[HN Gopher] Craft - A fresh take on documents
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Craft - A fresh take on documents
Author : blindm
Score : 154 points
Date : 2020-12-24 17:21 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.craft.do)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.craft.do)
| alphachloride wrote:
| What format does it use to save documents?
| benatkin wrote:
| > What format does it use to save documents?
|
| Proprietary.
|
| Edit: they do have export. No canonical format. Probably good
| enough though.
| https://www.craft.do/s/zw95bDIcSkoDsq/b/70E1E8BF-41C4-4099-A...
| Nullabillity wrote:
| Apple-only, subscription-only, seems to require some cloud
| garbage, mobile-first.
|
| At least bullshit tends to come together, I guess.
| beyondcompute wrote:
| Another of those subscription apps? That's ridiculous when people
| build simple weather, calendar app or a text editor and expect
| users to pay dozens of euro every year for them.
| tornato7 wrote:
| Considering it's possible to generate a web link with this, I
| would love to see an 'export to HTML' feature so that I could use
| Craft to write a personal website/blog.
| ksec wrote:
| My first thought as well. Increasingly I dont want a Web App,
| Blog, CMS, or whatever it is. I think all of that should just
| live on my computer as a simple App. Upload the HTML and we are
| good to go.
|
| Basically going back to Front Page.
| inakarmacoma wrote:
| Try obsidian.md ?
| jonmc12 wrote:
| Also check out Craft's "Missing Guide for Mac Catalyst Apps"
| https://www.craft.do/maccatalyst-guide
|
| "Mac Catalyst is a technology that enables you to run iOS code on
| macOS.."
| ClaireBookworm wrote:
| how is this different from notion except paid? :) i downloaded it
| a while back and added 3 cards before I was at the free limit :(
| micpalmia wrote:
| Doesn't this look very very similar to Notion? It doesn't seem to
| be from the same people though, feels like I'm missing something.
| phrz wrote:
| I guess the block-based document editor field is heating up.
| With this tool's native iOS and macOS apps, I hope they either
| unseat Notion, or launch Notion into making native tools. Their
| web-based UI has extremely poor performance.
| joegahona wrote:
| I had the same thought. Bear is in this category too. The
| only differentiator vs. Notion right now seems to be a native
| app, however. I'm going to give it a try and see if I like it
| though.
| Veen wrote:
| One significant difference is automatic back linking (bi-
| directional linking). Craft looks a bit like Notion but it has
| some of the functionality of Roam and Obsidian. Plus, decent
| native apps, which Notion and the others lack.
| pps wrote:
| Notion has had backlinks since Sep 2020.
| minouye wrote:
| I've played with Craft a bit and it's been a joy to use so far.
|
| Conceptually it sits between Apple Notes and Notion. You get
| native apps that work offline, support fast capture, and are
| satisfying to use. You also get the wiki-style support and block-
| level editing of Notion, along with lots of other nice Notion
| visual flourishes (page-level icons, cover images, etc.)
|
| One area Craft really shines, is the way that it supports
| interactive, sharable documents. If I have text, images, files,
| and want to combine them all into a single page/starting point,
| Craft makes this super simple.
|
| Here are some examples (which you could design on your own):
|
| https://www.craft.do/s/VIAC9BTTJWdCxp
|
| https://www.craft.do/s/09fqwC5rGqErmB/b/F19F87F2-0F04-49F9-9...
|
| https://www.craft.do/s/09fqwC5rGqErmB/b/9041969E-127C-4439-A...
| the_arun wrote:
| Evernote also does similar stuff, right? What is new? Sorry I
| haven't tried Craft myself yet.
| ipsum2 wrote:
| Thanks, its strange that they didn't include this demo on their
| website.
| samat wrote:
| Wow this shit is fast, even on mobile web!
