Big things coming - July 22, 2008 -
It’s been a little quiet around here lately. Partly that’s been on purpose, as I’ve been trying to let things settle and shake out any bugs (there have been a few reported that have been fixed).
I’ve also been quite involved with some client work, but that’s probably 75% done now. I’ve got a major new release of Mailmanagr in the works that I’m hoping to push out the door next month. It willhave a redesigned UI, as well as a few new features, that I hope you all will enjoy.
Thanks to everyone who has given Mailmanagr a try, and particularly those of you who have provided valuable feedback and kind words of encouragement!
Todos and a word about the future of Mailmanagr - June 3, 2008 -
It’s now live. Enjoy!
Over the next little while, I’m going to do a re-design to the public-facing site, and I’d also like to do some tweaks to the application interface. I think that I need to explain how certain things work in more detail and push out a few screencasts — so watch for those soon!
And in terms of business: my plan is to keep offering Mailmanagr free, except for a couple of features:
- File uploads on messages with be a “premium” feature.
- Task timing (when that’s done) will be a premium feature.
- Notifications (the people tab) will be a premium feature.
In this context, “premium feature” means that I’m looking at charging $5 per month for them. My rationale is that the first two features require paid Basecamp accounts anyhow — $5 a month isn’t overkill.
Mailmanagr is a “user focused” app — you manage yourself, not your company (as you would as an admin in Basecamp). Price-wise though, I don’t think a per-user price is fair, so that would be $5 per Basecamp site. If you start using Mailmanagr, splurge for a premium plan, and then your partner signs up, they won’t be charged (assuming you’re using the same Basecamp site).
Does that sound fair? I’d love to keep it completely free, but reality is that I have to pay for hosting, bandwidth, and development/support time. I thought that my logic of keeping it in step with Basecamp’s paid plans was okay though.
To do lists, coming soon - June 2, 2008 -
They’re most of the way there, I thought I’d give you all a preview:
What you’re seeing here:
- The subject is the name of the to-do list. If it already exists, great, items are added. If not, the list is created.
- You can assign responsibility using the people you’ve set up.
- Add one item, or add a list of items. Separate out each item in a comma-separated list.
I actually struggled a bit with the list format here. I originally had a list with stars for the bullets (just as you’d use in markdown), but on my iPhone, I had to click twice in order to get a star (once for the number keyboard, a second time for math symbols). That’s too much of a pain. It’s way faster to just type in a list. The only drawback is that I can’t (yet) have a comma in any of my todo items.
Just need to implement the interface to add in addresses for y’all (probably tomorrow), and then it’s all yours. To do lists are my last big thing to get done. I know that time tracking is still out there — but my current Basecamp account doesn’t support it. I’ve had one generous individual offer to set me up as a user on his account, which I’ll probably take him up on soon.
Milestones! - May 28, 2008 -
Mailmanagr’s hit a milestone; it now supports milestones.
I couldn’t resist phrasing it that way, but you’ll be happy to see that there’s a new tab for Milestones available now. You can set up an address for each of your projects to assign milestones.
- Put a date in the subject
- Put a milestone in the body of the message
You can (optionally) assign milestones the same way you set up notification on messages, using your people tab. Milestones can be assigned to individuals, or to companies (but not to multiple individuals).
Enjoy.
Twitter & update - April 13, 2008 -
If you’d prefer to follow Mailmanagr on Twitter, you can follow along here.
I ran into a little hitch with my hosting this week, but I’m working with them to get it resolved. Should be ironed out soon. At the risk of completely shooting myself in the foot, I’m going to aim to have that beta ready for you all at the end of the week. That may be Friday, or it may be Sunday, or it may be next Wednesday (just kidding… I hope). I’m really dying to get some people on it and testing it out.
Logo - April 6, 2008 -
While waiting for disk utility to check over my computer today, and hopefully fix some of the random crashes the Finder’s been giving me, I started to sketch out some logo ideas.
I wanted to play off of the Basecamp logo a little because, really, Mailmanagr isn’t much of a product without Basecamp. Here’s a (very preliminary) sketch of what I came up with:
Looking at it now, I think the mailbox needs to stand up straight, instead of slant downwards like it does. Let me know what you think of the concept in the comments.
Progress update #1 - March 30, 2008 -
It’s not really a progress update, as there has been no initial discussion of where things sit with Mailmanagr so far. As I mentioned in my first post, the 37signals mention came as a bit of a surprise, and I’m definitely pretty early in development so far.
That said, what exactly does “pretty early” mean?
Pretty early for me means that I’ve got a database set up on my development server. I’ve got some working code that handles incoming e-mail messages and posts them to the appropriate place. At the time of the 37signals product blog post, that working code did to dos, and milestones. Since then, I’ve also added Messages (with file attachments) and built in better error checking on things.
What will version 1 look like?
It’s hard to say exactly at this point. It’s not likely I’ll be cutting any of the work I’ve already done, and I’ll definitely be adding in the ability to reply to messages and have comments posted (one way or another). One of the things I always neglect and leave to the end is all of the “account management” stuff — setting up e-mail addresses, accounts and projects, but that’s pretty necessary stuff and will have to be tackled before I open it to testers.
In terms of timeline, I’m going to have to take the 37signals approach on this one and say that it will be available when it’s done. I’ve got a couple of projects on the go at the moment that need to take some priority, but Mailmanagr is going to receive daily attention over the next while.
Domains & FAQs - March 30, 2008 -
Based on a couple of the comments I’ve received, I just wanted to clear a few things up right at the outset:
- This is not a 37signals project. I don’t work for 37signals, I can’t make any changes to Basecamp, or the way it works. I’m just a member of the general public with access to the same documentation on the API as everyone else, no special access/treatment.
- 37signals owns the domain names for projectpath.com, grouphub.com, clientsection.com, updatelog.com and seework.com. Because of that, the e-mail integration I build in will have to use different domains (the part after the “@” in the e-mail address. So far I’ve got 3 domains, and may go after more in the future if need be. Currently, you will be able to setup e-mail addresses @mailmanagr.com, @projectmail.net or @mailsection.com (I tried to have some similarity to the 37signals domains).
- I’ve received everybody’s feedback/requests. My current plan of action is to address messages/files/comments first, then to dos and milestones, and finally time tracking.
- I’m going to blog the entire thing here. I’m going to take a shot at making it as transparent as possible, sort of like Carsonified did with Bare Naked App.
I hope you’ll come along for the ride, and I hope more than anything you’ll be happy with the end product. I really do appreciate any feedback & suggestions people have, but just bear in mind that if I don’t use your idea, it’s nothing personal.
