Friday, August 9, 2013

Update + On Ads III.

This update doesn't fix much in terms of functionality or add any new features. It is mainly about the ads (sure you've guessed :) ).


As we wrote before, some users find the ads distracting and have asked for an ad-free paid version of the app. We'll release such version soon. And, as the first step, we've decided to improve the current version to make them less obtrusive:

+ we've moved all the ad bars to the bottom of the screens, where they are least seen;
+ we've completely removed the ads from the Action and FTF pages - the pages, we guess, used the most;
+ have removed the ad bar from the help screen.


We now think the app is much more useable and some of those you didn't want to see them at all might change their minds.


If you think there's more can be done (besides releasing a paid-version), we'll be happy to hear. By the way, we ourselves use the ad-version of the app, found them distracting and feel better now, too :).

Saturday, July 20, 2013

Habits: Action saving on top of the screen

Have modified the Save/Cancel functionality of the Action page - moved the buttons to the top of the screen when editing the action (name and/or details). Now you can save it would first hiding the keyboard. Update is in the store, will be out soon. Enjoy!

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

On Ads II.

We've received several requests (both here and by email) from the users saying they'd buy a paid version of the app to get rid of the ads. Though the number of those asking is not much relative to the total number of users, we understand that it takes additional effort to write the complaint (that's why we are very thankful for any types of reviews, negative or positive) and the real number might be much greater. Thus, we will consider this option.

We've actually had not thought of making a paid version. That's not because we don't think that every work should be fairly paid for, but because we thought adding ads and trying to make them unobtrusive, thus keeping the app free, would be enough. Seems like it's not :)

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Habits update.

Have just updated the Habits, should be out in the store within the next few hours. Main updates are about enhancing the usability.


First, we've done some modification to the Action page. We've moved some of the elements from this page to a secondary screen, which is opened by pressing a special square button in the lower right corner:




                 

                               


Items moved: Goal, Recurrence, Reminder. This gave some additional space for the screen, which was especially necessary when your action was a Checklist. On my phone, I could only see 3-4 check items, which irritated me a lot. As you can see, now there are at least 6 items, which is almost a 100% gain :).

We are thinking of moving some more stuff to the right, so, if you think you'd need that additional space, too, let us know we are on the same page.




We've also changed the icons to the new ones, to look more plain.


Next, on the secondary screen, where the items have been moved, we have put everything in a separate panel, with clear title and controls. One small and simple improvement made the usability of this screen much more better: instead of letting user click just the required control as the button, we've made the whole panel clickable - this makes using the app much more pleasant.

All the functionality previously associated with these moved items (like click on goal to go to goal or long-click on it to change) is kept functional.





















We've used same approach on the main screen's Today/Tomorrow buttons, on Goal's Progress panel and some other buttons, so you'll have to notice and like it pretty soon.

Another notable improvement is the ability to mark the action Done/Un-done by swiping right-left on the Week Plan page. This way you can 'finish' an action without opening the action itself.

There are other changes that we won't mention just to keep this post short. Also, we uploaded a broken .apk (application) to the Play Store and noticed that after it had been published. Sorry, if you caught that version - we've uploaded the fixed one as quickly as possible.