Show HN: ImportDoc – Use the content from a Google Doc in any web page | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: ImportDoc – Use the content from a Google Doc in any web page

importdoc.com

118 pointsaev3O34 comments

Something I've been wanting to write but will quite honestly never have time is a lightweight replacement for WordPress where all editing happens locally in an Electron app and a static site is published/rsynched to a web server with backups stored in a git or hg repo. The big nut to crack, in my mind, is to support multiple distributed content editors at once, which is why I was thinking that the publish action is really pushing to Git and invoking an API on the web server to do a `git fetch` or equivalent. Does anyone know of a project that does what I'm describing? ImportDoc sort of does this but with a reliance on Google Docs it's not 100% portable.

Kind of sounds like Publii (https://getpublii.com/).

Well, not exactly electron-based, but Lektor (python-based) for the most part DOES provide conceptually what you asked for:

* lightweight replacement for wordpress

* static site generator

* ability to deploy/publish through various channels such as rysnc, github, gitlab, etc.

* not dependent on google docs.

Here are the details around Lekot's deployment options (you'll want to review the left-hand nav under this section too): https://www.getlektor.com/docs/deployment/

I've been using hugo for my personal site, and it has been ok-ish...but I will be moving to Lektor...because jinja templating seems to be easier for me to understand as opposed to hugo's/Go's templating. But, this is of course a personal choice, and YMMV.

Cheers!

The idea I've got is that anyone could use the editor/publisher I'm trying to describe after watching a 10 minute YouTube video and pulling down the Electron app. Another goal would be to help people in repressive regimes spread news and information that the government wants suppressed: that's why I was thinking of building this on a git/hg model but with all of the hairy aspects of distributed source control abstracted or made easy so the content creators can focus on creating content instead of learning MIS minutiae.

I see what you mean...and i definitely would NOT want to dissuade you from any such activities in building what you described - the more attention around providing options for tech and non-techs alike is for the best! However, i wonder if part of what you wish for, might already be built? Have you scoured options via the following? https://www.staticgen.com/

If not the whole stack, maybe components and modules might already exist, and you can build upon them? Again, the more options that exist for people to more easily post and host their own content (and in my opinion not beholden to the walled garden silos) is best! In any case, good luck! Cheers!

I kinda hope all of the Legos exist and just need to be snapped together in the right way! Would a high-level write-up of the concept be appropriate to post as an "Ask HN" in order gauge (1) whether all of the needed parts exist and (2) what the level of interest would be in assembling the parts/creating what is missing? Regarding part 2, I suck at JavaScript so me creating an electron app will happen the day after Linus Torvalds and Steve Ballmer create a tech startup together...

In response to your items...

1. I mean, i guess you could post an "Ask HN"; you could certainly get other insights and intel from others...but if it were me, i think I'd just dive in and start researching things on my own. Or, maybe just get all meta on this topic, and post your thoughts around this to your own existing blog (assuming you have one now?)...about how you wish to go through this endeavor!

2. I vote for you to just "scratch your own itch".

Hey, I'm not a javascript guru either...But if this were the approach that i would want to take - i.e. to leverage electron - and it doesn't/didn't exist, i might be compelled to learn enough javascript to at least get the ball rolling myself ("dangerous" though it might feel)...and along the way - assuming you've already posted about this effort of yours - maybe others will join in to help you - that is, others who might be better javascript practitioners, and who want the same platform as you want. I think that's worth a shot! I encourage you to go for it! What is it that Ghandi said: "Be the change that you wish to see in the world." Good luck and cheers!

Ghost (https://ghost.org) is a lightweight WordPress with an Electron app for editing/writing. However, it isn't statically generated, I think all the content is stored in a database.

Damn, that's a great idea. I'm going to seriously look into building that. I think the power of this, is it gives the tools the ability to grow as the team does. Initially it's a simple wordpress like get it done thing. But then as the team grows, they can start building and customizing their own content pipeline without having to go through a massive redesign. The downside, is the power of wordpress is the ecosystem. Trying to compete with it in 2019 is no small task.

