8 ms·

Show HN: CrushPaper – Open-Source Workflowy and Evernote for Writers, Students

56 points by bazookajoes 11y ago

heliostatic 11y ago
Very nice work! This feels like a great fit, product-wise, for Sandstorm. Have you looked at what that would entail?
- bazookajoes 11y ago
  That is a great suggestion. Thank you for pointing that out. So far I haven't thought about that at all.
  - hammerandtongs 11y ago
    Your project seems perfect for sandstorm. The gap between "you can run your own server" and a one click install via sandstorm is profound.
    - bazookajoes 11y ago
      Thank you for the reinforcement!
tekacs 11y ago
This is nice, but the core keyboard shortcuts are (or so I find) painful and needlessly complex to use. :/ A comparison: Workflowy -> CrushPaper Enter -> Alt+s Enter -> Alt+u/b Enter + Tab -> Alt+c This feels like it was designed to be used with a mouse and keyboard shortcuts inexpertly bolted on. :) After that fix, this is a joy to use. :)
- bazookajoes 11y ago
  Thank you for the feedback! I think one of the major UI differences between Workflowy and CrushPaper is that CrushPaper aims to support multiline notes and quotations. I often paste snippets of code into CrushPaper but that does not seem to work well in Workflowy. In Workflowy you can create multiline notes with Shift+Enter, but then you don't seem to be able to navigate to those lines with the keyboard. CrushPaper can definitely be changed to use Enter+Tab instead of Alt+c. Perhaps Alt+Enter should insert a new line within a note, and Enter should create a new note. When I experimented with that during user testing no user guessed that it was possible to create multi-line notes.
  - whistlerbrk 11y ago
    I think what the original commenter was getting at was that the UI flow in general doesn't reduce implied next steps. I like your project though.
    - bazookajoes 11y ago
      Thank you for trying to explain. I think I still don't understand though. Would you mind explaining it a bit more? And thank you, I'm glad you like it!
  - tekacs 11y ago
    A few options: - Enter for newline and Shift-Enter for new entry (and Alt/Cmd-Shift-Enter for new child)? This would retain your multiline discoverability. I would be careful with Alt, as it makes CrushPaper awkward to use on Macs, where Alt+s both sends the keystroke and types 'ß' (German eszett) and similar issues abide for other Alt combinations. Since you have so many Alt shortcuts, it might be worth mapping them to equivalent Cmd shortcuts on Mac, as web apps commonly do. - OmniFocus/Outliner on Mac use Escape to finish editing and Enter always makes a new entry. Escape might make an easier-to-hit-reliably edit key than F2 (which can be hard to hit without looking/fumbling, even for a touch typist).
    - bazookajoes 11y ago
      Thank you for these suggestions.
litzer 11y ago
Not too relevant, but the background reminds me of Github 404 page. https://github.com/asdflkjsad https://github.com/asdflkjsad
- bazookajoes 11y ago
  I hadn't realized that. Do you think that is good or bad?
maelito 11y ago
https://github.com/abhshkdz/HackFlowy https://github.com/abhshkdz/HackFlowy is a clone of Workflowy, unfortunately it's not being developed anymore
- robertodelori 11y ago
  Which, on a side note, could be a fun place to start learning node - just a random thought. I still have big troubles finding myself enough time, persistency to go through all node noise, find good framework, etc. Worth checking out ;)
- bazookajoes 11y ago
  I like that project! I wrote most of CrushPaper before finding out about Workflowy or HackFlowy, but I tried to take a different path from HackFlowy. CrushPaper is hopefully easy to deploy because it is a single executable JAR. CrushPaper is hopefully easy to contribute to because all of the server code is in Java. CrushPaper has unit tests. I am always surprised when people are willing to store their information in an app that doesn't have any test coverage.
quadrangle 11y ago
Thanks for using the AGPL
- bazookajoes 11y ago
  You're welcome! But I have to admit that I am curious why you thank me for that.
  - quadrangle 11y ago
    Because the AGPL is the strongest license to protect freedom by blocking the development of proprietary derivatives. (I'm hoping you aren't using AGPL with the intention of giving yourself an exception and turning this into a proprietary service yourself; the guarantee against that is accepting AGPL patches from others without a CLA — that would assure that the whole thing is AGPL for everyone equally)
