Participation in the competition developers Evernote - Notex.me, post-mortem
Not too brief history of participation in the competition Evernote developers.
It all started a long time ago with the purchase of a smartphone on Android. Contact book automatically shifted to GMail. And being a lazy person, I try to write down everything that can be forgotten so that my head is as free as possible. Gradually, the notes about the people with whom I communicate grew both in quantity and in size.
Everything would be fine, but notes in the gmail are plein text and, as information accumulates, readability all fell and fell ... In addition, htc desire, when linking the contact to an account on Facebook, saves in this field a xml fragment with information about the connection.
')
I wanted to somehow solve this issue, but then time is short, then laziness. Clearly not enough magic kick in the ass.
And so... One fine morning, about two months ago, Evernote announced a developer competition. And I have no reason not to do what I have long wanted.
The decision was made, a mountain of optimism and a month and a half ahead.
What I wanted:
- In Gmail, instead of the standard notes field, a WYSIWYG editor appears in which you can create full-fledged notes with formatting, pictures and links.
- Works in most browsers.
- Notes should be readable from a computer and phone without installing anything.
Solution Vision:
- Notes are stored in Evernote, which is already installed on the phone, supports formatting and has a web version in case there is no client. And the direction of the competition to push it.
- The transformation of the standard field of notes in the extended using plug-ins to browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Opera).
- For those browsers for which there is no extension - the ability to create notes on the project website.
The implementation rested on three problems:
One and a half calendar months. But the main work has not been canceled. You can only prepare on weekends and after work. At the time of the launch of the experience of developing plugins for browsers - 0, experience with the evernote API - 0, experience with the Google API - 0, which again takes time.
I had to cut, cut and once again cut the set of planned chips, and the plug-in to do only for FF.
Like many programmers, I'm not a designer at all. I decided to get by with customizing one of the free templates. Controversial decision. Now I am inclined to think that it was worth finding a designer.
Free reading in English is enough in many cases, but this is not one of them. Thanks to Ira ( Dirin ) for helping to create the English version.
Implementation language: php. Not that I thought it was the best language, but it is good enough for many tasks.
Server: nginx + php-fpm.
Editor: cleditor
Cross Domain Interaction: easyXDM
The thirteenth of July. All that was done was completed, the main bugs were corrected, the project was tested for efficiency on the evernote combat servers, the application was sent.
It turned out like this: notex.me
And here is a video with a description of the possibilities:
After that there were ten days of waiting and monitoring.
On the 19th there were two video views from the states. But the logs and google analytics said that only google bot went to the site from people I didn’t know. All registered users are friends and acquaintances.
Because of the absence of me in the list of finalists, I was morally ready.
It is terribly interesting, what I cut off, that the matter did not even come to the consideration of the site, but I already probably don’t recognize it. If someone from evernote can share this information - I will be very happy.
Looking at the prize fund of the competition, an idea involuntarily arose.Bring me the priest's overseas monster right now, now I’ll get into the final, and then you can fight for the main prize. It didn’t work out, because we ’ll go a long way - Bring me the little scarlet flower from August - systematic completion of the service and bringing it to the general public, if possible.
1. Limited time is great. Guaranteed does not allow the project to go into stagnation and allows you to highlight what is really important and what can be left for later.
2. A high-quality API and good documentation for it is great. Allows developers to understand it even in a short time.
3. Sometimes a step forward is the result of a good kick in the ass. Now, at least, I have a service that I really missed, for which many thanks to Evernote.
Comments and suggestions on the project are welcome.
Prehistory
It all started a long time ago with the purchase of a smartphone on Android. Contact book automatically shifted to GMail. And being a lazy person, I try to write down everything that can be forgotten so that my head is as free as possible. Gradually, the notes about the people with whom I communicate grew both in quantity and in size.
Everything would be fine, but notes in the gmail are plein text and, as information accumulates, readability all fell and fell ... In addition, htc desire, when linking the contact to an account on Facebook, saves in this field a xml fragment with information about the connection.
')
I wanted to somehow solve this issue, but then time is short, then laziness. Clearly not enough magic kick in the ass.
And so... One fine morning, about two months ago, Evernote announced a developer competition. And I have no reason not to do what I have long wanted.
Start
The decision was made, a mountain of optimism and a month and a half ahead.
What I wanted:
- In Gmail, instead of the standard notes field, a WYSIWYG editor appears in which you can create full-fledged notes with formatting, pictures and links.
- Works in most browsers.
- Notes should be readable from a computer and phone without installing anything.
Solution Vision:
- Notes are stored in Evernote, which is already installed on the phone, supports formatting and has a web version in case there is no client. And the direction of the competition to push it.
- The transformation of the standard field of notes in the extended using plug-ins to browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Opera).
- For those browsers for which there is no extension - the ability to create notes on the project website.
Process
The implementation rested on three problems:
Time
One and a half calendar months. But the main work has not been canceled. You can only prepare on weekends and after work. At the time of the launch of the experience of developing plugins for browsers - 0, experience with the evernote API - 0, experience with the Google API - 0, which again takes time.
I had to cut, cut and once again cut the set of planned chips, and the plug-in to do only for FF.
Design
Like many programmers, I'm not a designer at all. I decided to get by with customizing one of the free templates. Controversial decision. Now I am inclined to think that it was worth finding a designer.
Localization
Free reading in English is enough in many cases, but this is not one of them. Thanks to Ira ( Dirin ) for helping to create the English version.
TTX
Implementation language: php. Not that I thought it was the best language, but it is good enough for many tasks.
Server: nginx + php-fpm.
Editor: cleditor
Cross Domain Interaction: easyXDM
Result
The thirteenth of July. All that was done was completed, the main bugs were corrected, the project was tested for efficiency on the evernote combat servers, the application was sent.
It turned out like this: notex.me
And here is a video with a description of the possibilities:
After that there were ten days of waiting and monitoring.
On the 19th there were two video views from the states. But the logs and google analytics said that only google bot went to the site from people I didn’t know. All registered users are friends and acquaintances.
Because of the absence of me in the list of finalists, I was morally ready.
It is terribly interesting, what I cut off, that the matter did not even come to the consideration of the site, but I already probably don’t recognize it. If someone from evernote can share this information - I will be very happy.
What's next
Looking at the prize fund of the competition, an idea involuntarily arose.
findings
1. Limited time is great. Guaranteed does not allow the project to go into stagnation and allows you to highlight what is really important and what can be left for later.
2. A high-quality API and good documentation for it is great. Allows developers to understand it even in a short time.
3. Sometimes a step forward is the result of a good kick in the ass. Now, at least, I have a service that I really missed, for which many thanks to Evernote.
Comments and suggestions on the project are welcome.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/124991/
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