Webstudio: Open-source WYSIWYG adds Radix UI elements | Hacker News Reader

Webstudio: Open-source WYSIWYG adds Radix UI elements

webstudio.is

124 pointspistoriusp59 comments

I am not understanding the value of the open source builder, if I am not able to download the code and host it on my own. What does the opensource gives me additionally apart from integrating the studio on my own website. The hobby/free plan already has unlimited projects, pages and team members. Looking into the builder, I cannot see the code but just the css. Would have been good if I could create one of components and be able to download the code using the open source builder.

CLI for syncing and publishing to Vercel is coming in the next weeks

Syncing and publishing what? What's so difficult about `git push` which pushes to GitHub and automatically deploys to Vercel? This doesn't look cool, but those two features are not going to be the ones I'll seek after.

Syncing the site data from builder to local fs and then building everything and configuring the app for publishing to vercel.

Just pushing to github only helps you if you only have static html/css if you wanted to publish a site as gh-page ... I guess you need to clarify your use case

GitHub actions solves the other half, no?

it’s open source you can add the feature to download the code yourself if you want it. being open source is also just a good thing in itself because it’s contributing to the total body of code available for others to extend and use in whatever way they want.

For anyone else looking for the source code for the WYSIWYG builder itself, I think this is it: https://github.com/webstudio-is/webstudio

AGPL 3.0

This is very cool. Looking forward to try it.

Funny enough a WYSIWYG editor is the reason Radix components were originally created. I worked on some of the original Radix components while working at Modulz[1].

[1]: https://modulz.app/

What is Radix?

https://www.radix-ui.com/

The main offering is their primitives (https://www.radix-ui.com/primitives): essentially skeletons of common components that plain HTML makes difficult to style.

They take care of cross-browser compatibility and accessibility and you apply your CSS to their wrapper element. (generally the term for this is headless UI components)

Most recently they released a styled version of those primitives

For React. Not mentioned even on the documentation page unless you dig for quite a bit.

Mentioned first thing on the link for primitives.

I feel like there aren't a lot of use cases for custom elements (W3C web components), but a generalised component library like this is probably one of those use cases.

Particularly given the ability to style shadow pseudo-elements like drop downs in a non-hacky, browser supported way.

Surprised React was chosen here.

Not signing in "with google" or "with github" or any other unrelated 3rd party. If there's no "with email" then its goodbye.

Probably a fine product though...

for privacy reasons? Afaik github is gdpr compliant ... or is there some other problem?

It is a privacy leak to tell Github about what other websites or products you are using, that you otherwise wouldn't if you just used normal email/password signup.

GDPR only has a tangental relation to privacy. It might be "GDPR compliant" for me to publish my nudes to twitter, but I've still (voluntarily) lost some privacy for doing so.

I don't own either service.

There are tons of problems with GitHub or Google only. What if you use ProtonMail and GitLab? (or any other of 20+ email / code repo providers)

Personally I refuse to signup just to check out something I'm only passively interested in, and I will never understand why startups do this. I imagine they're immediately turning away >80% of potential customers vs. just letting people try out the damn product

Any product that allows you to consume lots of resources including API calls, interact with other users, or share anything basically needs to be authenticated to avoid misuse. This covers virtually everything.

Sign in with google/apple can be virtually painless and only lets them know your email address, name, and profile pic if oauth is configured reasonably and its easy to tell on your side if its not because it asks for the additional permissions. You can also sign up with email without making the person go through a lot of malarky. Simply send them a sign in link instead of doing the whole normal dance. Click it and continue on.

If need be they can be prompted to fill out additional data if features require it.

It’s not the only way to prevent misuse for example: captcha’s, rate-limiting etc…

I bet they implemented the login anticipating misuse… and like all other startups, there’s only a tiny chance the product would be misused, but a large chance that many people won’t use it due to the login wall.

Effective captchas a much worse than logon with google or send a login link to email. Rate limiting might prevent the system falling over or spending all your money but it does near nothing for vandalism.

Rate limiting is like handing your football players packs of condoms instead of cups. It might be necessary but it sure as hell isn't sufficient.

I would suggest that if your app requires interaction with others you provide them with a test experience where they can read live data but not effect others. Gate functionality that might be misused with a request for an oauth2 login or email which you can send a login link to. Near zero commitment don't have to share anything beyond your email and name don't even have to make up yet another password. A few clicks and you are done.

You can provide almost as good an experience as you want without people getting their lols or their dollars off your other users.

Yea but if I haven't even seen the product yet, I'm not going to bother and give away my email + personal info.

