Ideas Wanted!

[KynloStephen66515]

Anybody got any cool ideas for Software creations for NANY 2015?  I am drawing a complete blank here

Obviously any ideas posted here would serve a huge purpose to anybody else wanting to make something for NANY and is staring at the same brick wall as me

Cheers!

~Stephen

[TaoPhoenix]

Hi Stephen.

This will be a bit of a silly post just to break the ice, but it has 20% truth behind it.

I have become fairly impressed with what people can get done in 2-3 days with Ludum Dare, so 1 man times lots of days should be even better!

I think a couple of hysterically funny political games about the corporations and Edward Snowden and the NSA and Facebook and all that jazz are really due soon now. Brutally re-paraphrased, "what tyrannies fear is mockeries and laughter". So there could be a couple of ways to take it -- play the NSA agent who has to survey stuff, play a company trying to keep market share, or play a lone hapless citizen trying to stay safe!

[40hz]

Hmm...

How about a good but basic standalone bookmark manager. Ideally one that stored its data in a text or xml file. Most of the old ones have either disappeared or are no longer actively developed. Or they have everything plus the kitchen sink included. I'd just be looking for folders in a tree, the site name, site URL, description/note field, and maybe be allowed some category tags. Hot key popup and the ability to capture the URL of whatever page is currently displayed in the browser would be a definite plus.

[superboyac]

Hmm...

How about a good but basic standalone bookmark manager. Ideally one that stored its data in a text or xml file. Most of the old ones have either disappeared or are no longer actively developed. Or they have everything plus the kitchen sink included. I'd just be looking for folders in a tree, the site name, site URL, description/note field, and maybe be allowed some category tags. Hot key popup and the ability to capture the URL of whatever page is currently displayed in the browser would be a definite plus.

i just had a 30 minute discussion on this yesterday!
I totally support this idea.  I'll add:
simple syncing with all devices and browsers, ideally no plugins needed.

And this feature, which is very unrealistic, but would be awesome:
ability to search ONLY in your bookmarks for keywords.  Or just the sites that are bookmarked.  Man, I would love that.

[rgdot]

Not saying it is what you want or hope but Link Collector is pretty simple and decent http://www.portablebookmarkmanager.com/

As for ideas, the thing I need most these days is related to text, csv, mysql and conversions in such formats. If by chance anybody cares I will explain further but its probably impossible, impractical and/or solves my unique need only.

[TaoPhoenix]

Not saying it is what you want or hope but Link Collector is pretty simple and decent http://www.portablebookmarkmanager.com/

As for ideas, the thing I need most these days is related to text, csv, mysql and conversions in such formats. If by chance anybody cares I will explain further but its probably impossible, impractical and/or solves my unique need only.

Hi Rgdot,

This will be a bit left field of a post, but it's hopefully a tip that could advise you sometime. Have you ever taken your desired software/goal to an outsourcing shop like oDesk? Sure there's a range on there of bad to good devs, but to my mind it at least gets some of the doubt out. Being purely ethical, you post your desired project, and when the replies come back, after you weed out a couple of "yes men", the first wave tells you if it is impractical, (little is impossible, only impractical to high degrees!!), and then they don't care if it solves your unique need only. Everyone has unique needs.

An idea I have vaguely pondered is tag-teaming DC guys with the outsource guys. I've talked a bit here and there about "coding lunches". NANY seems to be the once-a-year coding lunch here, bigger than the quick coding snacks. It's a bit of a risk, to commit to a NANY coding lunch.

But let's say you spin it once through a couple of those freelancers. You'll get info back if it's doable or not. Maybe only for a couple hundred bucks.

And here is a bit of where the koala (not as bad as an elephant and far cuter) in the room is. There's a weird part of Internet Culture that likes stuff for "free". (For varying interpretations of free.) I coined the metaphor about coding snacks vs lunches to help separate where someone's genius creating a script in x hours drifts over into a beautiful but time-chewing app.

And I think when people need custom tools do do whatever saves themselves tons of headache but is low reach, be ready to spend a "few" bucks. The way you phrase it is something like "give me feedback and a three hour mock-up". Across X devs, that should be enough to spot some of the worst pitfalls, then you go to your secret DC enclave armed with 3rd level questions, rather than the opener.

You get to say stuff like (made up gibberish coming) "So I posted my idea, two wanted to do it in C++, one wanted reg C, one wanted Python. Three of them said X, Y, and H are a problem. The fourth agreed H was a problem but he had A, B, and Q concerns. Here's three mockups, two in C++, the C guy bowed out, and one in Python. So what do you guys think?"

[rgdot]

Thanks, you are right of course. I will eventually have to go the way you describe or just abandon the project altogether.

[y2kusuma]

Hmm...

How about a good but basic standalone bookmark manager. Ideally one that stored its data in a text or xml file. Most of the old ones have either disappeared or are no longer actively developed. Or they have everything plus the kitchen sink included. I'd just be looking for folders in a tree, the site name, site URL, description/note field, and maybe be allowed some category tags. Hot key popup and the ability to capture the URL of whatever page is currently displayed in the browser would be a definite plus.

i just had a 30 minute discussion on this yesterday!
I totally support this idea.  I'll add:
simple syncing with all devices and browsers, ideally no plugins needed.

