#layervault

[shutdown-like-a-boss]

LayerVault is shutting down.

LayerVault will be shutting down on April 11, 2015. Current customers have until then to download their files from the service. Beginning on that date, the web interface will no longer be accessible and the Mac app will stop working.

Customers on monthly subscription plans will be charged a pro-rata amount for the remaining term to April 11, 2015 if they renew between now and April 10.

Customers with annual subscriptions may request a pro-rata refund for the period from April 11, 2015, until the end of the contract period by contacting [email protected] no later than April 30, 2015.

Designer News, the community that we have been running for the last two years, will continue on.

Some folks may be wondering: Why? We will try to share our experience as best we can via post-mortems and blog posts, but the short answer is simple: we failed to make LayerVault financially viable, exhausted our existing capital reserves, and were unable to secure additional capital to sustain uninterrupted service. We ran out of money. Although the service will cease, we’re still hopeful that the technology may find a home.

Thank you to our customers, both current and former, for giving us your business.

If you have any questions about this shutdown, you can drop me an email: [email protected].

Kelly Sutton CEO, LayerVault

[its-neko-kun]

Oh noes... Layervault is shutting down :/ It’s a pity with all the successful other projects they’ve completed, especially designer news, so all the best in the future to them!

[professionallogodesigns]

LayerVault, the version control app for designers is shutting down

LayerVault, a startup that built an app to provide version control to designers, is closing down on April 11, 2015.

The company posted a message on its site today saying that it’s taking the entire service offline and users have until then to export their files. Unfortunately LayerVault was out of money as it failed to become financially sustainable and was unable to raise additional capital.

Designer News, the popular community that the company ran on the side, will continue to operate.

It’s sad news for users of the service, however those who have subscription plans will be charged only a pro-rata amount for the remaining term or can get a refund for their annual subscription.

➤ LayerVault is shutting down

This content is from: TheNextWeb Find related content on: FraserAmerica web design

[coletownsend]

Designing For Discussions

Branch is a new website that organizes discussions. It allows users to easily register and gather others in conversation, or branch, about a topic of their choice.

One thing I dislike about branch is the narrow dicussion area. Some might find this layout more intimate, but I believe that in aiming for less distraction, the designers made it more distracting; the text is too conglomerated. A wider discussion area with larger font would make the conversation easier to read and less like Twitter, where I find many tweets and replies go unnoticed in a massive list of text.

Another aspect to examine is the sidebar. The branch sidebar displays the branches of which you are currently a member. While this is good, a better way to utilize this sidebar would be to show an activity feed, perhaps similar to that of LayerVault. This would keep all the focus on the discussion.

A solution to notifications would be an icon with a push-style (a la iOS) mark that signals to the user someone else added to their branch. When clicked, the icon would open a small drop-down window that would show the activity, similar to the way the Dribbble notification system works. 

Overall, the site functions very well. I really enjoy going on branch and opening up discussions as well as participating in them. The familiar structure is similar to Twitter and reflects the websites deep integration with Twitter API. Users are added to discussion through either a direct message or public reply. Unfortunately this can get a bit spammy, so they also have an option to link to the discussion, which people can request to join. I got a great conversation about "flat" or minimal design going.

Also, I started a great group called the State of Web Design on branch. It could be a great hub for discussion on various design theories, trends, and quandaries.

[layervault]

LayerVault's file page is its most heavily used page, and as such it deserves the greatest amount of scrutiny. We've actually released at least 3 versions of the timeline since our first early beta — and even more updates to the file page. Here's what we've learned and what we've changed.

In the timeline's first version, points were equidistant from one another, and we used a scrollbar metaphor. That made it rather difficult to figure out where to click. We thought we could do better.

So, in the second version, we went to the other extreme — versions were positioned on the timeline as clickable points. It turned out that we were focusing too much on precision, and it was leading to a bad experience. Watch the video above and you'll see what we mean. For users like myself, who save every few seconds, it wasn't a great experience.

In the latest iteration, precision isn't as important as presenting a general idea of how far things are from each other. Long time spans have been truncated with a "...". There's a zoomed-out view (that clock icon) that you can use to jump to any point in the timeline.

We're not quite done yet on this page, but I think we've definitely come a long way. It really helps that we use LayerVault daily, religiously. We have a keen sense of what works and doesn't, and it's pretty quickly apparent. More to come soon.

— Allan, Co-founder