For somebody who loves minimalism, even when Engrave is still in a very early stage, this editor is a mess and definitely doesn't work for the post-PC era of both Tim Cook and Phil Schiller's bravadao.
Or maybe the bravado is entirely mine by actually trying to fully live that post-PC life and generally failing miserably at it if it weren't for having embraced, slowly but surely, a life with increased focus and lessened multitasking.
Yet, some distraction-free writing is usually an integral part of that and but that isn't on offer here at Engrave. Even not when puttin said post-PC device on its side, or maybe I actually meant in portrait mode.
While this is merely a first post, the selection of category based on a pre-existing list of categories - not integrated in any onboarding flow - is confusing to an experienced user, go figure what lesser experienced users may think of it.
Add to that the inability to upload images at first sight, complete without integration of for example imgur API, the lack of any mention of Markdown features.
@noisy, there's a lot of work ahead yet.
But the beginnings are nice and already have some cool features. And some so far glaring oversights.
But let's stay open-minded and see where Engrave's road goes in the near future.
Luckily I did discover that preview icon. At least, I hope that's what it actually is. The editor does highlight Markdown markup though, so I think that Engrave assumes that every blogger is fully aware of Markdown and de facto uses Markdown. That would indeed be a rather lovely world.
Yes, yes... I know Markdown and categories are mentioned in that cluttering sidebar. Yes.
Thanks for nothing that, I guess. It's probably good enough for the internal Steem meta kitchen world but it's below par in 2018 to attract new and more users.
PPS: I can haz likecoin?
Thanks for trying Engrave and for useful feedback. I have a few additional questions and answers :)
What is your smartphone model? I tried it on different Android phones with Chrome browser and it's working like a charm.
That's a very good point. Never thought about it in that way. Surely need to be fixed. Thanks!
Drag and drop image upload will be introduced shortly :) Just give us some time :)
That's right, there should any info about it.
Yeah, we are definitely aware of it :) But don't worry, we would love to introduce more and more features and fixes. But it takes time so everyone needs to be patient :) We're going to do our best!
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It’s a great start. Looking round I’m not sure it can be called a MVP (Google Analytics integration definitely isn’t MVP level, neither are browser notifications IMHO) but I think the design needs to be challenged.
The right sidebar does include all content required, but that actually belongs in an onboarding tour. At that moment it can totally be ditched. A collapsible left sidebar would also be an improvement. WordPress pre-Gutenberg didn’t get much right when it comes to providing an enjoyable writing experience but it did get that collapsible navigation right. Yay, I guess.
I wrote the post on an iPad Pro (2016 model), using Brave. An additional reflection for editors: when the editor makes use of buttons, the button bar should become sticky upon scroll. What’s the use of writing 800 words and needing to scroll up to find the preview button? At which point there is no indication that the preview requires inline scrolling. Yes, I’m nitpicking now. But I was slightly disappointed given the usual clean design of your projects, with ample white space. :D
Edit: Don’t sweat the features, sweat the UX. Users, and even more so a rather inexperienced crowd as Steem’s, will always want at the very least the kitchen sink and two microwaves as well thrown in. Most features will distract. Be lean, validate what you develop rather than developing for the sake of.
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Thank you for really useful feedback.
That's the main reason we actually published our work already - to get some information from real users. We do have a blogging background personally but everyone is using it in a different way. And we want to develop things that are useful for other bloggers.
I will investigate it.
Good point, I will change that.
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From my experience there’s a massive risk in this:
While feedback is important and valuable, in my experience the roadmap is best validated by offering the users the option to select what they want. Otherwise you may end up with the usual Uservoice/Get Satisfaction “peer pressure” case where the top 5 features are totally not part of the spirit of the app you’re building. At which point you may give the impression that you don’t care about the users, yet it’s rather one of design experience and knowing what works. I’m pretty sure the open sourced Write.as software (Write Freely) didn’t hit the top of hacker news because of user feedback but rather because of continued vision of the team. ;)
Even Iconfactory shut down their Twitterrific public uservoice because of the peer pressure it creates on the team.
As for the iPad thing... yes, normally modern tablets are fully fledged screens and there should be no mobile resolution pushed to them. But in 3 columns mode it doesn’t work, not at modern font-sizes.
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Don't get my previous comment wrong. We won't do everything people say and don't abandon everything which people don't like. It's not our first project and we think we know how to balance user feedback along with our vision :) We will do our best to achieve our goals but with respect to users real needs.
In that case it is great to know that there is a problem with UX flow from your point of view. There is a lot of things we could not get because it's our design and we thougth it's ok. And we're only humans and we do mistakes :)
And small things like collapsable sidebar and sticky buttons may do UX much better but we need to get that kind of feedback from bloggers :)
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Your comments are really thoughtful. Thank you for spending a time to let us know what you think about Engrave. As @nicniezgrublem already said, some of those things are already on our list to fix them, other will be investigated by us :)
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