Fog Creek releases WebPutty | Hacker News Reader

Fog Creek releases WebPutty

webputty.net

59 pointsmgorsuch39 comments

Can someone explain why they would choose a name like Putty which is already a well established and completely different software?

I almost didn't click on this because of the name. I'm glad I did it anyway, I will definitely use this in the future.

agreed - i thought it was a real "web" putty and thought of all the reasons why i wouldn't use it

I got really confused by that too. I think 99% of target audience are going to think "oh, it's a web-based terminal app". They should change the name before it's too late.

I was disappointed to find out that it was not, in fact, a web putty ...

That was actually my first thought when i saw spolsky's tweet.

Isn't that the logo for Notepad++?

Haha, we were wondering how long it would take people to notice. Yeah, it is. We picked it before realizing it, and didn't know until we were getting permission for it. We'll probably change it soon, but since it plays a pretty minor role on the site, we decided to leave it until we could get some more time to search for a replacement.

Mostly because good names are hard to come by, and WebPutty (if you unstick your brain from PuTTY) is a pretty decent name.

We would have loved to incorporate transmogrifier into the name, but that's hard to type and spell.

I don't even understand why it's named that, and it's not like they even bought the webputty.com domain.

Maybe I'm not understanding this completely (and that's entirely possible!) but why use 3rd party web servers? I like the idea but it just seems like it'd be easier as a browser addon. With the browser addon:

||Step 1 > Visit Url or open file ||Step 2 > Click the addon button ||Step 3 > Addon opens double pane and clears any current CSS ||Step 4 > Edit CSS and refresh

There's probably already an addon like this. Admittedly I've never looked past Firebug.

We give you SCSS/Compass and we host it for you. It's all about reducing friction.

the favicon (http://www.webputty.net/favicon.ico) looks awfully similar to the notepad++ logo: http://notepad-plus-plus.org/

Wow.

The graphic is by Hayes Roberts [1], licensed for use in WebPutty [2].

[1] http://www.bluebison.net/content/?p=786 [2] http://www.webputty.net/credits

Ah, should have looked into that myself. Thanks.

It's still odd. This whole thing seems a bit half baked.

this is a pretty awesome idea. Maybe I'm just inefficient, but I always find myself spending a stunning amount of time tweaking CSS, refreshing the page, ad nauseum. The only downside I see is that in order to modify your site CSS, it seems you would have to be running this tool, and you wouldn't be able to use your IDE of choice.

And you have to rely on a third party for hosting your css.

Does exactly what it sounds like, and lets you edit the source however you want: http://livereload.com/

Is there anything like this for PC?

The older CLI version of Livereload is Ruby-based and can be installed on Windows. https://github.com/mockko/livereload

It's what you always wished Firebug's css view would actually do.

Try the "Edit CSS" feature in the Web Developer plugin. It works surprisingly well for most things, in the way you are probably wishing for.

Bug Report? Mark Pilgrim's named is spelled incorrectly on this page: http://www.webputty.net/credits.

Have a fix in for the next deploy.

Why is the favicon the Notepad++ lizard?

They have permission to use it. They're looking for a new one now.

Somewhat similar functionality to http://www.stiqr.com/ Although for stiqr would work even if you don't know HTML/CSS.

Wish the stiqr guys had a bit more exposure. Awesome product.

Could someone explain why most recent websites look as if the members of the target audience are five-year old children? This is not a troll - I'm honestly wondering if anyone actually likes such a "design".

Can you explain why you think the design targets "five-year old children"? All you did was make a reductive, flippant accusation without backing it up at all.

What do you expect, some kind of point-by-pint list of how the design targets children? Why don't you think of one yourself?

Can't see how it could be regarded in such a light? Too bad.

I don't think it really needs explanation - using the term "fisher price style" is quite a common way of describing that style.

For example:

Each Fisher Price style button leading through to a small nugget of information that users can consume very quickly and move on or should we continue designing pages that are more traditional in their layout (more text+images)?

http://www.welcomebrand.co.uk/blog/2010/09/10/the-dumbening-...

Personally, I don't think it's a bad thing at all. Obviously the grandparent disagrees, but the question is quite valid.

Because childrens' toys are highly functional. You've got building blocks with letters on them. They do exactly 1 thing, and they do that 1 thing very, very, very well.

Or maybe you have a board with some buttons on it. The one with a picture of a cow makes a cow noise. The pig makes a pig noise, etc.

Turns out this is also really good design practice. For a long time, when the web was new, having lots of "neat stuff" meant that you knew how to make neat stuff, which meant that you were "professional".

As this "neat stuff" became more accessible, it started having the opposite affect.

The transition you've seen happen in web is the same one that you saw happen in print. Things start off "fancy", but as "fancy" becomes easily attainable, it starts to look cheap.

You may be interested in this article: http://lesswrong.com/lw/154/why_real_men_wear_pink/

"Why Real Men Wear Pink"

Just to spite you. The world is out to get you specifically, and this is the first phase of that operation.

I really like this idea and design. In particular the "Tour" is great! I think I will get real use from this service.

I wonder if they used that tour making library posted here the other day...

Yup, we used the Guiders library posted by the Optimizely guys: https://github.com/jeff-optimizely/Guiders-JS

Cool, they should link to your page as an example. Don't you think a "Previous step" button would be useful?

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