11 ms·

Bushi.do is now Cloudfuji.com, launches Kandan - beautiful open source chat

129 points by sgrove 14y ago

Intermediate 14y ago
I tried to change url of my application, but it doesnt seem to be working. There is just no button to submit the form with application settings, I tried to sumbit it in other way, but it made no visible effect
- sgrove 14y ago
  I'll take a look at it right away - can you give me the app name, or just email me at sean@cloudfuji.com and I'll get it sorted.
  - Intermediate 14y ago
    http://concise-winner-5927.cloudfujiapp.com/ http://concise-winner-5927.cloudfujiapp.com/
kunalmodi 14y ago
looks great, can't wait to try it small nitpik: the github link links to creating the app on cloudfuji
- twog 14y ago
  The github link is broken for me as well. Here is the direct link to the github project for anyone else looking for it https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan
  - sgrove 14y ago
    Fixed!
sgrove 14y ago
Use promo-code hn-preview on http://cloudfuji.com/promo http://cloudfuji.com/promo for a 50% discount on the team package - 3 apps and 6 teammates. But make sure to give us your awesome feedback :)
Johnyma22 14y ago
Would love to see Etherpad integrated into this or the other way around! Awesome :)
- sgrove 14y ago
  An etherpad running on on Cloudfuji, or integrated into Kandan? We're dying for a Sharejs-based etherpad app on Cloudfuji, but all things in due time :)
necrodome 14y ago
From the source of the app (https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan), it seems that it doesn't check for authorization -for now-, so be aware that anyone can signup to your own private instance if they know your url and do nasty things like deleting channels.
- sgrove 14y ago
  Good point - we wanted to keep it as open as possible, and as easy to get started as possible. Hence the (literally) copy/paste instructions to get running on somewhere like Heroku, with no need to provision other services. But obscurity isn't security. We'd love to hear what people think about how this should be handled - https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan/issues https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan/issues
mutewinter 14y ago
The source code is a treasure trove for those looking for an example of a larger Backbone.js application with a Rails backend and Faye for push notifications to the browser. Backbone code - https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan/tree/master/app/assets/javascripts/backbone https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan/tree/master/app/assets/j... Faye (on the Backbone side) - https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan/blob/master/app/assets/javascripts/backbone/broadcasters/faye.js.coffee https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan/blob/master/app/assets/j... Faye (on the Ruby side) - https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan/blob/master/app/models/activity_observer.rb https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan/blob/master/app/models/a...
- sgrove 14y ago
  Thanks - Akash Manhor (https://twitter.com/hashnuke https://twitter.com/hashnuke) made both of those decisions early on in Kandan's life. There have been challenges around both, but overall it's worked out very well - in fact, the faye interface opens up some really interesting possibilities. We'll have some examples of this soon.
yakshaving 14y ago
Congratulations Sean and team. Sacha, nice work on the design!
- sgdesign 14y ago
  Thanks, glad you like it!
mcmire 14y ago
This is great, I admit the design is pleasing, but I gotta ask the obvious question here which is... what is wrong with Campfire or HipChat or the multitude other group chat apps that have sprung up in recent years? (not counting that Kandan is opensource, which is pretty cool)
- sgrove 14y ago
  The fact that it's open source is very important to us, and that (along with it having a wonderful design) will serve as the kernel that'll move Kandan in an amazing direction. With things like WebRTC and javascript audio/video decoders and the open source design, I think we'll see Kandan turn into a really amazing tool. I wanted some of these features in Campfire for years, but I couldn't just fork Campfire and give the features back. Now I , and others, can. Most people don't want to run their own services, but they want to be able to fix bugs and add features when they feel like it. Cloudfuji's model lets everyone do that, and app authors to make sustainable revenue. And thanks for bringing that up, it's an important question!
Vekz 14y ago
We will be talking about Kandan and other exciting open source projects at our meetup http://www.meetup.com/San-Francisco-New-Wave-Open-Source-Apps/ http://www.meetup.com/San-Francisco-New-Wave-Open-Source-App... I'd like to thank our friends at singly.com for generously offering to host. Come join us for a drink and meet some friends.
adjohn 14y ago
Congratulations Sean! This looks great, and I'm looking forward to trying it out.
SeoxyS 14y ago
I think Chat is one of those core services, like Email that has standardized around one common standard. People use a wide variety of clients, and very different uses from basic to power user needs. The reason most chat services fail is that even if they have fantastic mobile and web clients, they cannot provide the sheer range of clients needed for the entire range of use cases. At Chartboost, we've tried pretty much every protocol there is, but we still stick to IRC. It's the only protocol that has clients that suit all of us, from hardcore `irssi` to newbie Adium integration. There's also bouncers and solid local histories and it's easy to hop onto tech channels for some help and it's widely supported with chatbots and libraries for building your own chatbot. (eg. Ruby-IRC)
- oskarth 14y ago
  I agree that IRC is still the chat protocol to use. Though in choosing a chat solutions there are some questions that often arise: 1) persistency (BNCs are still a techie solution, servers) 2) good web interface and 3) file support (other than DCC, unless a bot is present) Here is where for example Campfire managed to take quite a big chunk out of the startup chat market. Are there any clients that integrates well with IRC with those 3 qualities? (file support could be solved by a custom file repo with imgur-like links, or a DCC bot for those on irssi)
  - wladimir 14y ago
