[HN Gopher] Show HN: Windi - knowledge management and sharing pl...
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Show HN: Windi - knowledge management and sharing platform based on
short notes
Author : losfair
Score : 77 points
Date : 2022-02-11 15:42 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (windi.app)
(TXT) w3m dump (windi.app)
| anon2020dot00 wrote:
| Looks well-executed and the free plan is very generous with
| unlimited notes compared to other recent note-taking services.
|
| But for knowledge management, I still think a local-only
| application is much better for privacy and more control.
| losfair wrote:
| Thanks!
|
| Personally I love the idea of a local replica along with
| server-side data (maybe end-to-end encrypted). It hasn't be
| implemented in Windi because it needs some design to play well
| with sharing features (inter-user bidirectional links, global
| tags, etc.) but this is definitely on the roadmap!
| Specifically:
|
| - real-time log replication (that allows to maintain a local
| database consistent with the server state)
|
| - end-to-end encryption
| thoughtpalette wrote:
| Would also dig a local version!
| bachmeier wrote:
| An important part of my workflow[1] is similar to this approach.
| I believe it's got a lot of potential if done right. One concern
| I have is the lack of file upload support (I only see images) and
| that querying relies heavily on tags. WRT the latter, it didn't
| work until I was able to create new projects that only held notes
| related to a specific project/topic. The current trend of dumping
| everything into one big database and hoping for the best when it
| comes to review and retrieval just does not work for me.
|
| [1] Based on what I can tell from the linked page, which doesn't
| give a ton of detail.
| losfair wrote:
| File upload is indeed a useful feature! Added to my todo list.
|
| On the second concern, nested tags are supported so you can
| have something like #project1/tag1, #project1/tag2,
| #project2/tag1 etc. - does this work for you?
| bachmeier wrote:
| I personally don't care for nested tags. It's too cluttered,
| because even if focus on tags starting with project2, there's
| a lot of verbosity. What I do is analogous to a "working
| directory" where everything is relative to that directory.
| For instance, rather than #project1/tag2, if I click on
| #project1, the project1/ is prepended to all the tags
| automatically inside storage but hidden in the display of
| notes. Implementation is simple. If using Javascript, store
| the current project name in a variable and prepend it when
| relevant.
|
| Edit: Another advantage of this is that cross-project tagging
| stands out because the full tag is displayed.
| nfgrep wrote:
| " You don't need to have a structure in mind before writing. Just
| focus on ideas; the structure will emerge."
|
| I've been obsessing over this idea for a while now. Never got
| around to implementing anything, but I really like the thought of
| just barfing things into my keyboard and having it all available
| at the speed of thought.
|
| Hope you achieve some success to this end :)
| tekacs wrote:
| This is interesting -- it reminds me a lot of
| https://supernotes.app.
|
| I like how simple and small this is, as well as its support for
| history out of the gates. :)
| losfair wrote:
| Thanks :)
| iypx wrote:
| I started making something similar back in the time when I was
| trying to learn some php (self-hosted LAMP setup). Stopped mostly
| because I wasn't able to find a proper English dictionary for
| NLP.
|
| Second reason was the inconvenience of opening my local webpage
| and clicking "new entry", then selecting from my tag suggestions
| or adding a few more new tags.. every time I wanted to add a new
| note.
|
| Creating a new text document, copy-pasting into it, then closing
| it and clicking yes to save, then drag and dropping it onto my
| "notes" folder on my Desktop, somehow seems easier... No titles,
| no tags, but I could always rest assured that, when I'll need it,
| It would be there, somewhere in that "notes" folder, even years
| later.
|
| Jokes aside, I didn't actually realize people are into these
| "knowledge management" systems.
|
| I was wondering if one were to open source a self-hosted app like
| this, what license you could chose such that individual people
| would be able to install/modify/use/etc a copy for personal use,
| even commercial, even if employed, even work computers. Yet
| disallow a company from modifying/customizig/deploying it for
| multiple employees, have the company pay a formal fee? Are there
| any examples of such licenses in the wild?
