
Show HN: I published my first website – ShellMagic.xyz - manjana
https://shellmagic.xyz
======
geekbread
Some feedback you probably won't hear from the HN crowd:

Give more context to the site for initial visitors. Its going to be more
obvious to those who visited from HN but not to those who stumbled upon it
somehow. A little blurb at the top saying this is a reference site for bash
scripting syntax and maybe why you saw the need for such a thing would do ease
people into the site a bit.

I hate the popup at the bottom, I will hesitate to use the site again because
of that (just like many of us avoid news sites with pesky popups), Its a major
turn-off. Probably an unpopular opinion around here, but just maybe make a
note at the bottom regarding the privacy stuff unless there are legal reasons
not to (I'm not up on all the regulations) If you can't avoid it, make it way
less intrusive.

Overall its really nice and I love to see better documentation made around
old-school linux/bash tools and syntax as I often feel the documentation can
be unwieldy with a lot of knowledge assumed. +1 to examples as others have
said. Keep it up! :)

~~~
imgabe
It would definitely be helpful to have more context. I know some bash, but I'm
far from an expert. The first thing I see on the page is a list of flags, but
no clue what commands these flags are used with. A few usage examples would
help a lot.

For example "-e checks if files exists" How? -e _filename_ ? This doesn't
work?

~~~
btschaegg
If you're just wondering, try:

    
    
      test -e file
    

or:

    
    
      if [ -e file ]; then
          echo "File exists!"
      else
          echo "File does not exist!"
      fi
    

Edit: Untested, I'm currently not at my desk to verify it :)

------
dvt
Kudos!

As a nostalgic side note, I'm not even that old, and I miss when the Internet
looked like this. Just regular folks learning HTML and writing about something
they find interesting. These days, everything looks like it was built in a Wix
or Squarespace factory.

~~~
manjana
Thank you - appreciated =)

------
jolmg
> Access Codes & Permissions

This section is missing stuff like setuid, sticky bit, extended attributes,
etc. (SELinux stuff and setgid? I'm not sure if there's more.) For example,
`ls -ld /tmp` shows `drwxrwxrwt`, `ls -l /bin/sudo` shows `-rwsr-xr-x`.

> History Expansion

To this section, it might be good to add `!$`. Also maybe a quick overview on
word designators, to cover syntax like `!:^`, `!:2`, `!:<asterisk>`, etc.
There's also modifiers, like `!$:h` to return the (h)ead of a path that's the
last argument of the previous command, etc.

> Bash Globbing

> @ Matches exactly one of a given pattern

It might be better to put these extended glob ones as @(pattern-list) for
example, just like it is on the manpage. Putting it just like @ next to ? or
<asterisk>, implies that it just goes like that alone.

> Overview of Bash Symbols

> $(( )) is used for saving the output of arithmetic.

I guess you could save it, but you can also pass it directly to where you need
it. I wouldn't call `echo $(( 1 + 2 ))` saving it.

> $[] deprecated integer expansion construct which is replaced by (( ))

No, it's replaced by `$(())`.

EDIT: Removed the part about the file types. You have that covered. However,
you wrote

> c Special file

> b Block device

They're both special files. `c` is for character devices.

~~~
manjana
That's a great help! Thank you.

------
danso
Very cool, thanks for sharing. Here's some trivial suggestions.

\- There's a lot of info here, so I think you should aim for curation and
conciseness, rather than completeness. For example, in File Test Operators,
your first two entries (effectively, the first two entries a visitor sees) is
`-e` and `-a`, both of which you describe as "File exists", though for the
latter, you write: "(identical to -e but is deprecated and outdated)". Is
there any reason for `-a` to be included if it's not useful? When I use a
cheatsheet, I just want what's most useful, not a full historical reference.

\- This is a minor thing, and very much imho, but it was a little distracting
to see Times New Roman (or rather, the Mac default serif font) as the base
font for the descriptive text, which is a font that I associate with an
unstyled (i.e. unpolished) website. IMHO , it looks a bit better in Georgia,
or a sans-serif like "Helvetica Neue". Again, just imho, I'm sure others might
vehemently disagree.

\- The associated twitter handle looks like @shellmagic1 – why not use the
handle @shellmagicxyz, which is currently unused?

~~~
manjana
\- I'll be making a section for deprecated stuff and move everything of that
sort into one section. Good suggestion.

\- I've added a bunch of new fonts to the site, just now. It's a temporary
selection of fonts - but include nicer ones like Source Code Pro for code, and
a sans-serif for headings and navigation bar.

\- Thank you very much for mentioning that. That's a way nicer handle!

------
jrockway
I always find the context switch to get to a website jarring, and really
really love tools that give me documentation on the command line. For example,
I can type "go doc foo.Bar" and instantly read the docs for foo.Bar (where foo
is usually resolved to example.com/some/go/package/foo, based on what is in
go.mod and installed on the system). So for this, I would really like bash's
built-in help to show me all this stuff.

They did a 10% implementation of what would be good:

    
    
        $ help [
         [: [ arg... ]
             Evaluate conditional expression.
         
             This is a synonym for the "test" builtin, but the last argument must
             be a literal `]', to match the opening `['.
    

But it doesn't know how to dive into [ and show docs for the operators, i.e.,
"help [ -e" doesn't work. The [ documentation also doesn't tell you what
options are available, and of course [ doesn't implement --help (but, of
course, /bin/[ does. And people say computers are hard to use! Psh!).

So anyway, if this could all be fixed with a command-line utility, that would
be wonderful. It is likely that if I ever need to remember what [ -e does,
I'll "man [" or failing that "info bash" or failing that, give up and write
the program in go so at least I can work from some documentation.