| bertmuthalaly wrote:
| Wait wait wait notion but fast? OK I'm signing up
| hirundo wrote:
| "A fresh take on documents" that's limited to Apple devices seems
| like a problem. People usually make documents to share. I suppose
| there are hardcore Apple users who don't even know anyone who
| uses something else and who they'd want to share a document with.
| But that must be an exception.
| jiriro wrote:
| Open Craft
|
| "Let's get started!"
|
| "Please enter your email"
|
| :-o What?
|
| Uninstall
| thunderbong wrote:
| Honestly, I find this kind of comment not useful at all.
| Considering how internet / tech / security savvy the HN crowd
| is, I'm sure we don't give our personal / work email addresses
| willy nilly.
|
| There are a huge number of anonymous email services available.
| I came across this list from a basic search [0].
|
| In fact, recently, there was submission for https://33mail.com
| on ShowHN also.
|
| So, my question is, why don't we do this and add comments about
| the application itself.
|
| I agree there are many ways to persist data even without a
| login. But that in turn means wasting a huge amount of
| resources for anonymous users with hardly any return at all.
| Why should developers do that?
|
| In my opinion, what I find worse, is this expectation of
| getting something for nothing. Facebook, Google and others have
| grown to this size because of this sense of enlightenment. And
| we complain about them all the time.
|
| So, in short, my suggestion is - if you don't find use of a
| service without submitting an anonymous email, don't use it.
| There's really no point in adding a comment which does nothing
| towards the understanding or increasing our knowledge.
|
| [0]: https://www.techuntold.com/mailinator-alternatives/ [1]:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25434753
| bamboleo wrote:
| I don't get _your_ comment. First you agree we don't like to
| share our email and then you suggest going to a 4th party as
| a workaround. If requiring an email was ok, you wouldn't
| having to use _workarounds._
|
| A comment like OP has 2 purposes: saves _me_ from ever trying
| the app; suggests to the author that they made an unpopular
| choice.
| velvetz wrote:
| It has sign-in with apple, you could use that.
| azangru wrote:
| Marketing materials for a writing app are probably not the best
| place to misplace an apostrophe in the word its.
|
| https://i.imgur.com/nLLFnSr.png
| glitchc wrote:
| Concur, someone was a tad overzealous with the Enter neighbour.
| chrisstanchak wrote:
| You just got someone fired. Happy holidays.
| [deleted]
| shortformblog wrote:
| There is already a well-known commercial CMS named Craft. (I use
| it.) This is similar enough territory that you might want to
| rethink the name.
|
| https://craftcms.com/
| sneak wrote:
| Does this have end-to-end encryption, or can the company/Apple
| read all of your documents?
| rgovostes wrote:
| "Note about Data Policy" https://www.craft.do/s/0L6qZ2ew0yQS1P
|
| > You data is stored in the cloud (AWS), it's encrypted during
| transfer (TLS) and also at rest (default RDS encryption for
| document content and personal data, and SSE-S3 encryption for
| uploaded binary content). However at this point we do not
| provide end-to-end encryption of your data.
|
| Though it is not syncing over iCloud, so Apple doesn't see the
| data unless it is also backed up to iCloud (for instance, in
| your phone backup).
| sneak wrote:
| Stored during transfer and stored at rest is not end-to-end
| encrypted. Amazon, as well as the app provider, can read all
| of your data stored in this app.
| nvr219 wrote:
| It does not. If it did, that feature would be listed on the
| website.
| runlevel1 wrote:
| It looks lovely, but charging a subscription for spell check, in-
| document search, and printing -- table stakes for a text editor
| -- is surely going to rub people the wrong way.[1]
|
| [1]: https://www.craft.do/pricing#Features
| mortenjorck wrote:
| While much of the blame still falls on Apple for pushing
| developers toward subscriptions in the absence of a
| straightforward paid-upgrade mechanism, requiring a
| subscription for an app with no cloud dependencies remains an
| instant disqualification for me.
|
| It's buying into a promise that your monthly payments are going
| toward continuous improvement of the product - a promise that
| might be kept, or might not - and even if it is, for how long?