And this feature, which is very unrealistic, but would be awesome:
ability to search ONLY in your bookmarks for keywords.  Or just the sites that are bookmarked.  Man, I would love that.

I would like to add too:
syncing with online services: pinboard, diigo or xmarks

[skwire]

simple syncing with all devices and browsers, ideally no plugins needed.

And this feature, which is very unrealistic, but would be awesome:
ability to search ONLY in your bookmarks for keywords.  Or just the sites that are bookmarked.  Man, I would love that.

syncing with online services: pinboard, diigo or xmarks

Kinda blows 40Hz's "basic" and "standalone" requirements right out of the water, eh?  

[ewemoa]

How about a good but basic standalone bookmark manager. Ideally one that stored its data in a text or xml file.

Architecture (i.e. protocols and formats) to manage bookmarks independent of browser.  Extend with plugins -- even UI so text-mode as well as browser-based operation possible.  Multi-platform too.

Except perhaps for the core, we write plugins contributing different functionality (e.g. UI for management, different browser backend support, etc.) for this NANY

40hz's requirements get fulfilled by architecture + a small number of plugins. Anything extra is icing!

(We can choose to ship different combinations of the core and plugins too.)

please note...

the smily!

[40hz]

^ideally you'd eventually charge something for it too. 

[Renegade]

Oh, I have an idea!

Some software that █████  ███ ██████ ████ ████ ██ █ ██████ █████ █████████ ██ ████ ███ █ █████ ████.

Now, that would be cool! 

[KynloStephen66515]

Oh, I have an idea!

Some software that █████  ███ ██████ ████ ████ ██ █ ██████ █████ █████████ ██ ████ ███ █ █████ ████.

Now, that would be cool! 

[ewemoa]

Yes, definitely, some software that automatically restores censored content, with an option to generate humorous and/or serious alternatives - extra credit for anonymizing the original content by tracking down and scrubbing the tracking db content.  Plus health, happiness, and peace for all!

Now, THAT would be cool!

[rgdot]

May or may not be practical for NANY 

Offline tool to create infographics then export to image or other possible formats.
Portrait or landscape layout chosen then user can import images, choose from a variety of effects, bars, charts, icons and other shapes, add text, move to position and export. There are online tools that do this like infogr.am that I know of.

Example


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[crabby3]

Anybody got any cool ideas for Software creations for NANY 2015?  I am drawing a complete blank here

Obviously any ideas posted here would serve a huge purpose to anybody else wanting to make something for NANY and is staring at the same brick wall as me

Cheers!

~Stephen

What's your forte... games? 

[KynloStephen66515]

Anybody got any cool ideas for Software creations for NANY 2015?  I am drawing a complete blank here

Obviously any ideas posted here would serve a huge purpose to anybody else wanting to make something for NANY and is staring at the same brick wall as me

Cheers!

~Stephen

What's your forte... games? 

Meh, I found a NANY project now lol - I think this one (SlackyApp) is going to give me plenty to be getting on with

[c.gingerich]

I'll give the bookmark manager a shot. Not sure about syncing, but stand alone will be easy enough. I have been trying to find something for NANY and have not found the "right one" yet. Maybe this one will be a keeper.

[Dorstil]

My probably not so easy idea:
Create some sort of program to filter out the foistware/PUPs from the CNET downloader (or the countless imitators like it) so one can get stuff from such sites without having to try to uninstall the host of malware that comes with it!

[TaoPhoenix]

My probably not so easy idea:
Create some sort of program to filter out the foistware/PUPs from the CNET downloader (or the countless imitators like it) so one can get stuff from such sites without having to try to uninstall the host of malware that comes with it!

I'll add the suggestion that you try to skip the Cnet version, and sometimes in a little corner they put a link into "original site" which avoids all their junk.

But yes, overall, CNEt-ization and more has hurt downloads!

[mouser]

This reminds me of an idea I had that is related, that I would love to see someone do for NANY -- write a DLL that a developer can call from an installation setup script that will detect if the installer is running inside one of these wrappers like cnet downloader, and ABORT the setup with a nice message to the user telling them why the program is not being installed and directing them where to visit to do the proper download.

It seems to me that this will make it possible for coders to protect their apps from being wrapped in these crap addition downloads, and force software download sites to offer the original installers.

[fenixproductions]

Idea for Autohotkey: GUI exporter.

There are a lot of tools (ex. WinSpy) which help with getting information about window controls for any application but none of them can export details.
It would be nice to just click on window/control and have all its details (including children controls) exported to XML.
With a little more work we could transform such XML to SVG, HTML and so on.

Good idea for wireframing/prototyping IMHO.

[c.gingerich]

Oooh. I like that idea! I smell another NANY app I may take on..... I have list building up! LOL

I already have the backend, just need to have it export and make a few tweaks.

[fenixproductions]

I already have the backend, just need to have it export and make a few tweaks.

If it could build controls tree (ex. Form1 > tab > panel > list > list items) it would be awesome.
With some XML transforms anyone would be able to "convert" their apps to HTML files and use them for help/tutorials.

[pillbug]

.