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Show HN: Typeflow – Type-ahead as a Service

3 points by alediaferia 10y ago

adwmayer 10y ago
The demos aren't working, at least not in iOS Chrome.
- alediaferia 10y ago
  Thank you for letting me know. I don't have an iOS device handy to try but I'll investigate anyway to make it working on mobile as well. Should work on FF and Chrome desktop though. :)
  - bbcbasic 10y ago
    Same for Android chrome.
- mnkmnk 10y ago
  Also not working in android chrome
conradk 10y ago
What's the difference between this and jQuery autocomplete (or similar things) ?
- alediaferia 10y ago
  This an API, jQuery autocomplete is a Javascript library. Typeflow is inteded for big amounts of strings to autocomplete. It lets you push a list of strings to the typeflow API and exposes an endpoint for querying it via an HTTP API. You can easily make it working with Twitter Typeahead or jQuery autocomplete leaving the computation of the suggestion to the API.
- stephenr 10y ago
  This is a backend service for hipsters who want their app to rely on 22 different saas vendors, so they can collect their "reinvented a LIKE clause with an external service" badge.
  - alediaferia 10y ago
    Can I use that as description for the service? :)
    - stephenr 10y ago
      Sure, why not.
cphoover 10y ago
Hmmm... interesting concept.. I would add some features personally. A lot of the time typeahead calls for more than just a string, there should be away to display rich data objects in a template. Also there needs to be an API post endpoint so that data insertion/updates can be automated through an ETL process of some kind. my 2 cents...
- alediaferia 10y ago
  If you look at the Documentation section do you manage to find the API post you're looking for?
  - cphoover 10y ago
    Hmm If I were to design this... I would make it so that you don't have to replace the entire data source each time... I think a "suggestion" entry in the data source should be represented as it's own entity in the API... e.g instead of PUT /api/datasource/<UUID> overriding the entire datasource each time.. allow an api user to insert lines of text or rich objects. POST /api/datasource/<UUID>/suggestion { ... } or support bulk insertion. POST /api/datasource/<UUID>/suggestion [ { ... },... ] This works better for scaling when you can't just replace all suggestions in one request (like an ETL like operation for a very large dataset). Then you can also allow for updating single "suggestion" entities without replacing the whole dataset. I also think you should support rich objects, allow for things like boosting rules, different templates for object types, spelling correction, synonyms. I think this type of service would be really useful.
    - alediaferia 10y ago
      This is a great piece of advice. Thank you very much. I'll try and investigate this opportunity. Anyway, if you're interested most of the code in the web-service relies on: http://github.com/alediaferia/prefixmap http://github.com/alediaferia/prefixmap

3 points by alediaferia 10y ago

adwmayer 10y ago

The demos aren't working, at least not in iOS Chrome.

alediaferia 10y ago
Thank you for letting me know. I don't have an iOS device handy to try but I'll investigate anyway to make it working on mobile as well. Should work on FF and Chrome desktop though. :)
- bbcbasic 10y ago
  Same for Android chrome.
mnkmnk 10y ago
Also not working in android chrome

conradk 10y ago

What's the difference between this and jQuery autocomplete (or similar things) ?

alediaferia 10y ago
This an API, jQuery autocomplete is a Javascript library. Typeflow is inteded for big amounts of strings to autocomplete. It lets you push a list of strings to the typeflow API and exposes an endpoint for querying it via an HTTP API. You can easily make it working with Twitter Typeahead or jQuery autocomplete leaving the computation of the suggestion to the API.
stephenr 10y ago
This is a backend service for hipsters who want their app to rely on 22 different saas vendors, so they can collect their "reinvented a LIKE clause with an external service" badge.
- alediaferia 10y ago
  Can I use that as description for the service? :)
  - stephenr 10y ago
    Sure, why not.

cphoover 10y ago

Hmmm... interesting concept.. I would add some features personally. A lot of the time typeahead calls for more than just a string, there should be away to display rich data objects in a template. Also there needs to be an API post endpoint so that data insertion/updates can be automated through an ETL process of some kind. my 2 cents...

alediaferia 10y ago
If you look at the Documentation section do you manage to find the API post you're looking for?
- cphoover 10y ago
  Hmm If I were to design this... I would make it so that you don't have to replace the entire data source each time... I think a "suggestion" entry in the data source should be represented as it's own entity in the API... e.g instead of PUT /api/datasource/<UUID> overriding the entire datasource each time.. allow an api user to insert lines of text or rich objects. POST /api/datasource/<UUID>/suggestion { ... } or support bulk insertion. POST /api/datasource/<UUID>/suggestion [ { ... },... ] This works better for scaling when you can't just replace all suggestions in one request (like an ETL like operation for a very large dataset). Then you can also allow for updating single "suggestion" entities without replacing the whole dataset. I also think you should support rich objects, allow for things like boosting rules, different templates for object types, spelling correction, synonyms. I think this type of service would be really useful.
  - alediaferia 10y ago
    This is a great piece of advice. Thank you very much. I'll try and investigate this opportunity. Anyway, if you're interested most of the code in the web-service relies on: http://github.com/alediaferia/prefixmap http://github.com/alediaferia/prefixmap