| If updates stall out after awhile, or if the new features don't
| solve anything for you, it's not like you can choose to skip an
| upgrade. And the more you use the product, the higher the
| barrier to switching away. I agree, Craft looks lovely, but
| there's no way I'm locking myself into its business model.
|
| I say this every time, but this is a solved problem. Developers
| of software like Sketch and Bitwig Studio have the right kind
| of subscription model, where you subscribe to _updates_ , not
| _access_. If you don 't care for the latest version, you can
| let your subscription lapse and keep using the last version
| you're licensed for. Apple has all the pieces necessary to
| simply gate App Store updates via subscription, but they
| apparently have no motivation to do so.
| haswell wrote:
| I hear what you're saying, and even agree with it in
| principle.
|
| To provide a counter example, I subscribe to Ulysses. They
| embody "subscription for access done right" (at least so
| far). I liked the app enough that I bought into that promise,
| and so far, the developer had delivered with excellent
| updates over time.
|
| What I dislike is that there's no guarantee this will be the
| case.
|
| But to be fair, this is how reputations will be built: both
| good and bad. Developers who build a bad reputation will not
| succeed in the long run. It sucks that someone had to be the
| guinea pig though...
|
| So while there's risk in buying the promise, it can pay off.
|
| I'd still prefer the "subscribe to updates" approach.
| z3t4 wrote:
| As software development works today, the subscription model
| is the only logical business model. Unless it's like a single
| player game where you only play through or use once. Software
| today is an continuous process. When a software product ships
| it's far from finished. The subscription model is good for
| both users and developers, as it allows releasing a software
| product early, without a huge marketing and advertising
| budget. The incentive is not to make you buy it once, the
| incentive is to make you keep using it, by improving it, or
| keeping it good, take good care of customers, etc.
| _jal wrote:
| Related, but the push to subscriptions coupled with my
| reaction has devalued my phone substantially.
|
| I just do not subscribe to many things. I don't like
| assigning myself future financial tasks, and I don't like
| dealing with recurring payments[1].
|
| As a result, I've stopped using a bunch of things that went
| sub-only. There are more I'll be dropping.
|
| And this has moved a lot of things I did on my phone
| elsewhere. This, combined with the fact that the Iphone X (I
| have no need to upgrade it) is a bit too big, and the
| Screentime thing tells me I use it an average of 17 minutes a
| day, which is going to mainly be 2FA and texting with family.
|
| I mean, I kinda welcome this - I don't like phone dependency.
| And I expect I'm not the median case. But Apple's strategy
| has backfired with me.
|
| [1] I realize this is not strictly rational, and I have paid
| more for one-time-purchase software that I used once than a
| sub would have been. It doesn't matter.
| opsy2 wrote:
| Gating app store updates is not so simple- what about
| security patches or fixes when a new iOS version breaks
| everything?
|
| Still could work but isn't easy, and probably throws a wrench
| in the whole modern idea of continuous develop -> deploy.
| novok wrote:
| TBH I think it's fine to prevent access to updates that
| update the app to work with the updated OS. That is work
| and I think it's fair to charge for it.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| It's absurd to use an OS that will arbitrarily lock you
| out of your old apps when you update
| psifertex wrote:
| It's absurd to think that OS updates should in perpetuity
| guarantee compatibility with all prior versions.
| mortenjorck wrote:
| The App Store already does exactly this, though. The only
| difference is that the gating is by OS version rather than
| payment.
|
| An Xcode deploy target can require a minimum OS version,
| and when an app's minimum version increases with an update,
| the update is not available to users who haven't updated
| their device. If the device doesn't support the new OS
| version, the user is stuck with the last version supported
| on the old OS, and will not receive any future patches.
| andyfleming wrote:
| The problem with web-based software subscriptions like this
| is that you don't really have any option to fall back to a
| perpetual license with the version you're at. It's ok for
| shorter term use cases like specific projects, but it's hard
| to commit for longer-lived documentation or personal
| documents you want to maintain over years. Your usage may ebb
| and flow. Aside from that, the company may go out of business
| or just change its priorities.