    Quassel solves (1) in a user friendly way. It does not address your other points, though (there's a Linux, Windows, Mac desktop version and an Android app, but not a web interface AFAIK).
tibbon 14y ago
Love it, however I wish it wasn't AGPL as I really can't use that in my startup.
twodayslate 14y ago
So you have to "install" this app to chat? How is this better than IRC? Personally, I think grove.io has much more features.
w1ntermute 14y ago
Just a note: the name comes from the Japanese word 「歓談」(also pronounced "kandan"), meaning "chat."
- replax 14y ago
  it carries a thoroughly positive connotation with it, though, as suggested by the 「歓」。
  - w1ntermute 14y ago
    Yes, it can also be translated as "pleasant talk."
nathan_f77 14y ago
This app does have a really great design, especially when a lot of open source apps are lacking in this department. I'm really impressed with Sacha's work, and have really enjoyed his "Step by Step UI Design" ebook, which details his design process for Kandan. Look forward to contributing sometime!
nyar 14y ago
What's going on with the design of http://cloudfuji.com/apps/new?app=kandan http://cloudfuji.com/apps/new?app=kandan ? Left aligned slideshow of different sized compressed images and no text. You took the time to make the client look pretty, 10 more minutes won't hurt.
manveru 14y ago
Is drag&drop the only way to upload things? Would be nice to have a <input type="file"> because I have no place to drag stuff from.
- sgrove 14y ago
  Currently yes. I've added a ticket https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan/issues/20 https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan/issues/20 to see how we'll fix that up. Is there a reason you don't have a place to drag from?
  - zoba 14y ago
    ChromeOS, possibly?
    - sgrove 14y ago
      Ah very interesting possibility. I have no idea how Chrome OS works, or if it's something we should worry much about right now.
  - manveru 14y ago
    Because I use my terminal as file manager, and urxvt doesn't support drag&drop yet.
sgrove 14y ago
The beautiful part of Kandan is courtesy of the design by Sacha Greif. He wrote an ebook about how he went about designing it, and it was discussed here: http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=3731135 http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=3731135 The amazing implementation is from a lot of hard work on Kevin Zettler's (my cofounder) part, who's amazing at polishing apps. Let us know your thoughts, and switch to using Kandan on Cloudfuji today :)
- davedx 14y ago
  Purely impersonal criticism, but I'm getting 'beautiful' fatigue from Show HN submissions. 'Beautiful' and 'amazing' in the same paragraph once sounded impressive, but now it's kind of tiresome. Like I said, this is nothing against you, it's more a general trend that I'm tired of seeing. Not everything on the web needs to be 'beautiful'.
  - sgrove 14y ago
    Not everything needs to be beautiful, but we wanted to Kandan to be. We had a prototype of Kandan we called Kogo initially, but it was pretty ugly. We went out of our way to make sure that Kandan was as pleasant to use as possible, visually and functionally.
  - oskarth 14y ago
    Agree. It's especially obnoxious if it comes from the author himself. It's the equivalent of having a tagline saying "I'm a smart developer who works hard" - it might be true but it's not your call, it's just a counter-signal. On second thought, I guess my criticism is more personal than yours, but I really think it's a kind of pollution that has no place in a somewhat clean community such as HN. EDIT: I do like the look of it, but I think everyone would be better of if you (you as in Cloudfuji, not the specific designer in question) used a neutral language. If someone goes on to say in the comments "That's beautiful." it's worth so much more for everyone involved.
    - sgrove 14y ago
      I didn't design Kandan, but I do think it's beautiful. And as I said, that's because of Sacha Greif's amazing work. Design in open source is - in general - sorely lacking. We want to correct that, and help herald in a new era of apps that are not only powerful, but easy to use and a joy to look at.
ghost91 14y ago
Quite nice. But you should seriously improve your registration field, I could register with an one character long password.
- ghost91 14y ago
  even an empty password is possible!
  - sgrove 14y ago
    Talk about a nice user experience! :) In all seriousness, fixed. Thanks!
shadowz 14y ago
Really dig the design on Kandan but I wish it could be used as a front for XMPP/Jabber also.
- Vekz 14y ago
  This is an exciting integration that we've considered and will be exploring more in the future.
  - 18pfsmt 14y ago
    May I just put forth a preference for the backend to be based on ejabberd? Perhaps the folks at Process One would be interested in collaboration, as they are a significant contributor to the project.
- sgrove 14y ago
  I personally would love to see it be a self-contained irc/xmpp/jabber/faye server, but all in good time. We want to make open-source beautiful, easy to access, and easily extensible. So we're releasing what we have now, with plenty of momentum towards things like providing an XMPP backend!
  - ahnberg 14y ago
    I am happy to see IRC here. Way underused communication method! Certainly are things that can be improved with the protocol and services, but few people understand how useful it can be for business aswell as personal chat-needs.
ollerac 14y ago
Please don't require credit card information when you advertise a link on that page as "Launch and use Kandan now". And especially not when that credit card information is required as the second step in an initially single-step seeming sign-up process -- and also, please don't hide all of this behind a big "Launch" button.
- illumin8 14y ago
  If it's an open source app... where can I download the source to run it on my own server? Don't tell me it's open source, then ask me for a credit card number.
  - hugs 14y ago
    https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan http://kandan.me/ http://kandan.me/
- sgrove 14y ago
  Credit card info is only required for the second app launch, or when you invite more than two people. We have to do that to manage our resources, but we definitely didn't want it to be the first thing you see. If you send me your account email , I'll bump you to a verified account manually so you don't hit that :) Edit: You can send it at sean@cloudfuji.com or just click on the support link in-app, and you'll get a modal form to contact us.

