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Show HN: MonkeyMind – A shortcut-driven to-do list for your Mac's menu bar

99 points| startingpoint | 5 years ago |apps.apple.com

51 comments

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Bogdanp|5 years ago

Congrats on launching!

I have to say, though, this looks uncannily like my own app, Remember, that I launched a few months ago:

* https://remember.defn.io/

* https://apps.apple.com/ro/app/remember-quick-reminders/id149...

* https://github.com/bogdanp/remember

Right down to the key bindings and some of the marketing copy[1].

[1]: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/remember-6

danpalmer|5 years ago

Remember looks great.

> This application is not Open Source. I'm providing the source code here because I want users to be able to see the code they're running and even change and build it for themselves if they want to. In that vein, you're free to read, build and run the application yourself, on your own devices, but please don't share any built artifacts with others.

Minor bit of feedback, it would be great to add a licence file to GitHub to expose this a bit more clearly and in a more standard way. I have no problem with this choice, but I can see some users missing this licence-esque bit of the README.

marc|5 years ago

FWIW, in terms of user interface I think we’re all consciously or subconsciously inspired by the apps we use everyday such as Spotlight and Alfred.

For example, here’s my todo list menubar app launched many months before Remember: https://wip.chat/menubar

I bet other people will reply with similar looking apps launched months before mine :)

reacharavindh|5 years ago

No affiliation with either of you. But, it does not look the same to me. The linked HN post is a simple MacOS top bar tool that shows my list of to-dos that may be activated by key bindings if I wish.

Yours looks more like the default Cmd+Space action - Spotlight available in MacOS.

I personally prefer the simplicity of the app that lives in the top bar as it comes with lower cognitive load by not needing to remember some keywords to summon your tool that is not in my active view.

Syzygies|5 years ago

Remember requires 10.15, according to my App Store. I bought one of the first thousand Mac 128k's, suffered through systems 1-9, bought dozens of Macs and clones since, and from what I've read I have no intentions of upgrading to 10.15 till I need to replace hardware.

startingpoint|5 years ago

Hey HN, Benedict the developer here.

I built MonkeyMind as a scratchpad for thoughts while in deep focus. Whenever something pops up in my mind, I needed a place to put it and get back to work.

Pen and paper can do the trick, but something with a Spotlight-like shortcut would be better.

And that is what MonkeyMind does. A simple global keyboard shortcut to add items and an app that lives in the menubar and gets out of your way.

Let me know what you think!

myrloc|5 years ago

I really like the idea. However, the fact that I can only purchase it from the Mac App Store is a blocker for me, since I primarily use my work Mac, where I'm logged in w/ my work Apple ID. Seeing as there's no way to share or transfer apps between my work Apple account(s) and my personal Apple account, I'd have to buy two copies, which I don't want to do.

BrowserMeeting|5 years ago

Benedict - this app looks awesome! Will install this when I get OS X reinstalled on my Mac!

I have been looking for something like this that keeps me out of apps while I am in code mode!

oblongx|5 years ago

I really like the app but that monkey icon turns me off big time, allow me to not have the monkey and I'll buy it for sure.

ebcase|5 years ago

Congrats on making this, it looks slick.

Would you consider adding sync functionality, so that the same list works on multiple machines?

revertts|5 years ago

It looks like there's a single 5-star review by "Benedict B." Did you review your own app?

Brajeshwar|5 years ago

Cool. Downloaded and using it. Nit-pick but can you please have right-click to access the setting menu?

There used to be a dead-simple MacOS App called Anxiety that does something similar to this but it somehow died.

I don't use TO-DO Apps to do my tasks, I calendar pretty much everything but I want a very simple task-lister for things such as "Call Ram", "Remind Kid to learn to Type", etc.

This serves the purpose.

I tried Tot[1], another interesting simple tool to do a similar function but MonkeyMind is simpler for me to for these small tasks.

Feature Request: Can we make this have a Powerpack option for Alfred. So, I can keep this running in the background but use Alfred to add tasks. This is the same request I asked the Command-E[2] guys too.

1. https://apps.apple.com/in/app/tot/id1491071483?mt=12

2. https://getcommande.com

startingpoint|5 years ago

Thanks for the kind words. I'm glad MonkeyMind is useful to you.

