSS3, 3D Transform, Node.js capable. If you are doing certification using a browser check, do the following: Tell the user their website is not optimized for their browser, suggest the browsers as you have it on your site, then provide the user with the option to continue ahead with their current browser. Here is a link to the logo so you can add it: (http://media.opera.com/media/images/icon/Opera_512x512.png http://media.opera.com/media/images/icon/Opera_512x512.png) Edited to be more constructive and helpful in addressing the issue.

alexbosworth 15y ago
I am working on Opera, I tested it half-way but it has some issues I will have to work out before it will work perfectly.
- Agustus 15y ago
  Thanks for including the Opera browser!
- pornel 15y ago
  In the future, could you just put a small warning, instead of blocking page completely? I don't mind if I get page without some 3D transition, but a complete block gives an "F*U" impression, even if you are just working on making it perfect.

there 15y ago

why do i get logged out every time i refresh the page?

alexbosworth 15y ago
I'm curious too, I have heard about the remember me not sticking, but can't pin it down :(

speg 15y ago

Very svelte! Maybe I'm being an idiot - but how do you turn the pages? I can only see today and tomorrow.

alexbosworth 15y ago
Do It (Tomorrow) is based on a simple concept where you can just look at what you have to do today and push less important things to later. The "days" aren't literal dates, add todos to today - they will stay on that page forever until you cross them off or delete them. The pages are more like 'now' and 'later', at least that's how I use it. Boing Boing did a nice review of the iPhone App and they explained the concept better than I probably can http://boingboing.net/2011/03/08/of-the-many-many-fac.html http://boingboing.net/2011/03/08/of-the-many-many-fac.html
- hammock 15y ago
  Yeah the way I do it I have two todo lists- one for Today, and one for This Week. Each night I move stuff from my This Week list into my Today list to be done the next day. That's how I will use this.

bigohms 15y ago

like it. login isn't persisent with a cookie or something, so everytime i'm getting the same welcome msg.

alexbosworth 15y ago
Login stickiness is using localStorage and no cookies are used, but that seems to be causing problems for some people :( I am trying to get this one sorted

ldar15 15y ago

So, 502. Can you please (seriously) write a post about what your server setup is and what its like to be deal with the rush of traffic. I'll be doing it one day soon and all the info I can get would really help!

dschobel 15y ago
Ummmm, he may not be the best person to ask...
- notJim 15y ago
  Failure is the best way to learn! I know because I do so much of it! And bonus if it's someone else's failure.
  - alexbosworth 15y ago
    Sorry I'm not sure what happened - it seems like screen died?
    - jat850 15y ago
      Google "node.js upstart" - there are a lot of good examples on how to get your app to respawn after crashes, run on startup, etc.
    - jhuckestein 15y ago
      Launching a product that's running in a screen session. I don't think it's a good idea, but I can't help but feel impressed in some way I don't understand.
alexbosworth 15y ago
The issue was pretty mundane, the server script is very simple - so I assumed it wouldn't need to have a lot of monitoring overhead to deal with traffic spikes. Even though it's a very simple script the volume of traffic used up all the memory on the machine leading to server death, then my restart script turned out to be wrong :(

jasonz 15y ago

My favorite part is the "I am a new user" button - very slick!

etruong42 15y ago
It's very cool. It takes the "don't make me think" principle to the next level by forgoing "options" like "Register a new user" or "Create a new account" and instead makes the action a simple fact. I am a new user!

gary4gar 15y ago

I never knew all this was possible with CSS. Amazing! Good work :)

Cafesolo 15y ago

Love it. Great design. Some thoughts: - I tried to drag some tasks from "today" to "tomorrow" and couldn't. Ended up marking a task as done instead. - The animation when you click the arrows is a little confusing and hard to follow.

sghill 15y ago
Seconded. The design is just great. I also tried drag and drop. Both between today and tomorrow and a way to change the ordering. It'd be great to see that functionality. Really nice work, guys!

cmwright 15y ago

There's a bug in Chrome 12.0.742.122 where when you logout an extra book shows up on the bottom right of the original book. This looks great, I love the page turn animation.

alexbosworth 15y ago
The Logout extra book bug is a Chrome bug, but they have fixed it in the beta channel and this problem should go away when they roll out Chrome 13

mellifluousmind 15y ago

Mm... I love the look and design of your web app. Just wondering, were you the only person worked on that app? or did someone else provide the design (i.e. graphics, CSS styling)? Personally, I applaud you for coming up such a great app. I can only wish I can achieve the level of work that you do, but I think I care too much about Internet Explorer users to come up with something that require Firefox/Chrome/Safari... it is definitely a fine balance or choice you make.

alexbosworth 15y ago
I coded it and did participate in the design, but I definitely didn't make the App alone! Do It (Tomorrow) is an Adylitica production - you can read about my company here: http://adylitica.com/ http://adylitica.com/ - our team: http://adylitica.com/team http://adylitica.com/team. IE support may come in the future, but it is very labor intensive as IE is really far behind, even in IE9.

smfullman 15y ago

I like the font-face feature of CSS3. I just whipped up a font based on my handwriting, and now it's on my blog.