~~~
_jal
> It is likely that if I ever need to remember what [ -e does

I realize a lot of folks consider the context switch to paper to also be
jarring, but this is why I like analog reference works. I remember roughly how
far in to the book the table of all those obscure flags are, and the book more
or less falls open to it, because I've been there before.

------
lgeorget
Nicely organized and well done! Thank you.

For all people like me addicted to this kind of reference websites full of
information, check out [http://hyperpolyglot.org/unix-
shells](http://hyperpolyglot.org/unix-shells) (and all pages on
[http://hyperpolyglot.org/](http://hyperpolyglot.org/) actually).

~~~
manjana
Thank you - that is an amazing resource you linked!

------
oefrha
Try doing the string manipulation section for Zsh instead ;) It will kill you.

[http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Doc/Release/Expansion.html](http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Doc/Release/Expansion.html)

~~~
manjana
Think I'll just stick to Bash for now haha xD

------
manjana
It's a reference site about Bash scripting, and it's being improved each day
since it still has some rough edges. But I'm starting to like the result on
desktop resoulution. Next up is improving the CSS for low-res devices and
adding toggable color-themes by clicking some radio-buttons or something :-)

------
zeku
I bookmarked this as it will be very helpful to me, so thank you!

My constructive or no so constructive criticism is that I really really don't
like the theme. I find it really hard to look at and a bit difficult to read.

~~~
manjana
I'm about to implement some common color-themes which'll be easy to toggle
(visually/color-wise it'll be like those themes you'd see in an IDE like
Eclipse or Intelli-J f.e.). I expect to be finished with the feature in a week
or so.

Thank you for the feedback and glad you like the content :-)

~~~
sodapopcan
Echoing that is is a very useful site and echoing concerns re: theme and glad
you are giving some options! Specially, I'd like to callout the main problem
to address when adding additional themes is that the headers are needless
bright while there is very low contrast when it comes to the actual content.

------
calcar
Nice reference, compact and complete.

My 2 cents: top menu goes away when you reduce window width; on mobile no menu
at all (but content goes one column correctly, so halfway responsive). If you
move or click on something, it highlights the cell (not everywhere) but there
is no operation/command bound with that (no copy to clipboard or any kind of
interaction). Usually, something highlightening represents an action that user
can do.

------
Scarbutt
There is also 'man bash', you can even search it.

Joking aside, the bash man page is pretty good and well structured.

    
    
      man bash | grep '^[A-Z]'

------
I_complete_me
Well done! For a first website, this is amazing. I can learn some bash from
this site. Also, I want to say it was a pleasure (more relief, really - now
2020-02-13) to read the comments and not be overcome by negative comments.
Sometimes even "constructive criticism" misses the goodness in the gigantic
effort to make. Your first website and you get on HN! Go YOU!

------
btschaegg
This looks great!

If I might suggest something: Maybe you'd like to investigate different
layouts for different use cases? The alphabetical ordering of builtins e.g.
will mainly help you if you encounter it, but don't know what it does.

For more exploratory/educational lookup attempts, perhaps it could be useful
to group them together by their use? I'm fairly certain, for example, that
grouping `cd` together with `pushd` and `popd` might help someone avoid some
rather nasty bugs in their script. Maybe, even a "see also" in the direction
of subshells could help (as `cd` only affects the commands in the subshell).

And, on a sidenote: Interestingly, one can find similar "lookup problems" all
over the place. For instance, any good guide to morse code will show you an
alphabetical list of codes (text -> morse code) as well as a morse tree (morse
code -> text) :)

------
lwhi
I find the scrolling interface strangely satisfying -> useful too, as you can
do a full page search via the browser.

Good job!

------
stonewareslord
> . expands to the current directory. > .. expands to parent directory.

I don’t believe this is true. These aren’t expansions, but rather actual
objects you can reference that point to cwd and cwd's parent.

You can tell because `echo .` doesn’t expand while `echo ~` does

~~~
manjana
Thank you for pointing that out. I'll fix that.

------
ghostbrainalpha
I absolutely love this. You have earned a bookmark.

If you ever want to add some useless splash for no reason, can I suggest one
of these?

[https://codepen.io/search/pens?q=terminal](https://codepen.io/search/pens?q=terminal)

------
hojjat12000
Very nice. I know that it is a bash quick reference, but I was kinda expecting
to see an example, at least for each section. Or a different page with a few
examples and maybe a simulator. Kinda to see the magic. But it's cool
nevertheless.

