
Show HN: Instant CMS as a Service on any element (with contenteditable) - mhurwi
https://copybar.io
======
callmevlad
Glad to see that contenteditable-type editors are becoming more viable. Looks
like Copybar uses Redactor, but I'm hoping bergie's <http://hallojs.org/> gets
a lot more traction since it's the only one that's MIT licensed.

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bergie
The good thing about Hallo is, besides licensing and easy plugin development,
the fact that it uses plain, unstyled contentEditables, so the stuff you're
editing looks exactly like it will look on the real page.

I integrated Redactor as another editor option in Create.js a while back, but
it looks a bit strange because it changes the styling of the currently active
content area. Other than that it is very simple and clean!

Another valid editor option is Aloha, <http://aloha-editor.org>

You can use any (or even all) of these with Create, or integrate your own. The
next editor I'm looking to add is CKEditor 4, as it also has an inline editing
mode: <http://nightly-v4.ckeditor.com/3627/samples/inlineall.html>

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marccantwell
Great point. We hacked redactor up so that it does just that, allows for
unstyled contentEditables. Check it out with the Try Now button on the landing
page, you can see the styles don't change.

~~~
bergie
Great, have to check that out. Here is the Redactor integration for Create:
[https://github.com/bergie/create/blob/master/src/editingWidg...](https://github.com/bergie/create/blob/master/src/editingWidgets/jquery.Midgard.midgardEditableEditorRedactor.js)

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lifeisstillgood
I think this is the beginning of the end for Facebook.

Let me explain ...

Like AOL, Facebook is a walled garden reproducing what is standard and open on
the web/internet as a whole. AOL had AOL email, Facebook has html homepages,
and RSS/ATOM

But "people" cannot create their own content - they cannot write HTML, host
web pages etc. But _contenteditable_ fixes all that - and with the clever
Dropbox tie in, anyone can start with a templated page, drag and drop images
from their own desktop, (#) and publish themselves.

Add in RSS via Javascript and its all over.

(#) oh yes drag and drop images onto a web page - its soooo cool. Aloha
supports it at least.

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therealarmen
Let me get this straight -- my grandma has to get a Dropbox (what's that?),
download a templated page, fill it her own images, and then figure out how to
publish it?

Also, there are a lot easier ways out there to publish your own content online
(Weebly, Tumblr, etc) but that doesn't seem to have stopped Facebook.

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bravoyankee
Dear sweet "Grams" is only on Facebook because that's where her grandchildren
hang out. If they leave, do you think she's going to stick around? Doubt it.

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bergie
Interesting. Though of course you can just use my <http://createjs.org/> and
get pretty much the same thing for free :-)

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railsjedi
CreateJS is awesome. This service seems to be more about content hosting
though. So still useful to some people I think.

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bergie
True, though usually people would seem rather want to have their content on
their own servers, and have an API the editing tool uses to save. This is the
scenario Create.js was built for, allowing you to use it in a custom web app,
but also major CMSs like TYPO3 or OpenCms to build their custom UIs on top of
it.

~~~
railsjedi
Definitely. I bet there's a lot of companies / startups who need something
quick and simple though. So lots of room for both solutions.

~~~
bergie
Yep, having 'competition' sort of validates the approach :-)

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AhtiK
Website looks really good!

Is copybar dynamically replacing the content and then next time when the page
is loaded javascript replaces the content by fetching the value from copybar
CDN?

At least it looks like copybar is not changing the actual CMS database content
values. Please correct me if I misunderstood the mechanics.

The problem with dynamic replacing would be: 1) search engines get the old
text 2) original CMS editing functionality becomes useless for that specific
node.

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marccantwell
Copybar cofounder here.

Thanks! Yeah, we're using the CDN to dynamically display your edited content.

When editing an element, we invalidate the cache on the CDN. It may take a
minute or 2 to propagate.

Search engines these days execute Javascript so it can index this dynamic
text. However we also have a backend integration solution (via a simple rest
call) for people who would rather serve the content from their web servers
directly.

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Ensorceled
The pricing seems way out of wack. If, for instance, I wanted to use your
product to create a squarespace competitor, I'd need a $99 licence per user
per month?

I can't actually think of a practical use case for the Pro-xx accounts. A
fairly simple blog would easily have a 100 assets or more. Even a simple
corporate blog would have 100 assets after a few months.

In particular, I'm trying to figure out what your expected use case is for the
Pro-20 account ... what kind of site would I have only 20 assets that I want
multiple editors to be able to change?

Websites tend to be many asset/many editors or many assets/few editors. I
can't think of too many few assets/many editor situations.

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skyhook_mockups
Interesting concept, well done for shipping. Just a couple of points:

\- You id="mask" element has a higher z-order than your formatting popup
making it impossible to select styles in the demo.

\- The blink from the original to the edited content is kind of jarring. Not
sure where your servers are, but here from AUS the lag was very noticable.

\- This is a peeve I have with all editors: When you select a H1,2,3 etc style
the entire block is styled. This is the opposite of what users expect. Instead
you should break that fragment out and run your execCommand on it. This way
only the selected text receives the style and your users aren't left
scratching their heads :)

\- Consider adding an in-line editor for in-line images. Popping over a modal
editor onmouseup is not intuitive for your average Joe.