hammerandtongs 11y ago
This whole area is very underserved in how people interact with their computers, glad to see people pushing at it. You could do worse then really digging deep into emacs org-mode and learning it well. It takes what you are doing to a much higher level but doesn't exist on the web yet. Also (as mentioned elsewhere) get yourself up here https://demo.sandstorm.io/demo https://demo.sandstorm.io/demo
- bazookajoes 11y ago
  It's great to see you agree on the importance of this area! I believe that when people have tools that allow them to visualize their thoughts they can become more rational as well as more productive. I like emacs org-mode too. I would like to add functionality to CrushPaper that is similar to some aspects of emacs org-mode. But, first I need more feedback on the current iteration.
  - hammerandtongs 11y ago
    It's difficult for me to give feedback as I'm too opinionated at some level (ie see my "computational document" comment). I'm also a grumpy vim/emacs diehard in general so your keybindings are never going to be to my taste. Try to avoid the popup modal dialog boxes ie for creating a new note. Focus on fluid note editing within the document. Alt+enter to end a note? What is the absolute most fluid way you can give the user to create a sibling?
- WalterGR 11y ago
  This whole area is very underserved in how people interact with their computers, glad to see people pushing at it. This is something that I'm extremely interested in improving. Are there any tools other than org-mode that you have your eye on?
  - hammerandtongs 11y ago
    For the particle cross section of - outliner org-tangle/org-babel, literate programming and/or http://www.howardism.org/Technical/Emacs/literate-devops.html http://www.howardism.org/Technical/Emacs/literate-devops.htm... broadly exportable format calendar/todo/personal information management etc etc I'm not aware of anything else that covers that territory. However Xiki and IPython (Jupyter now) do have some of the aspects of the "computational document" that I think of in this broader context.
luckyisgood 11y ago
Wow, you filled a huge gap I could not believe I couldn't find a solution before, and I've searched. All I ever wanted to do on my desktop is this: 1) Select some text on the screen 2) Have the text AND the URL to the source copied to one place, without me having to manually copy and paste the URL. I am a huge fan of collecting random clippings from the web. Your app saves me just enough clicks to make it worth while. Thank you for implementing Markdown export. I suggest you add one feature: the ability to not have to confirm the save - frictionless saving. Just save everything to one default place, don't have the app ask me anything.
- bazookajoes 11y ago
  Thank you for the suggestion and the feedback! I will do it tomorrow. I just have to decide if it should be a separate context menu item. If you have any other thoughts please let me know.
  - luckyisgood 11y ago
    Preserving rich formatting would also be nice.
    - bazookajoes 11y ago
      Thanks! Yes, I would like to do that too. Here is the outrageously long list of things I want to do with CrushPaper http://crushpaper.com/help/Future-Enhancements http://crushpaper.com/help/Future-Enhancements
- flipchart 11y ago
  OneNote already does this (at least the desktop version does). I also really like the web clipper bookmark to send the whole page to OneNote
walterbell 11y ago
Have you considered using a CalDAV server (e.g. SabreDAV) as a backend?
- bazookajoes 11y ago
  I haven't thought about using a CalDAV server for this at all actually. How do you envision that working? The backend of this is pluggable so it can use other datastores.
  - walterbell 11y ago
    http://2doapp.com http://2doapp.com uses CalDav to sync task items across iOS, Android and OSX. This works with both iCloud (Reminders) and third-party CalDAV servers, including self-hosted http://sabre.io http://sabre.io. If you sync a 2Do app instance with SabreDAV, you can see that the 2Do developers have added app-specific fields to the standard schema, to store text notes, audio attachments and app-specific metadata, without losing interoperability. CalDAV clients: http://caldav.calconnect.org/implementations/clients.html http://caldav.calconnect.org/implementations/clients.html CalDAV libraries: http://caldav.calconnect.org/implementations/librariestools.html http://caldav.calconnect.org/implementations/librariestools....