129 points by sgrove 14y ago

I tried to change url of my application, but it doesnt seem to be working. There is just no button to submit the form with application settings, I tried to sumbit it in other way, but it made no visible effect

sgrove 14y ago
I'll take a look at it right away - can you give me the app name, or just email me at sean@cloudfuji.com and I'll get it sorted.
- Intermediate 14y ago
  http://concise-winner-5927.cloudfujiapp.com/ http://concise-winner-5927.cloudfujiapp.com/

kunalmodi 14y ago

looks great, can't wait to try it small nitpik: the github link links to creating the app on cloudfuji

twog 14y ago
The github link is broken for me as well. Here is the direct link to the github project for anyone else looking for it https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan
- sgrove 14y ago
  Fixed!

sgrove 14y ago

Use promo-code hn-preview on http://cloudfuji.com/promo http://cloudfuji.com/promo for a 50% discount on the team package - 3 apps and 6 teammates. But make sure to give us your awesome feedback :)

Johnyma22 14y ago

Would love to see Etherpad integrated into this or the other way around! Awesome :)

sgrove 14y ago
An etherpad running on on Cloudfuji, or integrated into Kandan? We're dying for a Sharejs-based etherpad app on Cloudfuji, but all things in due time :)

necrodome 14y ago

From the source of the app (https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan), it seems that it doesn't check for authorization -for now-, so be aware that anyone can signup to your own private instance if they know your url and do nasty things like deleting channels.

sgrove 14y ago
Good point - we wanted to keep it as open as possible, and as easy to get started as possible. Hence the (literally) copy/paste instructions to get running on somewhere like Heroku, with no need to provision other services. But obscurity isn't security. We'd love to hear what people think about how this should be handled - https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan/issues https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan/issues

mutewinter 14y ago

The source code is a treasure trove for those looking for an example of a larger Backbone.js application with a Rails backend and Faye for push notifications to the browser. Backbone code - https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan/tree/master/app/assets/javascripts/backbone https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan/tree/master/app/assets/j... Faye (on the Backbone side) - https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan/blob/master/app/assets/javascripts/backbone/broadcasters/faye.js.coffee https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan/blob/master/app/assets/j... Faye (on the Ruby side) - https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan/blob/master/app/models/activity_observer.rb https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan/blob/master/app/models/a...

