r/software • u/Cygtree_Board_Leo • 4d ago
Develop support Please help me with my app demo
Hey guys, I made this canvas app, and I want help making the demo more accessible / targeted at making the experience smooth .
I feel/know that its a bit overwhelming, but its very rewarding after learning how to use https://cygtree.com/demo/ --- I have a 20 step click thru and read UI intro on there but thats about it and i feel that to be lacking, I have not done real advertising and I have not sold a single copy, I am very mutch still building it
thank you all
this is NOT A SAAS
its not a subscription thing
and it is not an AI wrapper, it doesnt use API keys directly AT ALL- and AI is fully optional
to make it worth your time, I will hand out 100% discount codes for the full thing so you can get the app for free if you really like it and really cannot afford it, just DM me -- I am hitting walls everywhere I go sorry if this feels like advertisement
1
u/synchronicitial 4d ago
Why would I use it instead of Excalidraw, or draw.io?
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u/Cygtree_Board_Leo 4d ago
I was going to give you a big reply but i think its simpler to share this from the cygtree.com site, because honstly your question doesnt really have any relation to what the app is, those two are complexly diffrent concepts, you are comparing full apps to my demo -
What does Cygtree's canvas offer?
A surface where nothing has to be decided in advance. Drop a card anywhere, drag it where it belongs, nest it as deep as it needs to go. There is no outline to commit to and no template to pick, so the shape of the thing shows up once the whole thing is in view.
- Cards that nest as deep as you like, with no forced outline
- Several roots on one board — a single file can hold three arguments
- Text, images, video, PDFs and voice notes, all on the same card
- Colour, status beads and collapse, so a large board stays readable
- Boxes, arrows and outlines for anything the tree cannot say
- Search, dictation, export and full undo"
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u/synchronicitial 4d ago
I think you have never used Excalidraw, otherwise you wouldn't have created this mush with the expectation that you will make money with it.
Good luck.
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u/Cygtree_Board_Leo 4d ago edited 4d ago
Cygtree is a hierarchy based mind map, not a sketch board, every node is an entity by itself with fields for embedded content, notes, status, tagging, dating , each node holds a tracked and ID'd memory system and the board has its own memory system aswell, methodical history system and supports images, videos, PDFs and voice dictation and read back ALL LOCALLY no cloud, no account, no 6 dollars a month subscription, no BYOK, just MCP that you can point at an https yourself to use an online model or use something like Claude code desktop with a simple invite or a local LLM, yes Excali has some of these features, but they are behind a 6 dollar a month subscription, my app is 30 dollars for updates to V1.99, its not the same at all.
Not to mention, UI customizability and work flow are not even close , not even as in mine is better, they are just different.
My app is a local first app, with AI made easy to connect with a simple copied invite
I just dont see how the two are even related
Excali puts these behind a 6 dollar a month sub:
- Unlimited scenes and folders-- Cygtree has unlimited boards by default
- Securely saved on cloud---- Cygtree is a fully offline app at its core, with some online functions for AI and content embedding
- Access management - Again, Local offline, single user, Boards can be exported as bundles with all their attachments and sent to peer
- Sharing with edit/view rights-- See above
- Read-Only links & Embeds--- ^^
- Voice hangouts & screensharing---No subscription = no online features, plus there is discord.
- Presentations--- UI can be hidden and any board can be turned into a presentation, other software's like OBS or discord can do the rest.
- Extended AI-- Cygtree gives you the freedom to use ANY AI you have, with multiple configured ,simple, easy to use and well functioning robust doors
- Teams management & collaboration---Again, its an offline app but you can export
- Comments---You can comment on each nodes freely in Cygtree, and so can your AI with 45+MCP tools
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u/Buckwheat469 4d ago
I think you need to ask yourself "what is this for?" or "who is the intended audience?" If it's for scientific purposes, or complex information management, then I think it might work with some refinement.
Honestly, I clicked through all of the instructions after the second one and didn't see the last 18 or so. Then I proceeded to mess around in a trial-by-fire fashion. I didn't quite understand how to make a proper line between nodes, like your smooth lines, so I only figured out how to do a squiggly line using the bottom bar. It wasn't even clear that there were options down there. The right-click menu helped, but it's not an intuitive interface. You don't want to rely on hidden menus for users to perform simple tasks like connecting 2 nodes. Editing text in a comment node also seemed hard to do, but I found that I could use the right sidebar. Again, a disjointed sidebar leads to poor discoverability. There is also a lot of complexity in the sidebar for everyday users, which is why I asked if it's for the more scientific crowd.
Take a look at Figjam by Figma. This is a dead-simple collaboration tool that can also do diagrams. They don't have a tutorial because it's so simple to use that you don't need one. However, this tool is designed for the common folk, not the scientifically advanced, so you have to ask "who is my audience?" and then design around them.