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Ask HN: Feedback on my small app

wrttn.in

57 pointsjmonegro61 comments

You need to improve your XSS protection. Here's an example page I created where I do XSS through the CSS: http://wrttn.in/214018

In the admin page, you should be able to change the type of markup the content is in (be it Textile or Markdown) and the CSS. Also, I haven't tested it; if you don't support Markdown Extra, add support for it. The best library that I recommend for this is Discount (http://www.pell.portland.or.us/~orc/Code/discount/)

I have basic XSS protection from the main area, but didn't realize I had to protect the CSS field. Thank you for that.

This is why I love getting feedback from HN: most of the time you will find something I'd overlooked.

edit: and yes, I'm using Discount (RDiscount, actually, it's running on Ruby)

This is useful. I love the simple layout with the editor on the left side and the other stuff on the right.

I also love the fact that it's a simple notepad but you can add markup etc when you need to, because sometimes the stuff you write in notepad starts growing and you really want to just start formatting things right away.

However, I really like notepad.cc better because the text window is bigger. When I resize your little window using google chrome's default handle, the stuff on the right side goes below the box etc and I can't get the box in full screen, I can only resize it to the right.

Since it has formatting, having an easy way to see a preview would also be pretty sweet.

Over all, good job. It's nice to just paste and start using, but currently it seems a bit simpler to use notepad.cc

Thanks for your comments. You can preview what you've done through the "preview" button, complete with any custom CSS you might have added.

I understand what you mean about the bigger writing space. I've been looking for the best way of optionally increasing the width, while retaining sidebar visibility.

I just updated the app. Check out the new "Go wide" button.

You should change the button to "Go narrow" when in wide mode. Just a thought.

Also, disable the textbox resizing, or better yet, make the layout flow horizontally when there isn't enough space on the side after resizing.

Yeah good point.

"Use webkit for the best experience. That means Google Chrome or Safari"

Please don't recommend browsers. What is in your app that Firefox can't do?

It works perfectly fine in Firefox, but you don't get to see the custom scrollbars and create button, which use webkit-specific CSS3.

I'd say just remove the text about recommending specific browsers. As long as the functionality is the same, a loss of certain a look and feel isn't worth mentioning to the user and causing a big turn off. At least, that was my initial reaction when I read that.

Thanks, I'll take it into account. I actually thought of this, which is why I decided to phrase it best experience.

More to the point, why not just make it work in every browser?

I realize we're not supposed to mention this here in the land of 60% FireFox and 35% Chrome, but most of the world still uses Internet Explorer as their daily browser.

If you want to make a product that people use, you have to make it usable by them. And that means developing for IE first and your browser of choice second.

It works in every browser. Even IE.

This looks like a really clever way to produce content and inbound links for SEO purposes. No mention of copyright terms in the instructions - this is going to be an issue for you.

Also your point 3. says "no ads" but I see ads on the front page, yes when you read down it's clear but the headline punch is taken away as people have just seen the fp ad. TBH your ads are pretty neatly done and pretty unoffensive.

I'm not after SEO benefits. In fact, something I forgot to add was the robots.txt to stop indexing user pages. I'll add the copyright terms.

By "no ads" on point three, I mean no ads on _your content_.

Thanks for your input.

My blocking issue is a hard one to beat: what guarantee do I have that this won't disappear within two years?

You can argue that there is a use case for simple, no-SLA services but if something is important enough for me to post, it's important enough that I'd be pissed off if it went away.

My sentiments too. I don't have a blog, or twitter, or facebook. I do want to write stuff down sometimes (have been toying with idea of posterous). This could fit the bill for me. But, yeah - what happens if the site vanishes?

To answer both your questions, the API system I'm building will allow you to download all your wrttns.

Also, I'm building export features that will turn your wrttn into a pdf or a text file.

Stupid question.. but is there already notepad.cc for this and someone post an application that looked pretty much like this, this morning on HN.

Notepad.cc is good, but it doesn't give you Textile/Markdown, custom CSS, automatic media embedding (through oEmbed), and the other features I've included in Wrttn.

Markdown support would be pretty rad, I'm gonna think how I could integrate that to notepad.cc :)

I like this app though. I think it's purpose would be different than notepad.cc. Again -- putting stuff in a text box and saving it is a pretty widespread feature!

Thanks. Indeed, the purpose is very different.

Very nice, looks clean.

One suggestion for the home page, the styling for the text link accompanying the ad looks out of place. Perhaps remove the underline unless hovered, change to italics (it's a quote/statement of the ad client) and break the text where the image ends.