AshMokhberi 15y ago

I have to commend you, to are the mobile apps also built using html5 and css3.

alexbosworth 15y ago
Thanks! The mobile Apps are written native to their respective platforms

jjm 15y ago

Can I ask what provider are you using?

jethroalias97 15y ago
Looks to be EC2. IP: 184.73.182.11 Whois: Amazon.com, Inc. AMAZON-EC2-7 (NET-184-72-0-0-1) 184.72.0.0 - 184.73.255.255

Cyph0n 15y ago

Wow. Just wow. When I clicked the link on HN I never expected something that good. I was especially amused at the login/signup trick. Frankly, the whole thing caught me off guard. Hats-off to you sir.

redthrowaway 15y ago

Awesome. One minor complaint: I added some tasks, thought, "man this is cool", and signed up--at which point you erased my tasks. Not a huge complaint, but they really should be transfered over to your newly-created account.

thetimbanks 15y ago
This could easily be done using local storage. I'm guessing the author has already run into this problem and is working on it though.
- redthrowaway 15y ago
  Local would defeat the purpose of a web app, as I'd have three different copies on my iPad, iPhone, and laptop. He's already storing login info, so associating a few hundred bytes of text with that shouldn't be too difficult.
  - thetimbanks 15y ago
    I suggested local storage only for the case where a new user (not logged in) has added some tasks and then decides to sign up. The tasks in local storage would then be added to the user once it is created. The local storage acts as a temporary storage location while the user is created. Having this work across platforms is not necessary.

jessep 15y ago

This is cool. I'm one of the guys who makes WorkFlowy.com, so I always check out new to-do/list making apps. I'm almost always like, "This is super lame," but not this time. This app actually seems quite nice. I'd like to be able to flip forward/backward in the planner, as that aligns with the metaphor nicely. Anyway, nice work.

div 15y ago
At first I wanted to be able to flip forward / backward as well, but on second thought, maybe only being able to add todo's for today and tomorrow is a plus ?

badhairday 15y ago

Obviously you are shooting for a realistic UI. I don't think the current strikethrough image is very realistic since I do not draw the same line every time I cross an item out in real life. I suggest you make use of a sprite image to implement multiple lines.

duck 15y ago

Very simple and great idea! I would use this if it would do landscape view on my Android tablet. Any plans on doing that?

ErikRogneby 15y ago
Landscape on android phone as well. Many slide out keyboards are to the side. Getting a 502 bad gateway from nginx on the web version at the moment.

shii 15y ago

You will take http://thn.gs http://thn.gs from my cold, dead hands.

aymeric 15y ago
Wow, I love the UI but I found it a bit buggy (show new task when I click on tag)
- shii 15y ago
  Has been working great for years here, no bugs to speak of across 3 browsers and 3 OSes. Notifo notifications are amazing. UI is second to none. Flawless local/offline sync, so no downtime ever. Tagging system works great, and it's how I know what to do next all day. My only gripes are 1) no mobile version (it works on my iPhone, but it's not the optimal experience to have to drag left and right. a dedicated app would be better imo) 2) there's no faqs/documentation/getting started guide/features/nada. No help desk if you're stuck or having problems. Despite all this, it has lots of users still apparently. Contacting the developer valentin shergin (yandex guy) is a shoot and miss. Development seems to have slowed down a lot, but there's some new features popping up here and there. Mostly active in Russian community.

iamwil 15y ago

How long did this take you to do?

swah 15y ago

This is beautiful.

Groxx 15y ago

Very nice job. Only two problems jumped at me, and mostly because everything else is so smooth: 1) switching a task's date should make the other side slide to make room, rather than jump. 2) finishing / unfinishing a task doesn't always respond to clicks, especially after a minor drag. Not sure what's going on to cause this. Beautiful and live demos are the best :) Fantastic work!

zyfo 15y ago

Slick. Two suggestions: 1) On Android, remove the delete confirmation. Undo bar would be better than pressing that ugly OK button. 2) Keep it at Today/Tomorrow only. It's a great anti-feature.

grantjgordon 15y ago

Super slick! The concept of just limiting people to today and tomorrow should keep us from descending into the swirling always-planning-but-never-doing-vortex-of-doom. Only complain: the handwritten font you chose, while cool, renders very jaggily in chrome on windows.

grantjgordon 15y ago

Also, in chrome on windows 7 the text-shadow on the explanation paragraph renders as white because you forgot to add the blur pixel. This looks nice: text-shadow: black -1px -1px 1px;

melissamiranda 15y ago

Looks great. teuxdeux.com is similar in pushing incomplete to-do's from the past into the future. This one is nice, really simple, and fun.

creeble 15y ago

Bug: Email address is case-sensitive for login.

