Show HN: Lunette – A word processor designed around writing, not formatting
lunette.app
lunette.app
To be clear, I find the pitch appealing, but the product ???.
Taking this a step further, I thought about creating a global mind-map whereby everyone contributes their mind-maps into interconnected open mind-map. I had this idea because I realised that I had mapped my information bubble in creating my mind-map. But how do I get out of my information bubble? Hence the idea of an open mind-map[2] to navigate through other peoples mind-maps out of my information bubble.
Isn’t Wikipedia already the mind map of humanity in a way? Or is your project more from an individual standpoint?
By the by, Obsidian recently added a canvas to mind map notes and nodes. Maybe the code can be helpful for your project.
In a way however it does not provide a two dimensional visual representation of that mind map. I'm sure there are projects to do that but it isn't the default way to access wikipedia.
> Or is your project more from an individual standpoint?
Yes since the intention remains to extend your own information bubble by ironically providing your information bubble. Many information bubbles would create a global open mind map.
> By the by, Obsidian recently added a canvas to mind map notes and nodes. Maybe the code can be helpful for your project.
Thank you for the heads up, Node-RED provides - at the moment - all I need to create a mind map.
The more I play around with the idea, the more I realise how complex the enduser experience would be. Need to define core features and use cases and focus on them.
I tried building a similar project some 10 years ago, when "Zen writing tools" were all the rage.
Nobody wanted to pay for it. It wasn't general purpose enough to be usable by the general public. And novelists (who I was targeting) are poor and cheap. 90% of people who say they are "working on a novel" will never finish it to ever even try to sell it. Of those that do finish, 90% of them won't make more than pocket change. For the weirdos who finish and make significant sales, the app they used to write was never a significant problem for them. They usually have an anachronistic approach that has nothing to do with productivity and everything to do with personal taste and comfort (George R. R. Martin famously uses WordStar 4.0 on an MS-DOS system).
If you want to make an app for writers, don't make it around the writing process. What aspiring authors need, first and foremost, is training on how to finish a manuacript. After that, everything else is a minor annoyance in comparison. But some of the most common areas where people seem to drop the ball so close to the goal line are: not having a good editor, screwing up the typesetting, having dorky cover art, and thinking posting on Twitter once a week counts as marketing.
The 90% of dreamers don't have what it takes and they know it. They don't even invest their time, so they're certainly not going to invest their money. Tackle trying to convert more of the 10% of finishers into sellers. That might involve a writing tool as a hook to get people in, but the salable part of the app will probably never be the writing process itself.
The question is what did your app offer that scrivener didn't? What does this app offer that scrivener doesn't? I can't even tell if this Lunette is a web app or has an installable version, subscription, etc.
The problems you're talking about - marketing, front cover, typesetting - those don't really matter until you have at least a draft written, and probably not even then. A writing focused word processor isn't supposed to solve those problems, and once you have a manuscript the issues are solved by hiring an experienced editor (except the marketing which not everyone can do).
The writing part of the app is where people will spend the overwhelming majority of their time, and intruding on it trying to convert them to buying your other services is likely to chase them to scrivener or some other competitor. You're just trying to solve writing unrelated problems with an app that is marketed towards new writers that dont have those problems in front of them, and everyone with money can solve it without you.
There is also Inspiration before these two. Where I collect myriad info, snippets etc and then when things fall into place ( Ideating ) , I start writing ( Composition ).
I recently moved to Obsidian. I like the feel of it for writing, and it seems quite flexible to adapt it to my style.
Check it out, can give you some feature ideas.
> writing process comprises two two separate parts
Relatedly, will Lunette integrate a grammar checker?
Basically, my wife and I both write, and we found ourselves bouncing around from app to app looking for something that felt good and like a place we could really be productive and creative but never found anything that felt quite right, both in terms of functionality and aesthetics. Products like Medium are subject to constantly changing business models and identities. Google Docs is cluttered and uninspiring. Notes apps probably came the closest... but this big realization was that writing is a process that's just one of many things you might do in any of those apps, and there are things that happen while writing prose that could be augmented if the app were specifically designed around that use-case.