sgrove 14y ago
Thanks - Akash Manhor (https://twitter.com/hashnuke https://twitter.com/hashnuke) made both of those decisions early on in Kandan's life. There have been challenges around both, but overall it's worked out very well - in fact, the faye interface opens up some really interesting possibilities. We'll have some examples of this soon.

yakshaving 14y ago

Congratulations Sean and team. Sacha, nice work on the design!

sgdesign 14y ago
Thanks, glad you like it!

mcmire 14y ago

This is great, I admit the design is pleasing, but I gotta ask the obvious question here which is... what is wrong with Campfire or HipChat or the multitude other group chat apps that have sprung up in recent years? (not counting that Kandan is opensource, which is pretty cool)

sgrove 14y ago
The fact that it's open source is very important to us, and that (along with it having a wonderful design) will serve as the kernel that'll move Kandan in an amazing direction. With things like WebRTC and javascript audio/video decoders and the open source design, I think we'll see Kandan turn into a really amazing tool. I wanted some of these features in Campfire for years, but I couldn't just fork Campfire and give the features back. Now I , and others, can. Most people don't want to run their own services, but they want to be able to fix bugs and add features when they feel like it. Cloudfuji's model lets everyone do that, and app authors to make sustainable revenue. And thanks for bringing that up, it's an important question!

Vekz 14y ago

We will be talking about Kandan and other exciting open source projects at our meetup http://www.meetup.com/San-Francisco-New-Wave-Open-Source-Apps/ http://www.meetup.com/San-Francisco-New-Wave-Open-Source-App... I'd like to thank our friends at singly.com for generously offering to host. Come join us for a drink and meet some friends.

adjohn 14y ago

Congratulations Sean! This looks great, and I'm looking forward to trying it out.

SeoxyS 14y ago

I think Chat is one of those core services, like Email that has standardized around one common standard. People use a wide variety of clients, and very different uses from basic to power user needs. The reason most chat services fail is that even if they have fantastic mobile and web clients, they cannot provide the sheer range of clients needed for the entire range of use cases. At Chartboost, we've tried pretty much every protocol there is, but we still stick to IRC. It's the only protocol that has clients that suit all of us, from hardcore `irssi` to newbie Adium integration. There's also bouncers and solid local histories and it's easy to hop onto tech channels for some help and it's widely supported with chatbots and libraries for building your own chatbot. (eg. Ruby-IRC)

oskarth 14y ago
I agree that IRC is still the chat protocol to use. Though in choosing a chat solutions there are some questions that often arise: 1) persistency (BNCs are still a techie solution, servers) 2) good web interface and 3) file support (other than DCC, unless a bot is present) Here is where for example Campfire managed to take quite a big chunk out of the startup chat market. Are there any clients that integrates well with IRC with those 3 qualities? (file support could be solved by a custom file repo with imgur-like links, or a DCC bot for those on irssi)
- wladimir 14y ago
  Quassel solves (1) in a user friendly way. It does not address your other points, though (there's a Linux, Windows, Mac desktop version and an Android app, but not a web interface AFAIK).

tibbon 14y ago

Love it, however I wish it wasn't AGPL as I really can't use that in my startup.

twodayslate 14y ago

So you have to "install" this app to chat? How is this better than IRC? Personally, I think grove.io has much more features.

w1ntermute 14y ago

Just a note: the name comes from the Japanese word 「歓談」(also pronounced "kandan"), meaning "chat."

replax 14y ago
it carries a thoroughly positive connotation with it, though, as suggested by the 「歓」。
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  Yes, it can also be translated as "pleasant talk."

nathan_f77 14y ago

This app does have a really great design, especially when a lot of open source apps are lacking in this department. I'm really impressed with Sacha's work, and have really enjoyed his "Step by Step UI Design" ebook, which details his design process for Kandan. Look forward to contributing sometime!

nyar 14y ago

What's going on with the design of http://cloudfuji.com/apps/new?app=kandan http://cloudfuji.com/apps/new?app=kandan ? Left aligned slideshow of different sized compressed images and no text. You took the time to make the client look pretty, 10 more minutes won't hurt.

