
Show HN: Cloudstitch – Build and share spreadsheet-powered web content - eob
http://www.cloudstitch.io
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encoderer
Congrats on shipping!

First, I totally understand what it's like to ship an MVP. When we launched
our SaaS service we didn't even have a way to rebill our subscribers, knowing
we had a month to figure that out. So add this feedback to the end of your
list because I'm sure you've got your hands full!

\- I didn't realize at first that the Google Doc and example page were live. I
thought they were just screenshots. There are probably some design affordances
you can use to make this clearer.

\- You don't have a call to action above the fold. In fact, you have a green
"register" button but it's part of your example. Similarly, Log In could just
be a link, giving more attention to Sign Up in the header.

\- I think "projects" is a vague name. There are words that can probably do a
better job explaining what these are. Themes? Packages?

All in all, great job. It's rare to see so much documentation on launch day!

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danvoell
I also did not realize the google doc was live.

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ocdtrekkie
Yeah. Saw this comment and was like "REALLY?" and then I tried it.

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uptown
I rolled my own version of this to manage the online menu for a restaurant.
The restaurant manager updates a Google Spreadsheet with the current menu and
item pricing. I pull that data and render either an HTML version for the web,
or a PDF version for printing. Works very well.

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eob
This is something we've been hearing from a lot of folks -- spreadsheet-driven
websites are actually a really popular practice that we think should get more
love and attention. I'd love to help you package that site you made for
cloning and reuse on Cloudstitch so others can use it, too.

\- Ted from Cloudstitch [ted@cloudstitch.io]

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NateLawson
Have you thought of doing a spreadsheet-powered UI for desktop or internal web
applications?

I know of one crazy guy who replaced an entire IT department back in 2000 that
was dedicated to tweaking Java UIs. He built his own spreadsheet-powered UI
builder and then had the business people add their own buttons/formulas. This
worked especially well because it was a financial business.

~~~
eob
Absolutely -- there's a whole interesting world of inside-the-firewall
applications of this. Enterprise-style programming certainly has an important
role to play, but we're pretty bullish on the role that lighter-weight
solutions can provide as a compliment.

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eddyparkinson
Very much like these two:

[https://assembly.com/gridspree](https://assembly.com/gridspree) (github
hosted. a bit more plug and play in style. I did write a bit of code for this)

[https://plugins.jquery.com/sheetrock/](https://plugins.jquery.com/sheetrock/)
(just source for putting on your server)

Or

www.cellmaster.com.au (mine)

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skrowl
It scares me when I see a SAAS thing with no pricing page. Anyone have an idea
of what this costs?

~~~
eob
Hi skrowl --

We know and understand your hesitation. It's coming this week. We'll have a
free tier that we're aiming to make pretty broad in capability.

~~~
webwanderings
I could possibly use service like this. I have a RSS reader on Sheets.

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finnn
No forced TLS, and when I manually enter https most of the resources try to
load over http. c'mon, you've done the hard part of getting TLS, now you just
need to make your home page aware.

EDIT: when I sign up it POSTs my password _IN THE CLEAR_. what year are we in?

~~~
eob
Hi finnn -- we're on it!

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finnn
While you're getting it brought up to current security standards, may I
suggest not using GoDaddy for anything, including as a certificate authority,
and fixing the issues with your actual SSL configuration
([https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=buttstitch.io](https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=buttstitch.io))

EDIT: Here's a handy guide to configuring your SSL
[https://mozilla.github.io/server-side-tls/ssl-config-
generat...](https://mozilla.github.io/server-side-tls/ssl-config-generator/)

~~~
jonlucc
Buttstitch?

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finnn
Fuck! Correct link:
[https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=cloudstitch.i...](https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=cloudstitch.io)

~~~
leesalminen
+1 for cloud2butt!

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dinedal
Awesome project! Just wish I could see the pricing...

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andrenotgiant
Very interesting!

I will be keenly following how your website and sites made with it are
crawled, indexed and ranked by Google, Bing and other Search Engines.

A few years ago this kind of content would have been completely invisible to
all search, making it very bad for SEO, but Google is stepping up their game
in crawling Javascript/AJAX driven content.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Acloudstitch.io](https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Acloudstitch.io)

~~~
eob
Thanks andrenotgiant!

We're keeping a close eye on the SEO implications of this approach. Even with
Google's snapshotting the page post-Javascript execution, I think there's
still value in offering pre-rendering, e.g. to reduce latency.

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putlake
This is good stuff. There is also a SaaS offering to do this for mobile apps.
It's called AppSheet [1] and they let you create iOS and Android apps from
spreadsheets -- Google Sheets or Excel.

Disclaimer: I don't work for them but I do happen to know the founder and the
team.

[1] [https://www.appsheet.com/](https://www.appsheet.com/)

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eob
Hi everyone, Ted from Cloudstitch here. Thanks for kicking the tires and
giving feedback.

We're particularly interested in hearing what domains you might be interested
in using this for. We're going to be building out as many reusable projects as
we can in the coming months, and if there is strong interest for some over
others, we'd love to hear it!

~~~
rememberlenny
heyo

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danvoell
This is pretty cool. Nice work!

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eob
Thank you!

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gbrits
Is an API planned or doesn't that make sense?