As I mentioned in the about page, the first such discovery was that almost all writers I spoke to were doing the thing where they come up with ideas spontaneously and usually just type up those ideas at random places in the document, which makes a mess of everything. We set out to solve that problem as an MVP, but the broader goal is to continue to develop the app around the writer's use-case and make wrangling concepts into prose an easier process.
Tossing out some suggestions:
Instead of: Traditional word processors are for formatting text. Lunette organizes your ideas and supports the writing process.
Try something more like:
Lunette: A Word Processor for writers. A space for ideation and composition, not just text formatting.
Write a bio for each of you. Do not link to your twitter profile and her..whatever that page is. Neither of them says "We are writers with experience writing." Neither of them sells the idea that you know what you are doing with this app.
For your About page, you should put the stuff about "husband and wife team ..." at the bottom. Lead with info about the app, not about the team.
Rewrite your last paragraph in your comment here to strip out all the personal stuff and make it more objective:
Writers come up with ideas spontaneously and usually just type up those ideas at random places in the document, which makes a mess of everything. The MVP seeks to solve that problem, but the broader goal is to continue to develop the app around the writer's use-case and make wrangling concepts into prose an easier process.
Then follow with some of the info found in your second paragraph above (minus attacks on other products -- and I suggest you drop talk of "constantly changing business models" because if this succeeds, you will face similar challenges):
If you find yourself bouncing around from app to app looking for something that feels good and like a place you can really be productive and creative but never find anything that feels quite right, try Lunette.
Lunette is a marriage of writing-process focused functionality and clean aesthetics. Writing is a process. Making notes is just one of many things you might do in an app and there are things that happen while writing prose that could be augmented if the app were specifically designed around that use-case.
Then at the bottom close with something about the team. I would probably leave out the fact that you are "husband and wife." I would position it more like "Stephen Corwin and Kristi Grassi are both writers frustrated with their inability to find an app with the features they need." and the names should, again, link to a bio on the site that highlights why you two are qualified to make this app and make it better than other writing apps.
You also need some explanation for the screenshot on your landing page. The screenshot does not tell me what it does. I have to guess and those guesses are somewhat informed by your above comment but not by anything actually on the site itself.
If it were me, I would likely take the screenshot, stick it in an editor and circle stuff in red or whatever and then add notes below it: "The section in the red oval on the right is blah blah blah."
Tell me what it does and why this helps me write.
> I would probably leave out the fact that you are "husband and wife."
If that were the language I’d probably agree, and probably wouldn’t have given it much more thought than that! But I think “husband and wife team” swayed me from that instinct. It’s a good balance between humanizing and establishing a shared interest in using the thing they’ve built. I don’t know how representative my reaction is, but “we created [thing] because [actual human experience and need it satisfies]” tends to be a persuasive way to get me interested, and actual human stuff feels more pertinent to me in that framing than stuff about the humans detached from the thing.
I write erotic novels as a hobby. I legit thought no one else does this (putting random unorganized ideas at the bottom of the document). I am genuinely pleased to know I am not the only one.
Ideas naturally flow from scratch to outline to fleshed-out paragraphs this way.
Ditto, except that I use Vim on a single file with vertical splits, so that that I have different parts of the same file in view at the same time.
With a large monitor I typically have 3x vertical splits on the same file.
Perhaps it comes from me being a 80-character line limit programmer and have always limited the width of my editor.
To answer the question, Lunette would ideally be a combination of local and cloud and be available via web and native app. One product I tried that did this was Roam Research (https://roamresearch.com/), but the problem was they made you choose because the two (either saved to the cloud OR locally), whereas I think it'd work better if those two worked hand in hand. But that's complicated to build and beyond the scope of a proof of concept.
Ultimately I went with the web app because that's my skillset and I figured the best first step was seeing if it's even something people would use.
I did try out a couple other editors that leaned on markdown though with mixed results.
One thing that stands out to me in particular with iA is the way they've implemented (at least based on the homepage video) note linking. That click-through implementation forces you to leave your document, which is something we explicitly didn't want, since typically what you're doing is scanning through your notes and your document simultaneously while you work out how everything fits together.
