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It looks really nice, but may I ask why it's a Chrome extension? Seems to me that one of the habit people might try to kick is "goofing around on the internet",

It looks really nice, but may I ask why it's a Chrome extension? Seems to me that one of the habit people might try to kick is "goofing around on the internet", so adding the habit tracker to the browser is counter productive. Still it looks awesome.

gtirloni 4y ago
It seems much easier to develop a extension than, say, a full desktop app or an website with a runtime you have to maintain.
- brenzenitho 4y ago
  Actually the funny thing is, unexpectedly, I found developing a Chrome extension much harder than building a generic web app. The closest thing to hot reloading my React app could get to was to use npm watch and rebuild on very change, which was much slower. As even the slightest FE change would take ages to visually check (so much so I had to build parts of the FE styling in another project). The main thing is I couldn't ever use the Chrome API on the default React npm start page, I would get an error unless I actually ran npm run build and unpacked the extension to use manually. (I heard from a friend this is because that Chrome API is only usable by an actual built extension)
brenzenitho 4y ago
yeah that makes sense, the original thought was just that it would be easier to adopt a chrome extension into my workflow, instead of having to manually go to a download page and natively install an app I have to personally open everyday. I did consider a web app, but then I found it unlikely someone would want to have to go to a specific link everyday just to track their habits. Just felt that since a chrome extension icon would always be there everyday, and because we all need to use the browser at some point, it would be more likely we would use that naturally. Would love anyone's views on that though. Not saying that initial train of thought was right or wrong, just putting it out there
- amadeuspagel 4y ago
  Personally, I find opening web apps to be much easier then clicking on an extension. I don't think I'd be addicted to HN if I had to click an icon to get here. But the combination Ctrl+T => n (it autocompletes to news.ycombinator.com) => Enter is deep in my muscle memory. For a new app of course it would take time until the URL autocompletes.

gtirloni 4y ago

It seems much easier to develop a extension than, say, a full desktop app or an website with a runtime you have to maintain.

brenzenitho 4y ago
Actually the funny thing is, unexpectedly, I found developing a Chrome extension much harder than building a generic web app. The closest thing to hot reloading my React app could get to was to use npm watch and rebuild on very change, which was much slower. As even the slightest FE change would take ages to visually check (so much so I had to build parts of the FE styling in another project). The main thing is I couldn't ever use the Chrome API on the default React npm start page, I would get an error unless I actually ran npm run build and unpacked the extension to use manually. (I heard from a friend this is because that Chrome API is only usable by an actual built extension)

brenzenitho 4y ago

yeah that makes sense, the original thought was just that it would be easier to adopt a chrome extension into my workflow, instead of having to manually go to a download page and natively install an app I have to personally open everyday. I did consider a web app, but then I found it unlikely someone would want to have to go to a specific link everyday just to track their habits. Just felt that since a chrome extension icon would always be there everyday, and because we all need to use the browser at some point, it would be more likely we would use that naturally. Would love anyone's views on that though. Not saying that initial train of thought was right or wrong, just putting it out there

amadeuspagel 4y ago
Personally, I find opening web apps to be much easier then clicking on an extension. I don't think I'd be addicted to HN if I had to click an icon to get here. But the combination Ctrl+T => n (it autocompletes to news.ycombinator.com) => Enter is deep in my muscle memory. For a new app of course it would take time until the URL autocompletes.