
Show HN: Papier – Open a new tab and trap your best thoughts - calyhre
http://getpapier.com/
======
dpflan
There is a clever and simple code snippet to convert a tab into a notepad:

    
    
      data:text/html, <html contenteditable>
    

Copy and paste into your browser address bar. Just bookmark that and you have
a notepad with content that you can italicize, embolden, print, export, etc.
I'm sure someone here can tweak this code to be even more feature-rich yet
still compact. Or check the comments from the original web page.

This snippet was shared a while ago on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5135194](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5135194)

~~~
thenomad
Either FF or Noscript disables that for me in Firefox. Works in Chrome though.

~~~
dpflan
What version of FF? On FF 44 this code works with the following warning in the
console:

 _The character encoding of the HTML document was not declared. The document
will render with garbled text in some browser configurations if the document
contains characters from outside the US-ASCII range. The character encoding of
the page must be declared in the document or in the transfer protocol._

~~~
thenomad
FF44 for me too. Must be Noscript disabling it.

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joelg
Feature request: through force of habit, I obsessively mash Ctrl+S whenever
I'm in a text editor - browser or not. Most web editors override this to
prevent the giant "Save page as..." dialog from jumping up all the time. I
know it's ridiculous, but I literally can't handle typing without Ctrl+S-ing
almost every paragraph.

Edit: couple other thoughts: I just now realized how much I depend on the "New
Tab" tab title to find new tabs in the tab bar. I realized that making the
page name "Papier" is good marketing, but it makes it feel like a separate app
instead of a better new tab page, and also harder to find if I open it, leave,
and try to come back. Also, the page - even with no text on it - is about 150%
the height of my window, and I despise unnecessary scrollbars (Chrome on
Ubuntu). And it's "0 characters", not "0 character".

I'm only nitpicking because I will use this every day for the rest of my life.

~~~
azinman2
It's an important reflex that anyone who used computers in the 80s or 90s
knows :)

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joelg
Which always surprises me that this is a habit of _mine_ : I was born in '96.

Not to make you feel old or anything.

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wingerlang
Why does it surprise you? Do people not save anymore?

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azinman2
People in the 80s and 90s experienced computers crashing regularly, thus
instilling the reflex of constant saving. I'm not sure young people have that
reflex.

~~~
wingerlang
If my memory is not totally off, I started my computer usage in the early 00s.
I don't recall crashing as a ticking time-bomb so I certainly didn't have that
issue. And I save manually frequently.

I think it is more of a power user thing and/or a paranoia thing or similar -
not the fear of crashing. For me, anyway.

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KMuncie
Very nice, love the simplicity. Full syncing is going to be key though.

The biggest "complaint" I have after 5 mins is having a quick way to jump to a
new line at the bottom. You wouldn't want to override the default of the
omnibar having focus, but a simple keyboard shortcut would be nice. Currently
it seems I need to tab down into the page, but then that still leaves my
cursor at the beginning of the document.

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criddell
A couple of the unicode characters on that page don't render in Firefox on
Windows:

* the character after "Choose Day"

* the character before "About"

I know character isn't the right word for unicode. What is? Code point?

~~~
Freak_NL
Character is fine when talking about Unicode. As in: “That character at code
point U+1F918 is not showing up as a proper glyph for me.”

You might be thinking of how a single Unicode character does not necessarily
map to a single byte in UTF-8 (the most common Unicode encoding). Some
programming languages call a single byte variable a char or character; is that
what you are referring to?

Incidentally, the U+1F918 before 'about' is not available as a glyph on my
system — i.e., I don't have a font installed that has it. The creator probably
uses a Mac (as evidenced by his exclusive use of ⌘).

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macu
I suggest loading Papier on the new tab page only if it isn't yet open. If
it's already open, the new tab page could show frequently visited, bookmarks,
and search as before.

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roadnottaken
This is nice, but you can lose notes if you write in multiple Papier tabs. One
has to be careful that they don't have another open Papier tab before they
start note-taking.

~~~
conception
Yep, ran into this as well.

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teddyh
If you live in the web browser, I guess this is what you use. Here’s a nickel,
kid, get yourself a better program. Yes, I’m one of those condescending Emacs
users. We have org-mode.

… — …

I’m not really that condescending, I hope, but it annoys me slightly that the
web browser, of all things, is expanding to be the single one program that
everybody lives “inside”, when Emacs has been more suited for this task for
decades. Emacs takes its role as a framework seriously (if a bit ancient in
its design), but web browser developers seem to insist that browsers are for
web browsing _only_ , and even seem to be more and more hostile towards
plugins and extensions, and only allow them begrudgingly; each day edging
closer to being a walled garden.

Even if Emacs is not to your liking, another consequence of the _web browser_
being the “framework” is that the programs that people use from within it are
not programs, but _web sites_ – web sites that are under the control of third
parties and can change for the worse or disappear at any time. (Not to mention
the lack of privacy; even with HTTPS the server operator have all the logs.)
Contrast this with runnning programs in a desktop environment; the only
downside there is the lack of automatic updates, and the lack of automatic
access to large shared data sets. However, far from all programs can really
benefit very much from these things, and even in the cases where they do
benefit, at least the privacy concerns often make it worth it to do without
those benefits.

Sorry for the unexpected rant.

(For those who didn’t recognize the reference:
[http://dilbert.com/strip/1995-06-24](http://dilbert.com/strip/1995-06-24))

