Hi HN,<p>I've been waiting to post what I've been working on for a few weeks now:)<p>Today we're launching LayerVault, which is a version control system made for designers. The URL is http://www.layervault.com<p>LayerVault keeps track of what you're working on without adding extra steps to your process. The app runs in your toolbar and tracks changes you make to your files. Basically — each time you create or modify a file you’re working on, LayerVault saves a copy. You can then login, flip through its versions, and download a version from a few weeks ago.<p>It's pretty neat — and we’ve built some stuff that makes impact to bandwidth pretty much negligible. We've been testing it with a small beta group for a little while now, and we're pretty excited.<p>A handful of beta invites are floating around but we're going to be open the private beta to more people today.<p>As always, feedback is welcome.
Looking like a great MVP.<p>I've just had a quick look at your demo video. 2 minor things struck me.<p>1) It's really blurry. Can I suggest you either re-encode it at a higher resolution, or perhaps record it on a smaller screen resolution (that way you can keep the file-size down, but can keep the bit-rate higher).<p>2) The timeline has no markers. It might be nice to add some little indicators to give the user a visual indication of where the versions lie on it.
Looks great - designers desperately need a better solution for versioning. My thoughts on existing options:<p>- Dropbox isn't great because (as far as I know) you don't get to leave messages as you do with Git/SVN commits.<p>- Git isn't great because (as far as I know) it's not so easy to quickly compare a whole history of iterations<p>- I haven't looked at hosted options for a few months, but they've always seemed to be expensive.<p>So you're left with:<p>- Trying to remember to incrementally increase filenames (Website01.psd, Website02.psd etc) - still leaving out memorable 'commit messages'.<p>- Saving the files with memorable 'commit messages' in the filename (Website_WideSidebar.psd, Website_NarrowSidebar.psd). Janky.<p>- Grouping all of your layers and duplicating the entire site for different iterations, turning on and off those groups to see previous work. Or using Layer Comps. Still janky.<p>- What I do in Illustrator (infinite canvas makes it easier than in Photoshop) - duplicating the artboard for each iteration, leaving a 'post-it note' to myself on the corner of each iteration. So I get the 'commit messages' and the ability quickly see all iterations at once. A recent example:
<a href="http://c.jongold.in/1z452Y402o3V3s2d0r2W" rel="nofollow">http://c.jongold.in/1z452Y402o3V3s2d0r2W</a><p>I'd agree with the previous criticism about the video being too long - I'm sure you're aware of that though.<p>The pressing issue in versioning for me is being able to leave and view 'commit messages'/comments as simply as I can with Git - they're more meaningful to me that viewing solely by date. If you add that I think you'll have a great product.
I highly recommend you get a good noise-canceling headset, put up some towels or carpets in a small room, and re-record the video. The sound will be a hundred times better. Take the opportunity to cut the video's length to a minute and a half, and prepare a more complex demo file (i.e. more than a gray canvas).<p>That said, I'm glad there is more VCS for designers. I see the need every day teaching Git to designers (although it's much easier now with, say, gitx).
Correct me if I'm wrong but this seems almost identical to the versions feature in os x lion. Won't this be somewhat obsolete when adobe starts supporting versions on lion?
Cool idea, but I stopped watched the video after about 1 minute. I think you need to get to your sell faster. Like a newspaper article get to the point first, then fill in the details. Don't make me listen to you describe how to save a file in Photoshop for the first 1/3.
Cool! Glad to see more people entering this space, it's really validating for us and for you I'm sure too. We just launched our service that is very similar, but uses Dropbox as a back end: <a href="http://www.pixelstew.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.pixelstew.com</a><p>Nice design, my only complaint is the blurry video.<p>Edit: Also, your video is WAY long. You need to make it more succinct. People aren't going to stay engaged for 4 minutes.
I sent this to our art department, and this is what I was told: I don’t really have time to look at this right now, but sounds interesting! Adobe creative suites have version control built in, but we have been investigating third party sources because it kind of sucks. Thanks for the heads up.
Seems very similar to FileHamster (<a href="http://www.filehamster.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.filehamster.com</a>)
except I guess LayerVault would be "cloud-based" and available online. I've been using FH for about 3 years for keeping track of all kinds of files .
Have you seen designSVN : <a href="http://designsvn.com/" rel="nofollow">http://designsvn.com/</a><p>Similar idea - maybe slightly better execution in terms of the site style.