5 ms·

Ask HN: Ideas for small apps

5 points by percept 17y ago

Does anybody have ideas for apps or services they'd like to see created, especially smaller ones? Most of my ideas right now have longer development cycles (an example would be something on the scale of Thyme, discussed here yesterday, which had a six-month beta alone). Here's one: a quiz-builder for tech hiring. Would anybody find that useful? Basically the app would make it easy to create job quizzes, notify candidates and track results. Anything you want to see built?

joeld42 17y ago
I posted an idea in this thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=848766 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=848766 quoting myself: ''' Hey, this isn't my idea but I wish someone would do it. Only useful to programmers or web developers, but hey.. A little tray-app (or something) that works like this: - You select text representing a color in a text editor (i.e. something like #ff00ff, (1.0,0.0,1.0), (255,0,255) etc.. - You hit the tray app or some magic key combination and it sends a Copy message to the window, pops up a nice modern color editor, you edit the color, then you hit "Apply" and it sends a paste message with the new color formatted in the same way as the old one. This would allow gui color editing in any text field with almost any program, and sharing of palettes between programs that use different representations. This is totally doable in X11 or Windows. '''
- percept 17y ago
  Thanks, I probably should have said "Web apps." This reminds me, there's an easy way to add hexadecimal color codes to the standard OS X color picker (not the same idea as yours, just reminded me): http://wafflesoftware.net/hexpicker/ http://wafflesoftware.net/hexpicker/
keefe 17y ago
For the quiz builder, I think brainbench is commonly used for this - creating good exams is a difficult problem. I personally think contributions to existing open source is the best idea for small projects. imho most apps that are started from scratch require a while to get really useful.
- percept 17y ago
  Thanks, that's a good point. The idea was for groups with custom questionnaires, such as smaller companies, but I was concerned that canned tests wouldn't be offered and it's possible that potential users would prefer to have them. What I'd really like to do is create a couple of small but useful apps that at worst could be used as portfolio pieces, as I need to find some freelance work and most of my recent work is walled up inside organizations (another reason I never want to have to return to the enterprise world as a FTE).
  - keefe 17y ago
    Yeah, I am in a similar position. Are you working on any application of your own? I am, so most of my effort goes towards that. I am interested in the questionairre idea as well and in fact I have a polling piece of code I am working up for my portfolio right now. I just keep the portfolio stuff separate from my main work - I don't want to address issues like scalability, security, cost of servers on something that I primarily want to use as a portfolio piece. I'm contemplating something open source as a better example than some pseudo-open portfolio piece that I just use to demonstrate some basic techniques.
    - percept 17y ago
      Sounds familiar. I've been working on an app for a couple of months but am putting it on hold because my blog posts and tweets haven't generated any preliminary interest, AdWords rates in the category are too high and the development life cycle for the product is too long. Meanwhile I need to start bringing in some income so I'm hoping to find consulting work. So I'll be thinking about some more ideas (quickly, because there's not much time). Depending on the platform Heroku's Blossom plan might be a good hosting option for a portfolio app.
      - keefe 17y ago
        I don't think anybody has much interest in random people talking about software that hasn't been written yet. I barely keep up with sites that are already up and I'm pretty interested in the space... Where are you looking for the contracting work? elance/odesk/etc?

5 points by percept 17y ago

joeld42 17y ago

I posted an idea in this thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=848766 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=848766 quoting myself: ''' Hey, this isn't my idea but I wish someone would do it. Only useful to programmers or web developers, but hey.. A little tray-app (or something) that works like this: - You select text representing a color in a text editor (i.e. something like #ff00ff, (1.0,0.0,1.0), (255,0,255) etc.. - You hit the tray app or some magic key combination and it sends a Copy message to the window, pops up a nice modern color editor, you edit the color, then you hit "Apply" and it sends a paste message with the new color formatted in the same way as the old one. This would allow gui color editing in any text field with almost any program, and sharing of palettes between programs that use different representations. This is totally doable in X11 or Windows. '''

percept 17y ago
Thanks, I probably should have said "Web apps." This reminds me, there's an easy way to add hexadecimal color codes to the standard OS X color picker (not the same idea as yours, just reminded me): http://wafflesoftware.net/hexpicker/ http://wafflesoftware.net/hexpicker/

keefe 17y ago

For the quiz builder, I think brainbench is commonly used for this - creating good exams is a difficult problem. I personally think contributions to existing open source is the best idea for small projects. imho most apps that are started from scratch require a while to get really useful.

percept 17y ago
Thanks, that's a good point. The idea was for groups with custom questionnaires, such as smaller companies, but I was concerned that canned tests wouldn't be offered and it's possible that potential users would prefer to have them. What I'd really like to do is create a couple of small but useful apps that at worst could be used as portfolio pieces, as I need to find some freelance work and most of my recent work is walled up inside organizations (another reason I never want to have to return to the enterprise world as a FTE).
- keefe 17y ago
  Yeah, I am in a similar position. Are you working on any application of your own? I am, so most of my effort goes towards that. I am interested in the questionairre idea as well and in fact I have a polling piece of code I am working up for my portfolio right now. I just keep the portfolio stuff separate from my main work - I don't want to address issues like scalability, security, cost of servers on something that I primarily want to use as a portfolio piece. I'm contemplating something open source as a better example than some pseudo-open portfolio piece that I just use to demonstrate some basic techniques.
  - percept 17y ago
    Sounds familiar. I've been working on an app for a couple of months but am putting it on hold because my blog posts and tweets haven't generated any preliminary interest, AdWords rates in the category are too high and the development life cycle for the product is too long. Meanwhile I need to start bringing in some income so I'm hoping to find consulting work. So I'll be thinking about some more ideas (quickly, because there's not much time). Depending on the platform Heroku's Blossom plan might be a good hosting option for a portfolio app.
    - keefe 17y ago
      I don't think anybody has much interest in random people talking about software that hasn't been written yet. I barely keep up with sites that are already up and I'm pretty interested in the space... Where are you looking for the contracting work? elance/odesk/etc?