Things I like about iA Writer and are holding me back from your approach is
- don’t quite understand the differentiation you’re describing here, not in the web copy either
- where do my files live? Unclear with your solution, and I need full ownership of my data to feel comfortable
- business model: iA is a one-time payment for cloud syncing out of the box, this looks like you’re angling for a subscription but what justifies that value?
I don’t like to criticize prematurely, but from someone who’s looked at a ton of tools in this space it’s not yet clear to me what you’re delivering that would get me to switch. Hopefully this is helpful criticism. Good luck!
On Apple devices, you can choose from 3 fonts from the same family, and that’s it. After a short while they tend to disappear into the background while I focus on making words good.
One nit about the site I haven’t seen addressed yet: overall it’s pretty good on mobile (besides the front page screenshot being too tiny to understand; addressing that is a whole can of worms, but…) the header is breaking the signup button even on my very large phone, and stuff vertical alignment feels weird. You could fix the former, but I’d consider dropping “for free” (it’s a general assumption for most people walking up to a site unless they feel like they’re getting a hard sell) and adjusting styles to fit the content on one line. Definitely look at the vertical alignment though, because it’s gonna look weird regardless of wrapping.
As for the "for free" part, that's funny, because I had it the way you're suggesting originally but changed it to this based on someone else's feedback :P
As far as mobile, I’d be happy to sling a few CSS suggestions your way for what stood out to me on first visit if you want!
As an aside, I realized when I logged into this account to post that I created my Hackernews account over a decade ago, and scrolling through my post history and coming across the multiple Show HN news posts I've done throughout that time, thinking about the successes and failures I've had with those old projects, and realizing that this community has been here the whole damn time, being as generous and constructive and open-minded as it ever was... that's really cool.
Thank you everyone for being part of one of the best communities on the entire internet. Y'all are too good.
Would you be happier if it made you money or if a community helped you build it?
Open Source means that if someone is determined enough, they can go do it for themselves. Sometimes that ends up with a viable alternative -- neovim, for instance -- and sometimes it demonstrates that a rejected feature was actually useful, and is folded back in to the original -- but most of the time it means a copy of the code base with one patch and one user. All of these are valuable in different ways.
I hate to be that person, but you're pitching an app for authors, developed by yourself who is a self-described author, and you're mixing up 'loose' and 'lose' :-(
In any other context, this wouldn't matter, and with actual typos it wouldn't matter, but in this context with this particular word, it does reflect negatively.
> I think in this space where there are already a ton of "do a lot of things halfway decently" products, being opinionated about what Lunette is and is not could be key to its success.
You're quite correct. Having a narrow focus on the goal is better than trying to be all things to all people, otherwise sooner or later you're going to be fielding requests from people who used it to write the business docs and need non-book related features.
I am also doing something similar (am not really an author, made a few hundred dollars with self-published books and short stories a decade ago and then moved on), and I have an even narrower focus than you do.
When I opened the app, I instantly started writing -- and that is good. I already have a half of an essay. Didn't use the notes feature, though -- I think it doesn't work in shorter writings, but is essential in long-form.
I have been writing with paper index cards for a while now. I think using paper cards is still superior: you can arrange them in any pattern you want. Many apps try to emulate the "solitaire" side of writing, but I haven't found anything comparable to analog, yet.
Looks neat tho.
* Offline editing
* Dark mode
* Manuscript theme
* Separates content from presentation
* Automatically curls straight quotes
Here's a tutorial showing how themes (and variables) work:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QpX70O5S30
I've been dog-fooding the editor for almost eight years to help me write a sci-fi novel. (Alpha readers wanted!)
I think my favorite part about doing this Show HN is all the interesting products I'm discovering, and seeing all the different ways people approach this space and this problem.
Edit: Forgot no DMs on HN. Use code "beta"!
This website is too mysterious for me.
Would be nice though if somebody finally created an application that let you write plain text files locally on your computer. It could be called Text Manipulator or Text Arranger or something like that.
Good luck on the development!
It recognised URL's but they a not clickable. Nice to have clickable links.
Being serious here, not even trolling. I've gone through many things, and always come back to writing mostly raw html for my own needs. Occasionally I write a small bash script to automate some stuff, bit that's about it.