Show HN: A Handwritten Blogging Platform | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: A Handwritten Blogging Platform

handwritten.blog

192 pointsemilesilvis92 comments

The idea is a place for beautiful notes like https://insidevoices.handwritten.blog.

I love that the comments on some of the posts (like this one) are written by hand too!

https://handwritten.danieljanus.pl/2022-10-01-hyperlinks-in-...

This is actually not on handwritten.blog, but on the site of the person where I got the original idea from! Maybe I can incorporate something like this on handwritten.blog too (e.g. a way for people to send in comments via email).

https://tuhat.net has comments via email, but only when responding to a newsletter post. Then the replies are put in the authors letter inbox connected to the post. Though all comments are private to the original author.

Thanks for sharing.

Stop replying to every single comment here!

No!

touch grass

Following the handwritten comments brought me there, which I found to be HN-worthy: https://mzucker.github.io/2016/09/20/noteshrink.html

Also, as a sign of our times, it hyperlinks to what might have been a Microsoft tech page/knowledge base in the past, now completely replaced by poor taste LLM advertising slop. Good work, Microsoft.

Brings to mind Jeff Bridges’ homepage: https://www.jeffbridges.com/

Beautiful.

Thanks for sharing this, instant add to my "unique artists" bookmarks folder.

Ironically, "No feeds. No algorithms. No likes." reads like copy that is, well, not handwritten.

I can assure you it was written by my own hand (but appreciate it might sound like marketing - perhaps I can change it a bit so it sounds more natural :)

I think the implication was that an LLM generated the text (which isn't an issue for me even if it was.)

That all being said, I love this project and I love how you're exploring linking in other mediums. I tried to do other linking demos via https://aifoc.us/hypermedia/ - it's something we don't do anywhere near enough

Fair enough, I might have gotton some help from an LLM with the copy!

Thank you!

Ironic.

Marketing is not my strong suit, so I use all the help I can get.

I feel people who like this type of blogs and want to try something like a static website would love Styluslabs’ Write https://www.styluslabs.com/

Handwriting is better as SVG if you are writing digitally, and while everyone has their own vector ink based proprietary formats, I like the simplicity and openness of SVG’s!

Very intresting, thank you for sharing!

SVG is completely unsuitable for recording pen stroke data, and fairly unsuitable as a publishing format for handwriting. It’s capable of representing a technical pen/fineliner with opaque, constant-width stroke tolerably well, but nothing else. For all other pen styles, you need variable stroke width (for which you have to switch to using a filled instead of stroked path, bloating it hugely and making it essentially uneditable), and also want some degree of variable opacity and/or texturing of the stroke (both impossible in SVG).

Yeah i think you have a valid point. I did have this issue come up where i was trying to vectorize an indexed png and no amount of playing with different engines and settings gave me a good enough reduction in size. It was essentially treating my handwritten strokes as variable width.

How about a blog that contains its entire source code inline in the blog itself? [0]

[0] - https://mjwg6zy.blog/

Such that copy pasting its contents reconstructs the blog byte for byte

This is cool - I love quines!

Heh thank you, more to come. Cool blog btw

Reminds me of E. W. Dijkstra's digitized hand-written manuscripts:

https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/index13xx.html

Indeed!

Fantastic idea! I think the hardest part for people to adopt this will be overcoming atrophied handwriting skills and no autocorrect.

One thing that doesn't seem clear to me from reading without signing up is how do you actually upload content? Do you have to have paper and pen and then take a picture of it, or do you provide some kind of excalidraw-like canvas for writing? I notice there isn't any paper background or line rules, which I think would also be nice for those who fancy a bit of structure when reading/writing.

Thanks! This is good feedback.

Yes, you can upload a photo through the backend, or just email it to a publish email address.

Good idea about the line rules and paper background - this could land as "theming" in the future.

Very cool. I created a similar project back in late 2002 (2003?) using Anoto digital pen and paper for publishing to a blog format. That version was using a bluetooth connection to some Nokia or Ericsson handset that had gprs for communication with Anoto servers to route handwriting traffic. I went only so far as having an internal demo, though. A lot have transpired with the Anoto platform since then, also.

Sounds amazing! Thanks!

Reminds me of tinyprojects.dev Paper Website project from 2021

https://paperwebsite.com/

Interesting, thanks for sharing.

I was very disappointed, when that happened, that the paper aspect of it was purely at authoring time; that it was converted into text. This one gets it right, preserving the handwriting aspect.

huh that website looks like it was generated with Claude just yesterday or something

I mean, LLMs are just imitating prior work, no? Poor designer probably feels like the people who liked using em dashes.

Without any way to access the corresponding text, this is unfortunately an idea I hope never gets any significant adoption.

I wonder if there is a way to make the underlying text accessible. OCR could presumably attempt to get at which letters correspond to which glyphs. Can a drawing be annotated in SVG as representing some character, as in an illustrated manuscript? If so, maybe this can be saved.

Similar but for typists, https://onetypedpage.com/

Interesting, thank you for sharing!

Who is this for though?

As a writer, a lot of times I am writing over 5,000 words in a single article. I can type at around 170 wpm but my wrist starts hurting the moment I write more than three pages in my journal. I also use a split ergonomic keyboard which helps my hands a lot. I also revise my writing heavily which is very hard to do with handwritten stuff.

For readers, it will maybe be a novelty but I don't really see why anyone will prefer reading content that is handwritten since it has a lot of accessibility problems which are solved with proper typesetting.

I could see the value if it was a collection of interesting notes or unique handwriting styles etc. But i don't think its usuable as a blogging platform imo

Blog posts don’t need to be 5000 words nor do you need to write them on one sitting (or under 30 minutes).