newman314 15y ago

Does not render properly on webOS. =(

depr 15y ago

Perhaps add a clear button for both days, pressing the (-) button isn't fast enough. Also, when adding a task while in edit mode the button doesn't show up until going out and into edit mode.

smunz 15y ago

It seems like your server(s) have gone down: I'm getting an '502 Bad Gateway' from nginx. Would love to try it out!

josegonzalez 15y ago
It's at times like these where I wonder if the Node.js community overhypes their "webscale" framework. Evented or not, if your server doesn't have the resources to serve up the requests, things are going to break in fun ways.

parallel 15y ago

My plea to the HN community; stop solving the same problems. If you really want to make something that people want then find something that people don't already have. This may be outside you area of immediate experience. (Note - this comment was made without seeing the app - getting 502.)

duck 15y ago
stop solving the same problems Eh... what? If we didn't stop solving the same problems we would still be using WordPerfect and Google wouldn't exist. And without seeing it how do you know what it is even doing?
- parallel 15y ago
  I didn't say stop improving on solutions that miss the mark. I just think there is a lot of unexplored territory for software developers. People like to solve problems they have and understand. To do list apps are the classic example for developers. I'm just saying there's a lot of opportunity out there if you step outside your comfort zone. All I know about this app is that it's a web based todo app. I was clear on this so to pick me up on it is a bit out of line. A better response would be to point out how it improves on what's already available.
  - rs 15y ago
    >> A better response would be to point out how it improves on what's already available. For starters, the UI is something that I haven't really seen before and its pretty neat. Second, I do like the concept of today/tomorrow - think that's a nice way to encourage planning and doing
gemenon 15y ago
Sometimes what people don't already have is the right solution to a problem that has already been "solved".
- parallel 15y ago

parallel 15y ago

I'm a big fan of taskwarrior, a CLI todo list for linux. I find I use it more than web based ones as I'm always in the console so there's little mental mode switching to use it. Basically not having to go to a browser or touch the mouse makes all the difference. I'd love it if someone made a todo web app that could sync with taskwarrior. You then get the online slick interface of the web app with the low friction accessibility of the console interface when in the zone at work.

mise 15y ago
Must check it out. First thing to try would be to link its configuration folder from my Dropbox folder to get cross-PC syncing.
- parallel 15y ago
  Yeah - this works well and there are no catches. The data is in a few human readable files and there's a path in the config file (.taskrc) pointing to the directory where they live. So you just move the data folder to your dropbox and edit your .rctask file accordingly. Of course you need to do this for every computer, so it makes sense for the few machines that you usually use but you don't really get the available-anywhereness of an online app.
dorian-graph 15y ago
I use Taskwarrior on Linux and Mac and that's a pretty awesome idea. Where/how does task store the todo list data? I'll have to do some research. Edit: So, it stores it in text files and apparently there are web interface/Android versions in the works. https://github.com/sullivant/taskwarrior-web https://github.com/sullivant/taskwarrior-web

sushumna 15y ago

Awesome user interface and feel. Congrats. Some quick observations: Footer Fonts, "add new task" etc are not legible [on chrome browser].

nreece 15y ago

(shameless plug) I wrote a simple to-do app (weekly planner) for my own use (now has a few thousand users): http://weekis.com http://weekis.com

packetslave 15y ago
Wow, promoting your own similar app in someone else's Show HN is pretty stale.
- kristiandupont 15y ago
  "Show HN" isn't a promise of free advertising. The point is to get feedback (and to show off, of course) and pointing to competing products can be great feedback and add to the discussion in here.
- nreece 15y ago
  One to-do app doesn't fit all. Everyone has their own working style and schedule flexibility, so it makes sense to try out as many options. You can read more about the intention behind my to-do app at http://apps.ycombinator.com/item?id=1466775 http://apps.ycombinator.com/item?id=1466775
p3rs3us 15y ago
Yep, not a right gesture to do, considering your app is kind of rival to op's initiative.
- anandpdoshi 15y ago
  Both are free apps and and its kind of cool to compare them. I think this is relevant.

samyz33 15y ago

very cool!!!..keep it up guys!!

TheRealmccoy 15y ago

Hey, This is really cool. I am sure you are going to move some of the procrastination from the world, away. I am going to use this over any "To Do" app. Thanks for building this...

machosx 15y ago

Love the UI!

gulbrandr 15y ago

Very nice design and implementation. I could not resist to see your JS code. In http://tomorrow.do/dit.js http://tomorrow.do/dit.js line 676, why the spinner image is in this file as a data URI?

alexbosworth 15y ago
Thanks - There is no real reason for that :/

keke_ta 15y ago

This is awesome. User Interface is pretty cool as if to write a memo on paper.

necenzurat 15y ago

This shit ROCKS Truly the ultimate procrastination app

eLobato 15y ago

Veeeeeeeeeeeery class! I was about to send you an email to help you build an android app for this but you already done this. Wow.