| j45 wrote:
| I believe agpl is one such license to identify competitors from
| using your open source code to compete with you.
| gardenfelder wrote:
| I don't think that's the case. AWS regularly runs AGPL-
| licensed systems as service in direct competition with the
| developers. AGPL, for the most part, patches some holes in
| the GPL license.
| [deleted]
| lysium wrote:
| Do you know https://windy.com?
| busheezy wrote:
| Also, there is https://windicss.org.
| phasetransition wrote:
| To me, and presumably other parents in NA and the EU, a Windi is
| a small plastic tube device that you insert into the rectum of a
| baby to relieve gas pressure: https://frida.com/products/windi
|
| Is that an intentional homage?
| enobrev wrote:
| We were gifted a butt whistle (and a whole Frida set, which was
| great), and fortunately never got the opportunity to use it.
| [deleted]
| lysium wrote:
| This looks like something I am looking for; not quite sure yet,
| though.
|
| - Does it support writing code? - Can I use it in an European
| corporate setting (privacy, data protection, SSO, etc.)? Or given
| that it is in beta, do you have plans in that regard? - Does it
| support concurrent editing?
| losfair wrote:
| - Markdown-formatted code snippets are supported. Or for
| something long, there's the Notion integration
| (https://docs.windi.app/taking-notes/notion) that allows
| seamless linking to Notion docs.
|
| - All data is hosted in the EU. Haven't got time to review the
| legal side but I'd love to make it compliant with EU
| regulations (if not already)!
|
| - Not yet; the usage pattern I was imagining is that people
| take their own short notes and link to each other, forming a
| network.
|
| Feel free to contact me using the email address at the bottom
| of the landing page! Would love to know your use case.
| shmatt wrote:
| The name really stuck out to me, it's also the name of a product
| you stick up a babies butt[1]
|
| https://frida.com/products/windi
| [deleted]
| cooperadymas wrote:
| You might want to rethink the name. There's a weather phenomenon
| called "wind" where difference in pressure causes air movement
| between two locations. The name collision between two so
| obviously related things might cause confusion for people.
|
| Since this isn't reddit I suppose I should get off my facetious
| horse and provide some useful feedback huh?
|
| I really like that you can click the image and see a live demo of
| the application. I found that quite by accident but it was more
| informative than the site itself IMO. It's probably worth calling
| out that it is clickable with an arrow or something.
|
| In fact, since you can publish the notes, it might even make
| sense to dogfood and use the tool itself for the documentation
| rather than using Docusaurus.
| patleeman wrote:
| Re: Name
|
| Windi is also the name of a product from the FridaBaby company
| that helps babies pass gas. So there's that.
| [deleted]
| chrismorgan wrote:
| Meta: this has been bugging me for ages as I see it becoming more
| and more common (I think it's over half of such "Show HN" sites
| with their own domains now that are blank for me, a JavaScript-
| disabler-by-default mostly for performance), but I've never asked
| anyone; why do you use Next.js for the marketing website, rather
| than just writing HTML? As it stands, the page is blank if one
| doesn't execute JavaScript, and it's executing almost a megabyte
| of JavaScript where as far as I can tell the _only_ thing it's
| doing that straight HTML with _no_ JavaScript couldn't do is the
| spinning globe. This just seems like a terrible fit for client-
| side rendering, unambiguously worse for the client (slower to
| load, less reliable, and excluding various users and bots--even
| Googlebot doesn't always execute JavaScript, only after a while
| in general, I think), and I wouldn't have _thought_ that it would
| be any easier for the developers. So I'm curious: firstly, am I
| missing something and the use of Next.js actually _does_ make
| life much easier for the developers, even for what should be
| simple HTML like this? And secondly, is there some reason why
| almost no one seems to be enabling server-side rendering or
| generation when they use Next.js like this? (I thought those
| features were a key part of why people would _choose_ Next.js,
| and would have assumed from what I had heard that SSR would be
| enabled by default, but maybe not?)
