What's next at Hog Bay Software? Vote!

I hope this will be a little fun and also help me better understand where you’d like me to spend my programming time.

I’ve still got a release or two of smaller things for TaskPaper Mac, but then I need to start picking and choosing from a wide variety of potential directions for both TaskPaper Mac and Hog Bay Software in general.

These polls are for information gathering purposes. There are many factors that will help me decide what I worked on next. Poll results will be one of those things.

TaskPaper for Mac Poll:

  • Animations: fold, move, focus
  • Action Bar for selecting items, scripts, etc
  • Reminders.app Integration
  • Improve Documentation
  • Support multiple themes, sharing, options
  • Add inline formatting, bold, italic, links
  • Add ordered and checkbox item types
  • Better single document support, quick entry
  • Multiple Documents in Single Window
  • Sidebar work, better support lots projects

0 voters

Hog Bay Software Poll:

  • Focus on TaskPaper Mac
  • Start TaskPaper iOS
  • Start TaskPaper Web
  • Start WriteRoom 4 Mac

0 voters

2 Likes

Thanks for seeking feedback. On which apps to focus time on, my feeling is that there are already several very capable TaskPaper clients for iOS (like Editorial), and the platform in general is low-margin, with a huge number of to-do apps already. I personally wouldn’t put time into it.

(Oh, and never take anyone else’s advice on what to do with your business, naturally. :slight_smile: )

7 Likes

Regarding Taskpaper for iOS: In my experience, the “text-editor-style” Taskpaper clients for iOS (Taskpaper, Taskmator, Editorial) are really clunky and a pain to use (especially on small screens).

I think that Listacular is the only client that got it right, if there´s a new Taskpaper for iOS, i hope it cuts features in favour of a great ui.

3 Likes

Totally agree i use them Both on my iPad and editorial and Taskmaster can’t match OSX Look and feel of TP3, i know there will be an update of 1Writer which will support TP files. And hopefully there will someone think something to develop an descent iOS app or Web Client …

Sit and wait for now :frowning:

Yep, Listacular is still what I use on the go (it’s iPhone only…) where I rarely edit my lists. It turns TaskPapers plain text into a touch interface. Featurewise, you can drag tasks, add new items, focus on tags - that’s about it. The one “power user” feature it offers is to add due tags (which are not displayed as tags) and notify the user of due tasks. It also offers a URL scheme. It feels quite lightweight and is easy to use, although I’d like to have better filtering and buttons to quickly toggle tags.

In other words, I’d love to see a new TaskPaper on iOS which focuses on a great touch experience and notifications, on doing tasks more than on managing them.

(There are also too (identical) apps by Lau Brothers which also support taskpaper files and focus on touch. I don’t find them usable, but they too have that lightweight feel.)

This wasn’t in your list, but I’d like better printing support (specifically, margins and line spacing options).

1 Like

Francisco Cantu’s TaskAgent also transforms plain text lists into a touch UI. It’s got some rough edges, but I do like his approach. Too bad it’s not compatible with TP’s syntax…

I agree with Matt in terms of the low margin of creating yet another iOS app. I think it was a good decision to scrap the old code base and focus on the desktop. If you can reuse the Electron editing component in iOS and improvements to the editor can easily be transferred between the two I’d look into that. That being said, I don’t really know much about running a business!

1 Like

Matt makes a good point about the low margin of iOS apps that seems to be corroborated by other 1st hand accounts I’ve read from others. That said, there may still be merit in an iOS app in this instance for the following reasons:

  1. The current iOS apps for taskpaper are really not great - Listacular is the best of the bunch
  2. General task managers are not competing in the same niche as TaskPaper would as they are not syncing directly to text files - TaskPaper has a niche
  3. Within that niche, Hog Bay Software is the most prominent brand due to its historic involvement - that’s not something every app gets to start with
  4. A good iOS app is likely to have positive spin-offs for your (higher margin) Mac app due to the “ecosystem effect”

FWIW: I would purchase TaskPaper for iOS.

I definitely agree with Matt’s last point about not in the final reckoning listening to anyone but your inner-self on what you want to build - there are a myriad of things that may be important to you!

I may be in the minority among typical TaskPaper/WriteRoom/Folding Text customers, but for what it’s worth . . . I use a Mac at home but am stuck using Windows at work for the foreseeable future. There’s so little good software available on Windows (and I’m limited in what I can install on work machine anyway) that I’m increasingly drawn to Web apps that are low-friction and nice to use across Windows, Mac, and iOS (e.g., Quip, Todoist). That was my reasoning for voting for TaskPaper Web…

1 Like

I join in among those who miss a well-maintained iOS app. Editorial is a great piece of work but too generic for this purpose, while TaskMator, its potential notwithstanding, has been practically abandoned by a defensive developer who is unwilling to even acknowledge bugs and other issues, let alone fix them.

Strategically, a strong iOS app seems to me essential. TaskPaper is an aspiring standard more than it is an “app”, and it is currently only misrepresented and marginalized by apps that purport to support it but do so incompletely (e.g Listacular) or unreliably (Taskmator).

1 Like

Not in the TaskPaper for Mac Poll:

Localization would be great.

CME

I’m getting closer on supporting localization. Not there yet, but starting some work to get ready for it.

I suppose this topic is too old to have any relevance. But, in case it still matters.

I may be in the minority of TaskPaper users but … I use TaskPaper for writing. I would love to see work on making TaskPaper capable of printing formal documents. As it is, I have to take my TaskPaper drafts and move them to a word processor like Nisus in order to produce a document that I would consider professional.

All TaskPaper would need would be a way to insert a page break for printing and some way to denote a header area and a footer area. Then include automatic numbering so the document would read (on the footer) page XX of XX pages.

Everything else I can already do using the less file. Except of course for in-line formatting (bold, italics, etc.) which I confess, I just voted for.

I doubt this is the aim of @jessies development plan. But, ever hopeful, I just wanted to mention it.