Ask HN: Beta launch of DIY Mobile Website service. Looking for feedback.
We just launched the beta of our DIY mobile website development tool. The service is called Jinnsite and the beta can be accessed at the following URL:
http://jinnsite.com/signup?beta
The service was designed primarily for individuals (business owners) looking to create mobile-optimized websites by allowing them to create pre-defined pages (About Us, Contact Us, Photos, Videos, etc.) that they can then customize. The service is completely self-hosted so a mobile website can be up and running in minutes. (The user creates a unique site name for the site which is then available at http://<site-name>.jinnsite.net)
While the tool is designed to be easy enough for the novice to use, it also has advanced features to make it powerful enough to be useful to both designers and developers. Some of the advanced features include the ability to include both site-wide and page-level css and javascript, custom headers and footers, domain aliasing, website redirection, etc.
From a tech perspective, the service was built using GWT/SmartGWT so it's 100% AJAX-based and should run on most modern browsers.
I would greatly appreciate feedback regarding any of the following aspects of the service: - the aesthetics of the tool - user-friendliness / how intuitive it is to use and navigate - the generated mobile-optimized output - essential missing features - nice to haves - your judgement of the usefulness of the service to business owners, web designers, developers, etc.
Thank you!
Some additional notes regarding the beta:
- Jinnsite was developed with Google Chrome as the primary browser. It should work on the latest versions of Safari, Firefox and IE, however these aren't as well tested.
- On Firefox, there is a known issue of the FileManager and/or the Preview emulator will not appear full size. A fix is being worked on.
- The FileManager currently allows only one file to be uploaded at a time. An update to allow multiple uploads is being worked on.
- The beta is currently limited only to 2 sites.
- There's very little documentation so far, but when prompted for information, hovering over a field will generally provide a hint.
- The emulator has 2 modes: Live and Preview. It's set to Preview by default which will show every page created whether it's published or not. Live mode is what the public sees and only shows published pages.