| cratermoon wrote:
| I don't believe printing is table stakes for an editor any
| more. Quality export to a printable format, yes. Directly
| sending an application document to the system print queue via
| some printing language (PostScript, PCL, DVI, PDF..), though, I
| don't see that as being a big thing anymore.
|
| I'm not saying the paperless office is here, but with everyone
| WFH and no access to the office color laser printer, who is
| generating much paper any more?
|
| You know what would be better? A feature to generate an epub or
| kindle document. https://www.literatureandlatte.com/blog/epub-
| kindle-and-mult...
| monkin wrote:
| Don't forget about limited Markdown support.
| cratermoon wrote:
| That's a bigger problem than not being able to send my file
| to printer. Looking at what Craft does, a paper version is
| going to be very "lossy", it's what Clay Shirky calls a
| "shearing" layer.
| boraoztunc wrote:
| > We could not complete your purchase. > Craft can't be installed
| because macOS version 10.15 or later is required.
|
| :/ I'm still on High Sierra, 10.13.6. Next time Craft, I'll keep
| using Dropbox Paper, Obsidian, Notion, Evernote and Airtable.
| terhechte wrote:
| Craft seems to be build with Catalyst. Apple only introduced it
| in 10.15. It is technically impossible to support anything
| below 10.15. Now, it would be possible to write two Craft apps
| (one iOS and one macOS) instead of a shared one, but that's
| much more work and only adds a minority of users (those still
| below 10.15), so it is understandable they chose not to support
| it.
| novok wrote:
| Typically being 3 or 4 major versions behind the current
| version is under %0.5 of the market, it's really not worth it
| to maintain compatibility that low unless your already old app
| doesn't need to stop supporting old versions.
|
| I'm estimating because the app is newer, is the reason why they
| didnt' put special effort in support very old versions like
| that.
| Starmina wrote:
| Yes. Obsidian might not yet have an iOS app but it's certainly
| draw the line of the (real) futur of note taking.
| thescribbblr wrote:
| Amazing. When android application will be available?
| StevePerkins wrote:
| So... basically the new WordPress text editor? Except Apple-only,
| and costing just $25/yr less than a full Office365 license?
|
| Good luck. It does look pretty, perhaps that's enough to reach
| the target audience.
| dchuk wrote:
| Seems like a slick app. Give me an Apple Pencil block that lets
| me sketch up ideas and I'm completely sold.
|
| EDIT: They have this! This is wonderful
| sam0x17 wrote:
| Sad it's only in the Mac ecosystem. Would love to see this on
| Linux.
| rayrag wrote:
| Try Obsidian or wait a bit for Zenkit to release Hypernotes -
| all their apps are available on Linux.
|
| https://obsidian.md
|
| https://zenkit.com/en
| Torwald wrote:
| Reminds me of Scrivener.
| tti wrote:
| Reminds me of Google Keep
| Torwald wrote:
| In which ways does Scrivener remind you of Google Keep?
| JadeNB wrote:
| > In which ways does Scrivener remind you of Google Keep?
|
| tti seemed to be saying that Craft reminds them of Google
| Keep, not that Scrivener reminds them of Google Keep.
| Torwald wrote:
| In which ways does Craft remind you of Google Keep?
| monkin wrote:
| My biggest concern is that I still do not know what this app
| does. The feature page isn't really convincing.
|
| Is it better than iA Writer? If so, why?
| Veen wrote:
| I think they confuse things by calling it a "writing app". It
| can be used for that, but it's more of a note taking app. It
| competes with Notion and Roam, not iA Writer really.
| drunkpotato wrote:
| How does this compare to Scrivener?
| Johnyma22 wrote:
| Etherpad but pricey with vendor tie in? Why?
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(page generated 2020-12-24 23:00 UTC)