|
| (Personal context: plenty of web frontend and backend experience,
| but no React, as I've favoured lighter things, such as Svelte for
| the last few years; and I tend to just write straight HTML,
| possibly with simple templating. I'm not seeking to criticise or
| condemn here, just to understand. I understand why you'd depend
| on JS for web apps, just not for simple marketing sites.)
| Fastidious wrote:
| Nice rant, but it has nothing to do with the app itself. Just
| use JS, done.
| corpdronejuly wrote:
| Just build progressive web apps done.
|
| But seriously this is not just a privacy thing. It's also an
| accessibility problem. Why is it that we have lost the art of
| just making a web page that does stuff, and then enhancing
| that functionality?
| [deleted]
| hamerld wrote:
| With next.js you don't need to build 2 projects if you want a
| landing page + your actual app. You can have routes with no
| JavaScript if you're not fetching data. I think it basically
| comes down to simplicity for the developer.
| codeptualize wrote:
| I definitely think Next.js is a great option for such websites.
| The main reason is that it can do static site generation with
| React, as well as SSR. It's really simple to set up, and very
| flexible.
|
| It means you can build quickly and even if you start static,
| you can later add more functionality, go SSR, or even build out
| a full on web app without actually migrating or rewriting.
|
| People have opinions about React, I will not go into that too
| much, but personally I find it a very effective and enjoyable
| tool to build things with.
|
| Imo something like Next.js is easier to develop with than "just
| HTML" as you get templating, hot reloading in development,
| routing, image optimization, i18n options, and all the other
| goodies that come with it, or are already solved by someone.
| It's imo not to be underestimated how much work all the little
| things are when you have to do them manually.
|
| That said, I have to agree that it's strange not to enable SSR
| and not to make a static export, I think it's pretty much the
| default. I find the export functionality one of the best things
| about Next.js as it makes sites blazing fast and really easy to
| host.
| [deleted]
| mahathu wrote:
| The Telegram bot is an amazing idea/feature! Especially because I
| noticed that a lot of how much I use these apps depends on how
| little friction there is to using them. I'd love to organise the
| random notes I take throughout the day better but always end up
| writing random google keep notes because it's just so fast and
| convenient.
| lokimedes wrote:
| Call me old school, but I don't want this kind of stuff on
| someone else's server. My company's IT policy agree as well. We
| really need all these SaaS apps in containerized forms as well.
| [deleted]
| tommiegannert wrote:
| That is a beautifully simple and informative landing page! I
| especially like that there isn't a clutter of menu options. You
| scroll and click on what looks interesting to you. I'm guessing
| someone will complain the link to the documentation is at the
| bottom, but for an early stage where acquisition matters, this is
| so clean. It forces me to learn about the app rather than making
| me focus on the site structure. Another bonus is the lack of
| complex movement and parallax effects.
|
| RSS is a nice extra.
|
| Is there a way to demo the example in graph mode without logging
| in?
|
| One annoyance: in the web example, the full row is clickable for
| tags to expand, but then you have to click the text on the sub-
| tag (despite the full row being highlighted).
| losfair wrote:
| There isn't currently a way to display the graph without
| logging in because graphs require a bit of computation on the
| server side and I'm a little hesitant to open up a potentially
| computationally heavy API endpoint to unauthenticated sessions;
| but logging in with _any_ user should be enough to view the
| graph of another user 's public notes.
|
| Here's my graph for instance:
| https://windi.app/people/zhy/graph
| davidcollantes wrote:
| So, is this the evolution of Snippet? I read about Snippet here
| https://secondorder.xyz/posts/introducing-snippet/, but the
| repository is non-existing now (404).
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(page generated 2022-02-11 23:00 UTC)