~~~
marccantwell
Copybar cofounder here, thanks for the great feedback. We'll take a look at
the mask issue asap. Delivery will continue to be optimized and I dig your
ideas on the styling and image editing, look for those enhancements soon.

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nnq
...so my site would have and ADMINISTRATIVE/EDITORIAL feature that depends on
a 3rd party service now?! Thanks but no thanks...

(Sometimes I wish people would go back to the golden days of "software as a
product" instead of the current "everything as a service" way of selling
things... I just wanna pay for it once, include it as a plugin for my CMS and
MAYBE pay extra for some kind of support... and yes, I would be willing to pay
for an upgrate to the next version too...)

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maxmcd
Doesn't seem that anyone has mentioned this, but that watermark is the only
thing stopping me from immediately putting this into production. Would be
nicer from a consumer perspective if I could try this out in production with
the full feature set, but just a limited element quantity.

~~~
mhurwi
The badge is meant for free accounts. But please, email me (mark@copybar.io)
and we'll get you setup ASAP.

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yakshaving
Ohhhh, nice! This is sick, I could see using this as a way better CopyCopter
replacement.

~~~
marccantwell
Cofounder here, we did find some inspiration in CopyCopter.

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neya
Just one small feedback as a designer, if you want to see more conversions for
sign-ups, convert that black sign-up button into green. Other than that, it's
perfect!

~~~
modarts
Design impaired developer here; i'm interested to know how you picked green as
being a trigger for more conversions, is there some data with A/B testing this
color choice comes from?

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neya
Yes, I think there's a famous book on Psychology of colors, I don't remember
its name, but it explains in great depth about colors affect purchases...

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michaelbuckbee
Looks really cool, but I was wondering if you could address a point with the
pricing. In that context what does an "asset" mean? An editable area on a
webpage?

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mhurwi
Yes, basically each asset (we're trying to say 'Copybar element') is one
editable chunk. It could be one paragraph or picture, or it could be all
custom HTML.

Also, something interesting: you can use the same element across many
different pages. It will repeat the same content, but still count as only 1
element.

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mharty
Pasting causes tab to crash in Windows Chrome 22.0.1229.94

~~~
marccantwell
Copybar cofounder here. Sorry about that. Please email me at marc@copybar.io.
We'll try to repo and fix ASAP

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duiker101
Does someone actually uses this tools for editing webpages? I find them really
uncomfortable. Not trying to flame, just an honest question.

~~~
freemans86
I actually have been looking for something like this. Mainly so I can give
some nontechnical people access to edit different parts of a page. This hasn't
been easy to set up in drupal or wordpress (without a large learning curve on
their parts). I might give Copybar a try and see if it works out for me.

~~~
marccantwell
Copybar cofounder here, that is one of our primary use cases. Instances when a
CMS fails to address access controls for nontechnical people. Even drupal and
wp can seem overwhelming to some. The best thing is Copybar can sit on top of
Drupal and Wordpress. If you do end up using it let us know, we'd love to be
able to feature some live implementations.

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pajju
Any pointers on how to integrate with Django?

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mhurwi
Sure, we'd love to add a Django plugin. Can you email me at mark@copybar.io?
We'll get one set up for you.

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ams6110
I don't get it. What is it supposed to do. I click on the big green "Try it
now" button and nothing happens...

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marccantwell
Copybar cofounder here, sorry to hear that you didn't see anything happen.
What browser are you using?

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borplk
Good stuff. FYI, tried on Android, didn't work (nothing happens).

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oron
you have a link on the home page that points to
<http://copybardev.io:3000/examples> ...

~~~
marccantwell
Copybar cofounder here, great catch, thanks.

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pioul
The tool looks great, but as a developer I have to say I still really prefer
having HTML and CSS in front of me.