I understand sometimes you need auth, but the app could just show the live app and then pop up a signup modal when the user tries to do something that requires auth (that's what I do on my apps)

I really don't want google/apple knowing anything of what I do online, hard as that is, but I'm not going to help them snoop on me.

i doubt 80% figure. Email is constant source of abuse and requires additional infrastructure so more and more indie products are sticking to social logins only.

Why wouldn’t the abuser just create fake gmail accounts?

it is tougher to create fake gmail account than temporary email account in your own domain or using services that provide temp emails.

It also prevents from mass creation of email accounts for probing services as google is likely to detect that.

pretty hard to show metrics to investors if you don't capture any of them

Just a screenshot tour would be enough for me to see if I'd want to sign up.

I prefer signing in with third party SSO because it's a lower chance of yet another website mishandling my password, though I use a password manager

I personally use a generated email with each service so I can track who shares my info. Sso defeats this method of reverse tracking.

I prefer the split approach. I use SSO on the inside of my home network and for hyperscalers and things like Tailscale. At least partly so I could enforce hardware auth when not supported or sane to implement natively.

Everyone else gets a custom email address.

It’s a nice in-between.

Good for you. Keep your SSO login. Nobody's asking for it to be removed. But, your SSO login isn't going to be affected if email login is added, would it?

Why, what happens if signing in with google?

At minimum, Google gets another data point about your internet and commercial service usage.

Worse cases include poorly scoped auth being used, and the service being compromised in some way.

Only works in Chrome/Edge it seems, but they don't tell you that until you've done the oauth and created a project, pretty shady.

its because dashboard works in other browsers too, but builder is very complex

How is that a valid reason?

Standard compliance, especially in something like a website builder should be a top priority. If the builder doesn't work in major browsers, why there be any confidence that the sites it produces will?

when you say confidence, is it because the person who builds, can't test in other browsers inside builder?

this is something we are going to solve soon by having ability to open up the build url and keeping it in sync with the changes.

This would also solve the problem with testing on various mobile devices by e.g. using browserstack and similar tools or even physical phones.

So, you are saying that there is no plan for it to work outside of Chrom(ium) browsers? It doesn't solve the problem of forcing someone to use a specific browser to use the platform.

It does not inspire confidence in an end product will work everywhere and be of high quality when the product to create it is buggy and limited.

It's a dark pattern having that check after you've signed up. You could easily do this before getting user details.

Tried Webstudio, I still prefer using Divhunt over any other builder/CMS

https://divhunt.com

Took a look.. got interested after first scroll.

Clicked pricing. It's all per month - no way to own it / buy - it's a lock-in-lease, where "your monthly bill only increases when you're making more money!"

Pass.

Looks like Microsoft Frontpage.

I don't understand why we keep recreating that but with worse and worse pricing models and more lock in.

Money.

WebStudio: Open visual development for the open web - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36345645 - June 2023 (72 comments)

A little off-topic: I am seeing the same design in 1/3 of links that get to to HN front page. The design is clearly a copy of the Vercel's design (and maybe they stole it from somewhere else). The same typography, gradients, border radius, and definitely the same blur effect.

I am happy that 'Corporate Memphis' is dying, but I am not happy it is getting replaced with another fad.

Makes me wonder, does someone keep track of web design trends trough history?

I don’t understand why downloading code is such a difficult feature for a website builder — I get the competitive aspect. BUT! It would bring so many users to your system and really would be great marketing — why not compete by giving people what they want and just practice love in not lock in? Especially when you’re already there with the OSS license?

Seems a real missed opportunity.

> practice love in not lock in

I haven’t heard this phrase before, it’s such a great way to describe how I like to do things, which I would have written as “compete on quality rather than treachery”

Lots of companies will behave this way... when times are good. They can be fairweather friends at best. Eventually it's time to batten down the hatches, and that's when licenses change, interop gets removed, etc. like we've seen again and again.

If that were true there wouldn't be companies in Open Source.

We are launching a CLI soon that will allow syncing data and self-publishing, starting with Vercel as first destination.

You know that's not what users actually want though, right?

Still want export. Not vercel.

Really don’t want another locked in platform.

Can’t be clearer. Abandoned the platform after this comment because it’s just missing the point. Be for the Internet not the VCs dude.

I think you responded to the wrong person. I'm agreeing with you

Is that related to toDesktop which was also on HN today (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37306411)? The download link leads to dl.todesktop.com/{someHash}.

Bit weird, what is the relation here? And why not mentioning?

https://webstudio.com/

Steve Cochard passed away a couple of years ago. I miss his cranky self ...

Accordian, fix that to Accordion anywhere it's used

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