Things I want

07 Mar, 2024

Here are some apps, programs, games, tools, etc that I want to exist. It's likely I'll try to build these myself at some point, but that's only so I can use the tool – not so I can sell it. Given that, I'd be happy for someone to take any of these ideas, build it themselves, and sell it. I make no claims on the intellectual property of these ideas (in fact, in many cases, these are derivative ideas or tools that could be features added to existing tools/apps).

For any of these that I plan to build myself, I'll note my name for it here and link any in-progress projects. While I don't reserve any intellectual property of the idea itself, I'd really prefer that you don't use my name for the app.

Table of Contents:

• Quickshot
• Unnamed Next-Generation Notebook App
• Unnamed Story Consistent App
• Unnamed Planning App
• Unnamed football-like strategic card game

Quickshot

A text editing app focused on interlinked notes that exist as files-on-disk, visually styling the text content according to markdown-like syntax. Interlinking works by wiki-style links ([[Other File]]) linking to other files in the same directory. Exploring the development of this program was part of my longterm goal of building a next-generation Notebook application.

Unnamed Next-Generation Notebook App

A program / system that would ✨ magically ✨ solve all of these use cases:

• Spreadsheet
• Long-form Notes (with lightweight formatting a la markdown) with wiki-style links
• Interspersed code cells (maybe in its own language, maybe in existing); similar to Jupyter Notebooks
• Simple UI-builder for creating small interactive apps, also interspersed between cells
• Lightweight Relational Database (a la AirTable)

Unnamed Story Consistency App

A program to assist in keeping a story consistent as plot points change during the planning/writing process. I imagine this would involve a Story having a list of Notes, with each Note having content around 1-2 sentences and a list of other Notes that are dependencies.

By dependencies, I mean in terms of plot points. For example, suppose in my story the character Alice is afraid of even holding a sword. The backstory on this is that in her childhood, she accidentally hurt someone she loved with a sword. That person was Bob. Bob was a childhood friend of Alice's. In this example, these would be the notes:

1. Alice is afraid of swords. (depends on note 2)
2. Alice hurt someone she loved (Bob) with a sword in her childhood. (depends on note 3)
3. Bob and Alice were childhood friends.

The tool would provide conveniences so that if I changed the content of note 3 to "Bob met Alice for the first time when they were both well into adulthood", then I would know to look at note 2 (because it depends on the note I changed) to make sure it still fits with the story. In this example, it would not because how could Alice hurt Bob with a sword in her childhood if Alice hadn't met Bob until they were both in adulthood?

Given that, I might update note 2 so that Alice hurt someone completely different with a sword in her childhood. Or I might change that traumatic event to happen in Alice's adult life. Or I might remove it entirely! Given that change to note 2, I'd be alerted to take a look at note 1 again to make sure it stays consistent.

This could be a plugin for an app like Obsidian or it could be a standalone tool. It could be used for fiction as in my example; it could be used in the workplace as a tool to capture User Stories, flows in an app, and keeping those consistent despite changes to assumptions.

Unnamed Planning App

I'd like an app that works like a supercharged multi-route trip planner in most maps applications. For this section, if I refer to "Maps Apps", I mean both Google Maps and Apple Maps. Here are some features I'd want to see:

• plan a trip that includes N stops (already exists in Maps Apps)
• include an estimated duration of each stop (i.e. stopping for a meal on a road trip might take 45 minutes)
• ability to set arrival or departure times for any of the stops on the list
  • Once at least one time is set for a stop, the rest can be calculated based on travel time and duration.
  • Maps Apps include setting the departure time for the first stop and arrival time for the last stop, but nothing can be set in between.
  • When durations + travel time cause a conflict between specified arrive/departure times:
    • If the conflict is not enough time, then the planner should display a warning a la invalid form input.
    • If the conflict is too much time, a buffer time period should be automatically added. This period should be movable, but its duration should be dynamically calculated.
• travel method should be able to be different between different stops. I might for example want to drive from my home to a downtown area, walk between a few places, then even take a bus to another stop.

Additional enhancements that would be very nice:

• Using the calculated or specified arrival/departure time for a given stop, the app should consider the hours that a business is open and warn the user if that's exceeded.
  • More specifically: warn if the plan has an arrival before a place is open; warn if the plan has a departure after a place is closed.
• In addition to time constraints on arrival/departure, whether it's daytime or nighttime (based on location, time of year, and the sun) should be able to be specified.
  • "I want to leave the park before sunset"
  • "I want to visit the bridge after sunset [for a nighttime photo]"
• A timeline view that shows each step + duration + constrained times + calculated times + weather events (like sunrise and sunset) would be fantastic.

Even more stretch goals:

• Showing precipitation, wind speed, temperature, and other weather forecasts in the same timeline.
• Providing more constraints such that weather can be involved would be nice.
  • "I don't want to be at the Park when the forecast calls for <40ºF"
  • "I only want to visit the Mall when rain is forecast >50%"
• Multi-day plans would be very useful for planning a vacation. It could help with planning outfits for certain days, planning things to do, etc
  • "I want to go hiking on a day where the forecast calls for no rain"
• A wizard-like interface where the user inputs their desired steps and constraints, then lets the app decide on a few itinerary options that reduce travel time and buffer time while respecting the constraints as much as possible.
  • Itineraries could still exist that don't fit the constraints, but the user should be warned.
  • Itineraries could of course be edited by the user.

Unnamed football-like strategic card game

I never really enjoyed watching American Football growing up, but a few years ago, I realized how the sport is designed (intentional or not) to be a combination of strategic war-like battle planning and a contest of physical attributes like strength, speed, and accuracy. There's a real tug-of-war centered around pushing the front line line of scrimmage to expand one's territory until you expand into the opponent's home territory where the goal of the battle is end zone.

If a strategic card game existed that re-skinned American Football, I think it'd be neat to see what people who would enjoy a strategic card game but would tend to not enjoy watching Football would think of the card game. I'd want to see the card game have all of Football's essential positions represented even if those are re-skinned to "infantry", "shield-bearers", etc.