"Quick View of Pieces", now cookie-driven, boolean conversion

I finished off a feature tonight. If you saw the demo video of my designer service, I showed a feature that will allow you to view all the thumbnails of a project while viewing a single "piece". As of tonight, the app now remembers if you like your thumbnails to be shown or hidden.

I ran into some trouble implementing this until I realized that when you read and write to a cookie, you have to do so with a string. I was trying to set a boolean value, and like-wise when I was reading the value out I was treating it as a boolean. Ruby no-likely. (As opposed to Coldfusion which just automatically converts the value for you.)

In order to get around this problem I wrote a little converter function. It takes a string, and converts it to a boolean. (See code here.) (For all you Ruby guys out there...) If there is an easier way of doing this, or something in Ruby that already does this conversion, please let me know.

Just want to share, OpenLaszlo = Flash 7,8,9 + DHTML

When I first heard that OpenLaszlo was going to generate DHTML, in addition to their Flash runtime I thought they were crazy. The OpenLaszlo framework (which I haven't played with since 3.0) had some bothersome quality issues (mostly with some built-in components). I thought if they couldn't get 1 front-end kicking major ass, then why would they want to add the headache of tacking on the DHTML version?

Well, they've explained it all very nicely in their blog post, Introducing Legals.

Essentially, they had to re-write a huge amount of code to take advantage of Flash 9, so they took the opportunity to make sure their compiler could generate a DHTML front end.

If I was in-charge of the project I'm not sure I would have taken the project in that direction. But hey, it's there's and good luck to them!

Last 2 Weeks, Nothing

I've been having the hardest time doing any work on my designer service over the last two weeks. My day job is very demanding mentally (working hard and late), and I'm buying a house and (trying) to sell my existing one. Basically over the last 2 weeks, the thought of more work at the end of the day is driving me crazy.

I sat down at 9:30 pm to do some work. I couldn't jump right in, so I hit the News Reader, then Digg, and then a few other sites. Now it's 10:30 pm. It's not that reading/surfing is distracting me from my work. It's that I'm having a hard time gearing up to work.

Am I finally running out of steam?

I've been at this, 1-man-software-startup-while-working-full-time-thing, for quite some time now. (Farther back than this blog goes. I've been "working on something" since I left college 4 and half years ago with sporadic multi-month breaks.)

I can't give up now.

I've come to far.

Let me see if I can't write some code tonight.

(11:45 pm update: I spent the last hour writing code. I finished implementing the active/inactive User management feature. I added some checkboxes, wrote some login/security code, and through in a business rule - you can't have less than 1 active Administrator. At least I made some progress. I got to check-off another item on my task list!)

The Underserved Design Community

I was reading the blog post, Analog Tools Foster Reflection, Creativity and Flow, and I started thinking why technology hasn't caught up to this thinking. I've seen this trend of "going analog" from a few blogs.

I know the Wacom tablet lets you use a pen to draw, but I imagine that's ackward to draw on a tablet and have the result show up on a seperate screen. There's the tablet PC, but (I'm guessing) most professional designers are using a Mac.

I wonder what kind of reaction there would be in the design community if Apple released a super-cheap tablet computer that was purpose built for sketching your ideas. It would run standard OSX, but the prominent app of the machine would be a "free thinking sketching" application. It would be the "Blockwriter" of designer applications.

Since I've started working on my designer service I've learned more and more that the
Graphic Designer, the Artist, is an underserved customer. These people spend so much time in front of a computer, it's insane. Why don't they have more tools? More specific tools to get their job done. If my designer service is a success (i.e. It allows me to grow Ataraxis Software in a way that I can work on more than 1 app.) the applications and services I can created for designers is endless. (Adobe, feel free to give me a call. We can work together on this. :) )

Now I just need to complete my app....

UI Evolution, Found Some Tweeners

I'm sure you're completely sick of me posting about my UI, but I just came across some screen shots on my hard drive of what the UI for my designer service looked like back on 4/11/06. These are shots of the UI in-between the original one, and the current version.

(These screen shots are of the actual app, not mock-ups.)

I personally find it really cool to see how the UI has evolved since the first mock-ups. When I look over these screen shots it brings back all the memories (from waaaay back, like 2 months ago) of developing it. ;)

Amen, Brother

Going On The Rails, by John Topley.

Here is my own personal, "Why I won't be developing my applications in J2EE/Java." Another blog actually quoted the following from me.

Java, cool I get it. JSP, there's like 3 different ways to do everything. Which do I learn. Application frameworks, started learning Struts - what a nightmare. Stared learning JSF - what a nightmare. Found Spring and Spring MVC, and they rocked. Crap, I need to learn Tiles too. Ok, so how does Tiles work with Spring MVC. Ok that's, cool. I only need to do 6 things everytime I make a form. (I actually have a list printed out so I won't forget all the steps.)

1 person project task management

Once I got my, MacBook Pro, I was keeping track of my outstanding project tasks with the Dashboard's "Stickies" widget. I totally loved it, until I needed to keep more than 5 or 6 things jotted down.

One day I literally stumbled upon the free application that comes with all (I guess) Mac's called, OmniOutliner. This app is insane. I totally love it. I like to refer to it as, "not a spread sheet". You can create columns and rows. The contents of each cell can contain sub cells which can include other rows or notes. The columns can be a varity of "types". And each row can be "checked off".

I should stop trying to explain the app. It comes with your Mac, so try it out if you haven't already. And if you don't have a Mac.... Well, why don't you have a Mac? :P

Designer Service Preview Video!

Linked below is a preview video of my upcoming designer service. (I still need a name! :) )

This isn't a high-end, super-produced, glossy, perfect marketing video. I've put this together because I want to share my hard work with everyone who has been following my blog. You'll see me screw up in the video, if you're paying attention you'll notice a flaw or two in the app itself. Keep in mind, this app isn't even beta-ready! (So don't be too harsh. :) )

A few notes about the UI (that I wish I mentioned during the video):

• It's gray-scale for a reason! I don't want the colors of the app to interfere with work the designer has done. (A "Version 2" feature will allow designers to customize the look of the app.)
  
• There are 3 types of "Users". Administrators, Designers, and Clients. They all have different features accessible to them. You'll notice the Designer and Client only have 2 tabs, while the Administrator has 5. You'll also notice that the only person who has access to the "Approve" button is the Client, and the Client does not have access to the "Add Piece" or "Add New Version" features.
  

Please leave your comments/questions below!

Direct link to video. I highly recommend downloading it and watching it locally.

(I made the video with the beta version of IShowU. I'll be purchasing this app shortly, it rocks!)

(Update: Thanks to Ian M. Jones for a compressed version of the video. He ran it through QuickTime Pro and shrunk it from 90 megs to 18! Thanks buddy!)

OmniDazzle

This is so damn cool.

Video of Designer Service, damn!

I was about to make a short video of my app, but when I was doing a little pre-video testing I discovered that I've broken a feature. :(

Looks like you guys will have to wait a bit longer for that video! (I know the entire Internet was just DYING to see it too. ;) )

Blockwriter, Software Mockup by Designer, for Writers

I've recently subscribed to bunch of blogs written by designers, and one of those is Khoi Vinh's, Subtraction. Khoi is the Design Director for NYTimes.com. His latest post, Overcoming Roadblocks to Blockwriter, is a follow up to a software idea he previously blogged about, Blockwriter. Being a new subscriber to his blog, I checked out the old post describing his idea.

I think the idea is really slick. It's very basic, and hits a very specific audience. If I was a bad-ass desktop software writer I'd totally build that app!