~~~
criddell
I think the web browser is where people want to live because it's so well
connected.

And programs in the web browser don't have to be web sites under control of
third parties. My favorite example is
[http://tiddlywiki.com](http://tiddlywiki.com)

------
spiderfarmer
Offtopic, but has anyone an idea how the demo video is made? Is this a simple
tool like LICEcap or do you need a bigger production app like AfterEffects?

~~~
calyhre
It was made with AfterEffects. For more details you can ask @LucChaissac.

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sholanozie
This is awesome, I absolutely adore the idea and implementation. Couple of
small points in terms of feedback:

* A new tab with no notes has a height greater than 100% of the browser window, and adds a scrollbar. Small point, but annoying for people like me :)

* There are some issues with links: clicking could be more intuitive, and highlighting is inconsistent with certain characters. (Try pasting a YouTube link.)

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eddywebs
Shamelesly plugging one my apps here, very identically: save your thoughts or
a todo list without installation of any extension or signups >>
[http://www.doit.eddywebs.com/](http://www.doit.eddywebs.com/) When you come
back on same browser it remembers everything.

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ianstormtaylor
Really nicely executed. I noticed that the editor uses the new Draft.js from
Facebook under the hood? If the authors are around, I'd love to hear how
Draft.js has been treating you so far, and how much you've been customizing
it.

Good luck!

~~~
calyhre
Exactly! For what we have needed so far, Draft-js is an amazing editor. The
only weird issue I had was with the default css who must be used, otherwise
you're gonna have a hard time debugging it.

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benwikler
My use case: I use Papier to write down the single thing I'm (trying to) work
on. That way if I idly open a tab in order to start getting distracted, I have
a reminder of my actual top priority staring back at me. Magic.

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destroyer954
Love it. I'd like to see something like this with markdown capabilities.

~~~
fiatjaf
Why? Is markdown so important for you to take some notes?

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tcfunk
Markdown support means that I already know how to use it. I don't have to
figure out what hotkey bolds text, underlines text, turns things into bullet
points, etc.

How do I add links to this? Is it even possible? If it was markdown, I already
know how to add a link, no extra thought required.

~~~
nashashmi
Why do I feel like it's strangely 1995 again?

~~~
specialist
Ya. My flashback is to 1988, painstakingly crafting manuals for my shareware.

~~~
tcfunk
I don't mind that this doesn't support markdown, or have super-specific
instructions, or w/e. It's a fun bit of software, and I'm going to play around
with it for a while :)

I'm just answering the question of "why would you want markdown support?"

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fiatjaf
I never try these todo/organizing apps that are just another burden, but this
seems different. The fact that it has no accounts its simplicity feels very
good. I'll use it.

~~~
criddell
I like the simplicity as well, but not being able to use tab is a tough habit
for me to break. That alone will probably keep me using my current
application.

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buckbova
I like the simplicity.

Been happily using workflowy for some time. It has the ability to drill down
and makes lists of lists of lists. I like to map out all my projects with it,
can cross them off or add descriptions.

If you try it here I get free space:

[https://workflowy.com/invite/5f5e43d.lnx](https://workflowy.com/invite/5f5e43d.lnx)

Otherwise:

[https://workflowy.com/](https://workflowy.com/)

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NetHuntCRM
So many services use the New Tab today, so you have to prioritize what you
actually need. For me, such service would better work as an online
tool/service, not an extension. A similar concept has been implemented in
idonthaveadamnpen.com which sends your notes to your email address.

Anyway, thank you for a nice note-taking service. Keep it up!

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rolyatyasmar
I tried to copy and paste code into the note. Indentation doesn't translate
over. Otherwise a useful tool.

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Quasimoto3000
Feature Request - Dots! The deputy loves Dots! Seriously though, I want bullet
points and enumeration please.

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namtrac
Very nice! Hopefully it'll support syncing to google user account too.

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ArnaudRinquin
Working on it ;)

~~~
namtrac
Also instead of taking over the newtab page it could use it own page :)

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yitchelle
Is the data sync to any cloud services? Looks good by the way!

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lostmypassword2
Is there a way to export in order to backup somewhere else?