manveru 14y ago

Is drag&drop the only way to upload things? Would be nice to have a <input type="file"> because I have no place to drag stuff from.

sgrove 14y ago
Currently yes. I've added a ticket https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan/issues/20 https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan/issues/20 to see how we'll fix that up. Is there a reason you don't have a place to drag from?
- zoba 14y ago
  ChromeOS, possibly?
  - sgrove 14y ago
    Ah very interesting possibility. I have no idea how Chrome OS works, or if it's something we should worry much about right now.
- manveru 14y ago
  Because I use my terminal as file manager, and urxvt doesn't support drag&drop yet.

sgrove 14y ago

The beautiful part of Kandan is courtesy of the design by Sacha Greif. He wrote an ebook about how he went about designing it, and it was discussed here: http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=3731135 http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=3731135 The amazing implementation is from a lot of hard work on Kevin Zettler's (my cofounder) part, who's amazing at polishing apps. Let us know your thoughts, and switch to using Kandan on Cloudfuji today :)

davedx 14y ago
Purely impersonal criticism, but I'm getting 'beautiful' fatigue from Show HN submissions. 'Beautiful' and 'amazing' in the same paragraph once sounded impressive, but now it's kind of tiresome. Like I said, this is nothing against you, it's more a general trend that I'm tired of seeing. Not everything on the web needs to be 'beautiful'.
- sgrove 14y ago
  Not everything needs to be beautiful, but we wanted to Kandan to be. We had a prototype of Kandan we called Kogo initially, but it was pretty ugly. We went out of our way to make sure that Kandan was as pleasant to use as possible, visually and functionally.
- oskarth 14y ago
  Agree. It's especially obnoxious if it comes from the author himself. It's the equivalent of having a tagline saying "I'm a smart developer who works hard" - it might be true but it's not your call, it's just a counter-signal. On second thought, I guess my criticism is more personal than yours, but I really think it's a kind of pollution that has no place in a somewhat clean community such as HN. EDIT: I do like the look of it, but I think everyone would be better of if you (you as in Cloudfuji, not the specific designer in question) used a neutral language. If someone goes on to say in the comments "That's beautiful." it's worth so much more for everyone involved.
  - sgrove 14y ago
    I didn't design Kandan, but I do think it's beautiful. And as I said, that's because of Sacha Greif's amazing work. Design in open source is - in general - sorely lacking. We want to correct that, and help herald in a new era of apps that are not only powerful, but easy to use and a joy to look at.

ghost91 14y ago

Quite nice. But you should seriously improve your registration field, I could register with an one character long password.

ghost91 14y ago
even an empty password is possible!
- sgrove 14y ago
  Talk about a nice user experience! :) In all seriousness, fixed. Thanks!

shadowz 14y ago

Really dig the design on Kandan but I wish it could be used as a front for XMPP/Jabber also.

Vekz 14y ago
This is an exciting integration that we've considered and will be exploring more in the future.
- 18pfsmt 14y ago
  May I just put forth a preference for the backend to be based on ejabberd? Perhaps the folks at Process One would be interested in collaboration, as they are a significant contributor to the project.
sgrove 14y ago
I personally would love to see it be a self-contained irc/xmpp/jabber/faye server, but all in good time. We want to make open-source beautiful, easy to access, and easily extensible. So we're releasing what we have now, with plenty of momentum towards things like providing an XMPP backend!
- ahnberg 14y ago
  I am happy to see IRC here. Way underused communication method! Certainly are things that can be improved with the protocol and services, but few people understand how useful it can be for business aswell as personal chat-needs.

ollerac 14y ago

Please don't require credit card information when you advertise a link on that page as "Launch and use Kandan now". And especially not when that credit card information is required as the second step in an initially single-step seeming sign-up process -- and also, please don't hide all of this behind a big "Launch" button.

illumin8 14y ago
If it's an open source app... where can I download the source to run it on my own server? Don't tell me it's open source, then ask me for a credit card number.
- hugs 14y ago
  https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan http://kandan.me/ http://kandan.me/
sgrove 14y ago
Credit card info is only required for the second app launch, or when you invite more than two people. We have to do that to manage our resources, but we definitely didn't want it to be the first thing you see. If you send me your account email , I'll bump you to a verified account manually so you don't hit that :) Edit: You can send it at sean@cloudfuji.com or just click on the support link in-app, and you'll get a modal form to contact us.