56 points by bazookajoes 11y ago

heliostatic 11y ago

Very nice work! This feels like a great fit, product-wise, for Sandstorm. Have you looked at what that would entail?

bazookajoes 11y ago
That is a great suggestion. Thank you for pointing that out. So far I haven't thought about that at all.
- hammerandtongs 11y ago
  Your project seems perfect for sandstorm. The gap between "you can run your own server" and a one click install via sandstorm is profound.
  - bazookajoes 11y ago
    Thank you for the reinforcement!

tekacs 11y ago

This is nice, but the core keyboard shortcuts are (or so I find) painful and needlessly complex to use. :/ A comparison: Workflowy -> CrushPaper Enter -> Alt+s Enter -> Alt+u/b Enter + Tab -> Alt+c This feels like it was designed to be used with a mouse and keyboard shortcuts inexpertly bolted on. :) After that fix, this is a joy to use. :)

bazookajoes 11y ago
Thank you for the feedback! I think one of the major UI differences between Workflowy and CrushPaper is that CrushPaper aims to support multiline notes and quotations. I often paste snippets of code into CrushPaper but that does not seem to work well in Workflowy. In Workflowy you can create multiline notes with Shift+Enter, but then you don't seem to be able to navigate to those lines with the keyboard. CrushPaper can definitely be changed to use Enter+Tab instead of Alt+c. Perhaps Alt+Enter should insert a new line within a note, and Enter should create a new note. When I experimented with that during user testing no user guessed that it was possible to create multi-line notes.
- whistlerbrk 11y ago
  I think what the original commenter was getting at was that the UI flow in general doesn't reduce implied next steps. I like your project though.
  - bazookajoes 11y ago
    Thank you for trying to explain. I think I still don't understand though. Would you mind explaining it a bit more? And thank you, I'm glad you like it!
- tekacs 11y ago
  A few options: - Enter for newline and Shift-Enter for new entry (and Alt/Cmd-Shift-Enter for new child)? This would retain your multiline discoverability. I would be careful with Alt, as it makes CrushPaper awkward to use on Macs, where Alt+s both sends the keystroke and types 'ß' (German eszett) and similar issues abide for other Alt combinations. Since you have so many Alt shortcuts, it might be worth mapping them to equivalent Cmd shortcuts on Mac, as web apps commonly do. - OmniFocus/Outliner on Mac use Escape to finish editing and Enter always makes a new entry. Escape might make an easier-to-hit-reliably edit key than F2 (which can be hard to hit without looking/fumbling, even for a touch typist).
  - bazookajoes 11y ago
    Thank you for these suggestions.

litzer 11y ago

Not too relevant, but the background reminds me of Github 404 page. https://github.com/asdflkjsad https://github.com/asdflkjsad

bazookajoes 11y ago
I hadn't realized that. Do you think that is good or bad?

maelito 11y ago

https://github.com/abhshkdz/HackFlowy https://github.com/abhshkdz/HackFlowy is a clone of Workflowy, unfortunately it's not being developed anymore

robertodelori 11y ago
Which, on a side note, could be a fun place to start learning node - just a random thought. I still have big troubles finding myself enough time, persistency to go through all node noise, find good framework, etc. Worth checking out ;)
bazookajoes 11y ago
I like that project! I wrote most of CrushPaper before finding out about Workflowy or HackFlowy, but I tried to take a different path from HackFlowy. CrushPaper is hopefully easy to deploy because it is a single executable JAR. CrushPaper is hopefully easy to contribute to because all of the server code is in Java. CrushPaper has unit tests. I am always surprised when people are willing to store their information in an app that doesn't have any test coverage.