Thanks. I'll look into it.

Nice clean design -- I like how you've cut out as many extraneous pages/requirements as possible.

A couple of typos on the about page (I worked as a writing tutor in college and since then can't seem to stop...):

HTML is valid to, so it won’t [too]

What that means that if you link [means is that]

Email (not the link, but the actual content, formatted and all. [no end paren]

you choose what do do with it. [to do]

That very first sentence is actually pretty awkward as well, but I'll let you mess with it as an exercise. ;)

Thanks!

I like it. Simple and useful for both technical and non-technical people.

I'm not sure if this happened for anyone else, but choosing a markup from the drop-down list did not change the link to the reference pop-up window.

edit: nice idea

It doesn't. I only added a textile reference; I will be adding a markdown one soon. Sorry about that.

Heh, I like it :D http://wrttn.in/b0495d

Seriously though, it's nice! I can see myself using this in future.

Oh yea, I also like the integration with oEmbed. First time I've seen it. Definitely will play with embed.ly when I get the chance.

It appears that you're rendering the embedded content using AJAX? I tried pasting a YouTube link directly, and nothing happened. Wrapping it in a proper 'a href' tag triggered the embed, so I'm guessing there's no sophisticated URL-detection.

you have to put the actual link. For example, either with a <a href=""></a> or, say "link"http://url.com in textile.

FWIW, I was using http://jottit.com/ for this previously. I had similar requirements to you, though I do have a blog. Jottit is good but a little heavier than your app, so I'll probably use your app for the smaller, cleaner things where I don't need a subdomain or whatever.

I like it a lot. The user-facing (content producer, I mean) UI could probably use an iteration or two for polish, and it seems like the resulting content pages are a bit broken on the iPad (custom scrollbars == bad news, I figure), but definitely useful -- and bookmarked!

Thank you! I'd been wondering how it looked on the iPad

Looks great. Scrolling just doesn't work. Seems to be the same on any mobile webkit browser (android, i{Phone,Pad,Pod}).

I see...

I hope I didn't come off sounding rude or anything. Just trying to help :)

I think you'd be safest simply not serving the custom scrollbar stuff to mobile browsers, they usually have their own 'custom scrollbars' anyway.

Good luck!

There's no way to scroll the page when viewing in Android browser. The page just gets chopped off and doesn't extend beyond the visible area, meaning no scroll. If I zoom out I can see more, but even on the linked page that means it's kinda small to read.

I'm prepping a mobile version of the site.

You don't necessarily need a mobile version, but having the "public URL" version of a page be chopped off could hurt adoption. The resulting HTML is pretty straightforward, so I guess there's some CSS problem blocking me from scrolling.

Simple, API calls, markdown...incredibly handy and brilliant in my mind. Kudos on the app.

Pastie has this capability, but is it possible to slip some text to the API via a shell script and bounce back the url?

Hmmm... very interesting idea. I'll work on that when I finish the full API (write, not just read)

My idea would be to grab a snippet of text and pass it to the API via a keystroke with a program like Textexpander. The link would come back and be dumped into the clipboard for easy sharing. Thanks again

Love the idea. I'll add it to the to-do list.

A live preview would be nice.

I've been told that yes. I'm still working on how to do it, someone suggested that I just update the preview window.

A suggestion for that would be to make parts of the site using your notepad app. Place text in notepad asking the user to edit it and allow them to add their own content.

I sort of know what you're saying but not really. You mean having text inside the textarea (with, say, textile/markdown basics? though I added a textile reference) and delete it on focus?

Yes. Basically, it tells you what the site is within the demo area without having to have the initial landing page, complete with textile markup, then, delete it on focus.

Check out http://markdownr.com/.

It does live previews for Markdown, Textile, RDoc, and Wikitext. Code is on GitHub.

Some inspiration for wrttn actually came from markdownr.com. Originally I set out to build a similar layout, but I decided against it because of a space thing.

Use a different domain that is easier to remember.

I don't think it's too difficult to remember. But if many feel this way, I'll consider other options.

I'd move the ads to the opposite side of the text entry area. They kind of get in the way of the control buttons at the moment.

I moved the ad down precisely because of this. I will consider your suggestion. Thanks!

edit: maybe even have a .txt file beamed through the command line.

Any plans to open source this? I'd love to wrap it in Cocoa and use it as a notes app on my Mac.

Can you add safe HTML as a markup option? Loving this. Nice design.

Thanks. You can use HTML.

I've added a new "Go Wide" button.

Should've been the default. Add a "Go Narrow" button instead.

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