For wrist fatigue having better paper and pen help a lot, but part of it is just using the muscles and not having a death grip.

This being said I don’t like that this is hand writing with a device. It just isn’t the same as actual physical media.

Yeah they don't need to be. But what about revising and editing? You will just straight up write the perfect thing in first go? What about accesibility for the reader?

And yeah I can learn how to write better with my hand but i can also learn how to be a swordfighter. But I don't see how that should be a prerequisite for a blogging platform.

I am not saying nobody will ever like this. But as someone who has used blogging platforms for a long time to be considered a power user, the stated comment was my prespective.

Not everything needs to be catered to you. If you dont like it then go away. There are literally thousands of blogging platforms for you to choose from.

Just worrying about having it be perfect already tells where the actual problem is. Everything doesn't need to be polished or edited or perfect. Things can be fun and loose and whimsical. Sure some people can't read my hand writing or they are blind and they can't get to my content, that is life. Again my enjoyment is paramount, not some potential reader. You should be writing for yourself.

For myself, it's really about slowing down my thinking. It's definitely not meant for _efficient_ writing :)

I love the idea from a personal note collection perspective, however as a blog I feel that it can be taxing to be able to read so many different handwriting styles

Different handwriting styles is just ... personal. Literally a letter. Even HAM radio operators or Morse code users have unique style. Could be ideal for small blog communities, but it falls apart when targeting large audience.

I need 250% size increase to be able to read this, and floating text makes it a super hard read for me.

OP, please use lined template for writing :)

Good idea `:)

Hi Emile

I like the concept too. People are losing the ability to read handwritten letters and notes. I'm just curious, how does this all work? Can I simply take a photo of a page?

Hi cmbza - yes, you take a photo, which you can then upload through the site or email to a publish address.

Very cool, maybe add a more prominent header link to https://handwritten.blog/how-it-works. I had to read the comments here to find it

Good idea!

I've been thinking about getting a Remarkable... Really tough to choose between the Pro, the Pro Move, and the Pure.

I would quite like colour (for doodling), and the price point of the Move is slightly better, but I'm worried about the (small) size of it. Ideally I'd want something with colour support at an A5 paper size level. Wondering if anyone can speak to their experiences with any of them?

I use my ReMarkable Paper Pro every day :) I use it personally to do maths and journal, and professionally to take notes. What's your budget?

Great to hear, thank you for sharing! Am considering getting one, but holding out until September because they haven't refreshed that particular device in a couple of years...

I wasn't intending on a budget as large as the Paper Pro's, but I could stretch to that if it made me demonstrably more productive / happier.

I was keener on the price point of the Paper Pure, but like the idea of a backlight and colour!

Consider the Supernote Manta (10.7") and Nomad (7.8") as well. I've been using the Manta for a few months now, and it is quite a pleasure to write on.

Interesting idea. I got myself an eInk tablet last week and was thinking about how I could incorporate handwritten notes/blog posts into my regular blog. As a separate section and maybe a separate RSS feed.

Because I actually liked the idea of enabling people to read my handwritten notes. I just would not want to put that onto an external service, being more of a selfhost person...

Thanks! Undertandable :)

Might be missing something but I expected a way to browse the blogs - maybe even a 'random blog' link!

I have a "discovery feed" on the backlog, but people would need to opt in for their blogs to appear there in any case.

This is really lovely! I saw a couple weeks back where someone made a custom app on their remarkable with an LLM responding to handwritten text

Makes me think that I should get my remarkable modded as well to post things I write to my website directly, incorporating some ideas from this. Thank you for sharing!

Thank you!

Love this! At an era where AI is automating everything, it's good to see a product that reminds us of the way it was before computers and AI got involved. (I need to work on my handwriting! haven't used a pen in ages! X))

Nice, left you my handwritten review of the odyssey: https://vasco.handwritten.blog/the-greek-movie

This is lovely. I have a growing "long reads" bookmarks folder, and this feels like exactly the kind of site I'd keep adding to it. Looking forward to reading more.

Nice idea! And I see that there's also automated transcript for SEO & accessibility. Is there some standardised way to upload the content, or any image goes?

At the moment, any image goes.

This has got to be one of the most interesting, unique, and beautiful ideas I have seen on the internet in a long, long time.

Is this moderated in some way? It is the internet. Hard to see how this doesn't fill with doodles of penises and other similar things or worse.

It's not moderated. You own your content (including doodles of penises and other similar things).

Hi, I've been working on handwritten blogging too! It would be great to compare notes. I might also drop you a line on another platform.

Let's do it!

Nice! Looks like a book with hand-written reviews in many European hotels

It is a great idea, congratulations! Not sure if we will remember how to write ;-)

Hmm, how come this is only a Show HN post now, but it seems it's already been live since at least 2022: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33055426 ?

The domain has changed hands. What it was then is now at https://handwritten.danieljanus.pl/.

this seems to be great for like a single page exhibition or something, but reading long form content from something like this, personally I feel this to be not so intuitive

I think I agree. I think it's more for the writer than for the reader.

totally banger if so

i really like this. my issue is usually i read while selecting so my eyes follow which unfortunately the website won't support

Yeah I can imagine that's tricky to do in this case. Maybe I can think of something.

cool idea, but doesn't this prevent translation for foreign audiences? or even screen reader integration

There are transcripts. I'm assuming those can be translated and read by screen readers, but good reminder, let me check!

This looks good.

Very human, well done! Thank you!

Thank you!

love the idea! I had a similar thing on my todo list :) Glad u made it.

\o/