software – Blog of Anders Rune Jensen

While Paul Graham and many others have pointed out the virtues of web compared to normal desktop software. For Nemo Documents, working as a file manager for local files, it was quite clear that we needed a desktop application. Given this how could we then apply as much of the good things about the web into developing a Windows application?

We quickly decided on WPF as it allows one much greater freedom in designing the application. We wanted something visually appealing and in this I think we succeeded (whether that is the case, is of course not up to me to decide :-)). But at least it is not the ordinary ugly grey programs that are so common in the Windows world. As for WPF as a framework I’m quite torn. On one side, it allows one to do a lot of fancy stuff, but on the other side there is way too-much architecture astronauting in the framework and that really hurts when you’re just trying to get something done. jQuery is a good example of how to do this right.

Another thing to learn from the web is to watch the error log and quickly fix problems people are seeing. There is nothing more frustrating as a user than software that is not working, so we made it virtue to respond quickly to errors and to get new versions into the hands of people. With the build-in auto-update feature of Visual Studio, it’s quite easy to keep already installed versions updated. It’s not quite as smooth as updated code on a server, but it goes a long way. And I really think that providing excellent customer support is key these days. When it’s so easy to go “next-door” one has to provide exceptional service to retain users.

The last point also goes hand-in-hand with agile. Getting software out and into the hands of people to get early feedback and use that to better shape the software to fit real needs. We try to release new features when we consider them stable enough for ourselves to use. And that doesn’t have to be every half year 🙂 We recently did this with the google calendar and google docs integration. A feature we coded and rolled out a month after the initial release.

Earlier this week we released a new version of Nemo Documents, the biggest addition is that we integrated google into the desktop. How this improves things have been documented on the official nemo documents blog, so instead of writing more about that I want to focus on a more personal angle, namely the subject of a messy desktop versus an organized one.

My windows desktop is quite messy. You can see how it looks below. Then again, it’s mostly used to store temporary stuff. Projects we are working on always go into a neat folder structure inside our version control system.

Finding stuff in a messy desktop can sometimes be a bit tedious, but on the other hand so is cleaning up. Furthermore it might not even be a good idea to clean up too much. No matter what your mother tells you 😛 Another thing is that the urge to clean up is lessoned by the fact that you know 90% of the stuff are most likely not to be used again. But you keep it around just in case. This is where I think Nemo Documents really shines. It gives you a structured view of your files based on time and allows one to organize as much or little as needed using labels, while still maintaining the folder structure already in place. I map both my structured folders and my desktop into this view.

While talking to people about how they organize their files and documents I tend to meet two types of persons: people, like me with a messy or semi-messy structure and people in the other end with a big folder hierarchy to structure their files. The question then becomes, if Nemo Documents is only for messy people? After releasing the software we have gotten feedback from a lot of people, including the same people that are big on organizing, and from what we are hearing they are very fond of the system as well. The thing is they love structure, and this is exactly what Nemo Documents gives them. Free file organizing is always welcome I guess 🙂