Quick question about the right-click: What exactly do you mean? Right click on the settings icon or anywhere in the list?

As for Alfred: it's probably simpler to just set up a separate keyboard shortcut for MonkeyMind.

skinnymuch|5 years ago

Tot it doesn’t seem like keyboard shortcuts work to go between the 8 or so diff notes? Hoping for things that are mostly just keyboard.

Thanks for the options.

swah|5 years ago

TickTick has a nice "quick capture" experience too. Will try this.

-- edit --

This has a super reasonable price of 2.5 EUR in Brazil. I forget the term now but its of course a discount due to lower purchasing power.

How does Apple calculate that?

athenot|5 years ago

This is a much more polished version of what I do, which is to keep a note (in Notes app) called Brain Dump, and I jot down anything that is cluttering my mind, which I hold on for fear of forgetting. Just the act of writing it down helps; it's a reassurance that it's ok to let go of those thoughts because they are saved elsewhere.

What I like with MonkeyMind is the minimal amount of friction involved, as well as automatic timestamp.

aantix|5 years ago

I thought I was the only one.

I’ve had repetitious thoughts and originally thought they were repeating because there was some thing missing, some nuance that I hadn’t explored.

But once I would write them down, sometimes they would just go away. It must have been a fear of forgetting.

startingpoint|5 years ago

I had the same notes file, and a piece of paper where I would write stuff like that down. I'm glad you like it!

drcongo|5 years ago

This is definitely something I need, thanks. One small feature request: Would be nice to have a keyboard shortcut to show the list too.

startingpoint|5 years ago

Great idea. What exactly would you do with that? Simply open up the list and look at the past entries?

ybahubali2018|5 years ago

This is really nice good job.

I have one suggestion. It would be nice if this app can fetch data from reminders app of MacOS and put them in the menu bar along with the ones added.

startingpoint|5 years ago

I like that idea, but I also want to keep the user experience really simple. Would you want to display a single list from Reminders? Or show all reminders alongside?

And the other way around: would you add to Reminders from MonkeyMind?

pdepip|5 years ago

Awesome! Looks similar to a short-cut driven note taking tool I'm building - https://mmap.it

Major difference is mine is focused on longer form documentation and comes with an inline markdown editor. Congrats on the launch!

sgeorge96|5 years ago

Should have named the app goldfish.

haack|5 years ago

Looks slick, great job on launching!

Any possibility of a way to purchase outside of the AppStore? I appreciate this is extra effort for possibly little extra reach but I have managed to survive without signing into my icloud and hopefully won't ever.

startingpoint|5 years ago

Not as of right now. I am considering other distribution channels like Gumroad. Would that work for you?

conradludgate|5 years ago

Damn I love this. I think I might save this for when I get a mac, but since I'm on Linux right now, I'm going to copy this idea with my rofl menu I think

nikolatt|5 years ago

Looks great, thank you for sharing!

A question I have about macOS development - where should I start in order to learn how to make menu bar and shortcut driven UIs?

programmarchy|5 years ago

Please, don't forget about the Dock!

I personally hate when apps crowd my Menu Bar when they don't need to e.g. Dropbox, NordVPN, Keybase etc. I always try to disable the Menu Bar icon for an app if possible, and if I can't I will delete the app if I can find a suitable alternative.

There are so many advantages to a dock icon:

- Richer, colorful icon

- Support for badges, configurable by user

- Won't be hidden by the system (macOS will hide icons in a crowded Menu Bar)

- Can be hidden by the user (Dock Autohide)

- Icon can be repositioned by the user

The Apple HIG makes it pretty clear that most apps don't need the Menu Bar, and should use the Dock instead. But we're in a vicious circle where users have been trained to use the Menu Bar (even though it's inferior), so that's what developers do.

mertnesvat|5 years ago

Looks nice and slick will give it a try. Thanks for sharing Benedict :)

chriswphoto|5 years ago

I would give up Todoist if I could view todos on my phone as well :)

startingpoint|5 years ago

Maybe I should consider adding sync and creating MonkeyMind for iOS as well...