I mean, sans Electron, you basically described my current static site model using Hugo and NetlifyCMS.

Quite the one I'm going to release soon: https://docxmanager.com

The template engine is Mustache, and it generate pure static sites, and it will support multiple publishing targets.

Jekyll + a remote git server can do this via post receive hooks. iirc GitHub pages functions this way (where the electron app is atom + markdown preview).

Notion comes close, perhaps?

https://www.notion.so/

Love the concept, but I am waiting for Notion.so API to fully migrate to this type of perfect/simple blog back-end.

The engineers at Zeit have a concept of this WITH magical SPR

https://zeit.co/blog/serverless-pre-rendering

Glad you posted, that was a big inspiration for this project!

I’m seeing so many google docs/sheets ideas on HN lately. Maybe there’s a new trend! This on, the database one and someone linked to one that turns it into an AppStore ready app!

I made http://hexopress.com to run my blog from Google Docs. Simply because it's neater to have all my docs in one place. Also, I could blog right from my comfort area, instead of using the editor that comes with different blogging platforms.

Most importantly, I want my data to stay where I want it to be, instead of getting scattered across apps. I've written more about this here - http://hexopress.com/@joe/blog/2017/03/05/hello-world/

I just wanted to say that I've used Hexopress in the past and really enjoyed it. Keep up the good work!

Glad to know that you enjoyed it. Thanks!

Also noticed this recently - whats driving this? Non-developers looking to prototype or build actual products without developer involvement? Democratisation of technology?

I would say ease of use and cost. A friend of mine has been using Google Sheets for years to power some small bits of data on his website. Maintaining and running his site costs nothing but the domain since he uses Netlify for CI w/Github and hosting with Google Sheets for dynamic data.

His "credits" section and song list uses Google Sheets: https://www.pontusrufelt.com

Very easy to set up a small database that non-tech people can also access. It's also a very light-weight way to implement a CMS with users and version control etc.

It's a nice solution if you don't have any experience with a database. I know this has been my reason to use it in the past.

Attempts to make web page building (a whole lot) more accessible.

I also posted one recently, a plugin to connect to APIs directly in Google Sheets [1]. The primary use case I had in mind was for people looking to grab data from various APIs, in which case it's pretty clear why someone would want to directly access the output in Google Sheets. However, I was surprised to discover a lot of people are actually using it as an alternative to CMSes like Wordpress, like bolting it together to other plugins and sheets to create their own apps. It's a trend for sure, I think it all falls under the "low code/no code" movement.

[1]: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/api-connector/cebn...

All these ideas are cool, but I am not sure how I feel about further locking myself into the google ecosystem.

We did this a couple years ago! It works similarly, plus our version is open source (not sure if their one is). Runs on Google Apps script, but you could use it on any hosted js service really.

https://github.com/PeterTheHe/GoogPress

There needs to be more of these types of solutions. Though, I'd like to see people moving away from Google as a whole. There is a decentralized publishing platform called LetterMesh (https://lettermesh.com/) and it uses the content from (disclaimer: this is my company) Graphite Docs (https://graphitedocs.com)

this has become one of those HN threads that just keeps on giving. thanks for recommendations for publii lektor, googpress, staticgen and hexopress, and the parent article on import doc.

There is a geshtalt emerging in this space that makes me hopeful and curious to see where it leads?

I've always found the Sheets Solution to be a little bit better as it feels more like a database. It also allows you to store lots of data in different ways, but maybe a google docs / sheets solution would be the best all round for something such as a blog.

Really cool. So the doc has to be sent to the importdoc.com servers first? Is there anyway around that?

HN hugged? I get a network error when I click login. A network error has occurred Dismiss

Hey, I built this. Login seems to be working fine at the moment. Mail me at contact@importdoc.com if you're still having issues.

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