quadrangle 11y ago

Thanks for using the AGPL

bazookajoes 11y ago
You're welcome! But I have to admit that I am curious why you thank me for that.
- quadrangle 11y ago
  Because the AGPL is the strongest license to protect freedom by blocking the development of proprietary derivatives. (I'm hoping you aren't using AGPL with the intention of giving yourself an exception and turning this into a proprietary service yourself; the guarantee against that is accepting AGPL patches from others without a CLA — that would assure that the whole thing is AGPL for everyone equally)

hammerandtongs 11y ago

This whole area is very underserved in how people interact with their computers, glad to see people pushing at it. You could do worse then really digging deep into emacs org-mode and learning it well. It takes what you are doing to a much higher level but doesn't exist on the web yet. Also (as mentioned elsewhere) get yourself up here https://demo.sandstorm.io/demo https://demo.sandstorm.io/demo

bazookajoes 11y ago
It's great to see you agree on the importance of this area! I believe that when people have tools that allow them to visualize their thoughts they can become more rational as well as more productive. I like emacs org-mode too. I would like to add functionality to CrushPaper that is similar to some aspects of emacs org-mode. But, first I need more feedback on the current iteration.
- hammerandtongs 11y ago
  It's difficult for me to give feedback as I'm too opinionated at some level (ie see my "computational document" comment). I'm also a grumpy vim/emacs diehard in general so your keybindings are never going to be to my taste. Try to avoid the popup modal dialog boxes ie for creating a new note. Focus on fluid note editing within the document. Alt+enter to end a note? What is the absolute most fluid way you can give the user to create a sibling?
WalterGR 11y ago
This whole area is very underserved in how people interact with their computers, glad to see people pushing at it. This is something that I'm extremely interested in improving. Are there any tools other than org-mode that you have your eye on?
- hammerandtongs 11y ago
  For the particle cross section of - outliner org-tangle/org-babel, literate programming and/or http://www.howardism.org/Technical/Emacs/literate-devops.html http://www.howardism.org/Technical/Emacs/literate-devops.htm... broadly exportable format calendar/todo/personal information management etc etc I'm not aware of anything else that covers that territory. However Xiki and IPython (Jupyter now) do have some of the aspects of the "computational document" that I think of in this broader context.

luckyisgood 11y ago

Wow, you filled a huge gap I could not believe I couldn't find a solution before, and I've searched. All I ever wanted to do on my desktop is this: 1) Select some text on the screen 2) Have the text AND the URL to the source copied to one place, without me having to manually copy and paste the URL. I am a huge fan of collecting random clippings from the web. Your app saves me just enough clicks to make it worth while. Thank you for implementing Markdown export. I suggest you add one feature: the ability to not have to confirm the save - frictionless saving. Just save everything to one default place, don't have the app ask me anything.

bazookajoes 11y ago
Thank you for the suggestion and the feedback! I will do it tomorrow. I just have to decide if it should be a separate context menu item. If you have any other thoughts please let me know.
- luckyisgood 11y ago
  Preserving rich formatting would also be nice.
  - bazookajoes 11y ago
    Thanks! Yes, I would like to do that too. Here is the outrageously long list of things I want to do with CrushPaper http://crushpaper.com/help/Future-Enhancements http://crushpaper.com/help/Future-Enhancements
flipchart 11y ago
OneNote already does this (at least the desktop version does). I also really like the web clipper bookmark to send the whole page to OneNote

walterbell 11y ago

Have you considered using a CalDAV server (e.g. SabreDAV) as a backend?

bazookajoes 11y ago
I haven't thought about using a CalDAV server for this at all actually. How do you envision that working? The backend of this is pluggable so it can use other datastores.
- walterbell 11y ago
  http://2doapp.com http://2doapp.com uses CalDav to sync task items across iOS, Android and OSX. This works with both iCloud (Reminders) and third-party CalDAV servers, including self-hosted http://sabre.io http://sabre.io. If you sync a 2Do app instance with SabreDAV, you can see that the 2Do developers have added app-specific fields to the standard schema, to store text notes, audio attachments and app-specific metadata, without losing interoperability. CalDAV clients: http://caldav.calconnect.org/implementations/clients.html http://caldav.calconnect.org/implementations/clients.html CalDAV libraries: http://caldav.calconnect.org/implementations/librariestools.html http://caldav.calconnect.org/implementations/librariestools....