←back to thread

Show HN: Desktop app displaying files on a 2D canvas

(limandoc.com)
41 points limandoc | 1 comments | 18 Oct 24 12:35 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source

Hey all! I always wanted to arrange my text/markdown/pdf files on a 2D canvas and visualize them without opening all the windows. An extra feature I added is also visualizing folders within - so kind of a 3D visualization? It was also important to be an offline desktop app, rather than online tool like Miro or Mural, because once I edit files in Sublime or AdobePDF then I want changes to sync in the canvas right away.

Some technical points and lessons learned: being Android developer helped a lot with this project since I used Kotlin Multiplatform with Compose Desktop renderer (actually skiko). It runs on JVM under the hood, which was exciting at first since I can use the app on all of my Mac/Windows/Linux machines. Right? Wrong. One lesson I learned wasn’t “write once - run everywhere”, it was “write once - test everywhere; repeat”. On the other hand, using Kotlin Multiplatform will allow me easily to port to Android and port the logic to iOS.

Anyways, I released LimanDoc v1.0.3, still in Proof-Of-Concept, so I hope to get some feedback and features you think would be helpful.

I was thinking these features would be great for future releases: - adding a local LLM support to search/summarize your docs, books, videos, etc; - sync on local network (including future mobile apps) - Templates, groups, and better diagram integration like in Drawio.

Show context
pilgrim0 ◴[18 Oct 24 16:56 UTC] No.41881242[source]▶
Gave it a try on macOS.

My first impression is that it breaks expectations for common operations:

1. Two-finger sideways panning does not work, it zooms erratically; 2. Click and drag pans instead of drawing a selection box; 3. Shift + Click or Cmd + Click does not add item to selection; 4. Two-finger vertical swiping does not zoom when hovering an item; 5. The zoom disregards mouse coordinates, always anchors from the center of viewport;

Still not sure how to select multiple items. I'd recommend you get the fundamentals of navigation/edition right, otherwise it's unworkable. Even for a POC. I can't even explore the scope of built features with excitement because these issues make it super frustrating, makes me wanna give up immediatelly.

Misc:

6. I expected snap to grid; looking for the option but there's no app menu; 7. Adding icons successively stacks them on top of eachother, which is adds repositioning overhead; 8. Very easy to wrongfuly scale small items while attempting to move them; 9. I'm seeing at least 250ms of lag for openning sidebars and getting visual focus feedback;

This last one is tough feedback, please don't take it personally. I want to join the waitlist for notifications of more mature versions. But since you shipped publicly too early, it makes me question if it's worth and the team behind it can actually deliver up to my expectations. In other words, I feel like it jumped the gun. Bad first impresssion for a technical audience.

The bar for minimal UX polish nowadays is very high, all the fundamentals have to be solid, I would gladly trade a thousand features for these solid fundamentals. That's my expectation of a POC: low on features, high on polish.

If it's any conforting, consider that the only reason I bothered to test it and write this feedback (in a rest day with very acute right hand tendinitis) is because I think it's a very cool project idea.

replies(1): >>41881726 #
limandoc ◴[18 Oct 24 17:42 UTC] No.41881726[source]▶
This was very important for me, can't appreciate enough for your time trying and reviewing.

Indeed I have been focusing on features more than optimization, but I also had to spend huge amount of time with the new UI tool. For example I had to revert a lot of macOS features like two-finger panning and zooming because on Windows/Linux I would not receive an y-coordinate events from trackpad... Some key shortcuts I had to implement myself for that reason too.

I also wished that the sidebar UI lag was the only one :) There are more if high-def images and big PDFs are rendered. The UI optimization will be the primary focus for next two releases.

Regarding POC - for me it is also a business POC - I primarily want to know if other people will find the idea useful, whether there are alternatives etc. While I'm here I also want to ask what use case would you (if ever) consider using it - personal or work related?

Also feel fee to reach at info[at]limandoc.com, as for the extensive feedbacks I will give a perpetual license in the (possible) near future. Having feedbacks is primary reason for this PoC.

replies(2): >>41882285 #>>41882532 #
1. pilgrim0 ◴[18 Oct 24 18:44 UTC] No.41882285[source]▶
I would use it for organizing dossiers on a research topic. For collecting thoughts and references for things under my current scope of work. I would use it temporarily and not as a primary storage/organization system. A short term memory aid if you will. In this context the number of canvases I would be creating/destroying would be high. The distinct killer feature for me is just being able to layout multimedia files neatly in the canvas. The neatly part is very important to me, meaning I care deeply about media taking a discrete amount of grid cells and filling them up perfectly. I’m used to CAD and design tools where you have complete control of metrics, alignment and spacing. I wouldn’t care for arrows and labels, this ends up just being yak shaving, hard to maintain and superfluous. Your approach is what I think is an ideal desktop environment. Traditional desktops are worthless because they only have icons and do not layout files like a literal desk top. These canvases have very little value as a document for me in the sense of a permanent storage thing. Since there’s no guarantee I’ll have the app in all my devices at all times. I haven’t investigated how you do it, but in the uncommon case I needed to persist the canvas long term, if it generated a single sidecar text file describing the canvas (like obsidian and excalidraw does) then I could depend on this file and commit it alongside my repos. But I would expect the ability to have multiple of these sidecar files for the same directory tree, hence able to have multiple ways of analyzing the same set of media, reflecting different perspectives and stages of analysis. IME software that require zero commitment for using it are the best. Like text files. It feel like a tool and not a platform. So the idea of always creating a project and things like that is pure cognitive overhead to me. Even apps that are fully local and require no account do feel like a platform when they require some kind of upfront establishments prior to giving access to some or all functionality.