Show HN: I'm working on an open source writing app | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: I'm working on an open source writing app

12 pointsegonschiele12 comments

Hey Hacker News, I'm a writer who sometimes misses the fancy features of a code editor, so I started building Chisel.

What can Chisel do?

- Command palette like VSCode

- Git-like history to keep track of your writing journey

- Writing feedback ala Hemingway or Grammarly

- And it even integrates with ChatGPT

I've tried out some other apps like Bear and Obsidian, but Chisel has been a better fit. It's more about writing and less about note-taking.

Head over to https://egonschiele.github.io/chisel-docs/ to check it out!

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Very nice! I'm also this guy

> I'm a writer who sometimes misses the fancy features of a code editor, so I started building

I haven't added any external services to mine yet. Interesting to see the things we have in common / difference though. I love the diff! How do you do the git-like history? I can't see any history when I try it out.

Also, a word of warning: as a developer-turned-writer, developing your own writing app is probably the single biggest distraction you can create, the greatest form of procrastination. Every time I sit down to write, using my own app, I find things I want to add, or change, or fix, and even when I resist the urge to work on them, I'm still _thinking_ about them when trying to write. I started my writing app journey in 2012, and my writing productivity has suffered ever since. Don't get me wrong - its a very satisfying hobby, but I dont write nearly as much as I could have done if I wasn't bug fixing in my spare time

I have sort of a dumb feature that I've always wanted but I don't know enough about writing editors coding to build it. I use Scrivener these days for writing, and I have a Characters tab and a Places/Locations tab. Basically a lot of world-building things. What I'd love is that if I could hover over the character/location name, it would provide a hover pop up or clickable link that would take me to that character.

The reason is that I'll create a character with red hair or a Boston accent, and then later I'll write them into a scene and not remember which one they had, and so I have to go searching for it. Would be cool if it could just automatically detect that i'm talking about that character and then link to them.

Might be a pipe dream, but would be awesome. :)

Neat idea! I've added it to the todo list.

This feature is now live! Here is a demo: https://youtu.be/Ucc8LKUFJCI

Interesting. What would be more useful though, would be to let people add their own API key and have unlimited use. Also a local install version would be nice.

Local install is on the list! I’m wary of sites who tell their users “put in your API key, we promise to keep it safe”. That’s why I’m going the route where users can host their own instance. If you find yourself hitting the 50k limit though, I’m happy to increase it.

You shouldn't need accounts to track usage.

Just added guest users. Try it out!

You have a thing where the burger menu next to the + icon in the chapters sidebar show underneath the books sidebar, otherwise I like it! Nice work!

Thank you! I'll fix that. Feel free to leave more feedback!

The demo link doesn't work.

Fixed, thanks!

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