~~~
manjana
I did do a bit of experimentation with modal dialogs + some highlight-js for
code snippets, but decided to skip it for now and fix up all loose-ends. But
it's coming at some point. I'm also considering doing some screenrecordings at
some point.

What do you mean by a simulator? I think perhaps that'd prove beyond my skill
but the idea sounds interesting.

------
zerkten
Nice. My initial reaction is that the serif fonts are hard to read. Can you
try some console or san-serif fonts, or make that configurable? Someone else
suggested toggleable themes, so it would go with that.

~~~
manjana
Configurable fonts is a nice proposal - will try that, thanks!

------
holmberd
Your disclaimer modal doesn't fit on mobile causing the viewport to extend
outside expected bounds. Otherwise looks nice.

~~~
manjana
Thank you - fixing the site for mobile devices is on my todo-list and will
happen very soon.

------
jwilk

        255*  Exit status out of range
    

I don't know what the asterisk means here, but that doesn't sound right.

~~~
manjana
I'll fix that, thank you.

------
sirtel
I'm just curious, did you construct these tables manually? I mean did you type
those html tags manually?

~~~
manjana
I made a template table which I then added table-rows to by copy-paste and
then filling them out.

It was a bit tedious work I must admit.

------
jkeuhlen
> Placeholder. TODO [Soon-ish].

Not sure how important it actually is, but your privacy policy link has no
information :)

~~~
virusduck
It's private!

------
dawidgoslawski
cheat.sh is way better method for searching something like

[https://cht.sh/bash+string+slice](https://cht.sh/bash+string+slice)

------
miguelmota
Nice job for a first site! You must have learned a lot about bash while
working it :)

------
mmanfrin
This has given me an idea for a cheatsheet generator site. I feel a lot of
cheatsheets are pretty similar: section, subheader, and a list of keys +
descriptions. Could make this an easy little vue app.

------
cr0sh
Gotta say thank you for this resource; I'm always using bash for one thing or
another, and this will be a helpful site for the future. I've got it
bookmarked for just that reason!

~~~
manjana
Appreciated!

------
tuttobenethx
really nice, I'm going to use it.

I think there's a mistake in "Access Codes & Permissions", AFAIK (which is not
much) the o stands for "others" and now "owner".

~~~
manjana
Fixed - thank you.

------
anticycle
You list the flags, but are you supposed to guess the commands? For example,
on the File Testing Operators section, I can't find a single mention that the
command is "test"

------
ulkesh
I like the site! Question, any reason why your internal hyperlinks (<a name>)
jump to beneath the header of the section instead of showing the header of the
section?

~~~
ryannevius
This is a common issue when using links to jump to page headings, when the top
bar has fixed positioning: [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4086107/fixed-
page-heade...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4086107/fixed-page-header-
overlaps-in-page-anchors)

~~~
ulkesh
Ah, and this is why I despise working with CSS/layouting/etc. Thanks!

~~~
manjana
Fixed - thanks.

------
msvan
If you're running macOS, remember that built-in bash is from 2007 and won't
support all the fancy stuff like ${VAR^}.

~~~
manjana
I'll add a notice about this - thank you for mentioning that.

------
wweiss1230
Love the site, love the favicon - nice work!

------
drsatan0
Still waiting for your DNS to propogate :)

~~~
manjana
I reduced the TTL values - thank you for informing. Thought it had propagated,
so I increased the values a bit recently.

------
agwa
I really want to check this out, but my eyes hurt reading the page because the
contrast of gray on black is so low. A vision-impaired person might not be
able to read it at all. Please consider using this tool to pick a text color
that provides sufficient contrast:
[https://snook.ca/technical/colour_contrast/colour.html#fg=90...](https://snook.ca/technical/colour_contrast/colour.html#fg=909090,bg=202020)

~~~
plopz
Chrome inspector shows the contrast as 5.07 which seems to pass the
recommended AA 4.5 threshold.

I tried fiddling with the colors in the inspector, if you increase the
contrast you start to get something I would describe as burn-in, after images
in vision of the lines of text. Very uncomfortable, I actually prefer it with
lower contrast.

~~~
masukomi
Somehow i doubt it's testing the grey on black when it is getting that number.
Or if it is, it's probably being thrown off in averaging out the high contrast
of the orange on black.

~~~
masukomi
Firefox's accessibility tool doesn't even see most of the text when making its
calculation.

------
garettmd
Looks great! Can you add a feature to copy the flag/notation/etc when you
click on it?

~~~
manjana
Good idea! - Try checking back in a week or two if you're interested, and I'll
properly have it setup by then.

------
toddm
Very nice, thank you - bookmarked!

------
t0astbread
This looks high-quality. I'll definitely battle-test it.

Also I'm loving the animated favicon.

------
clktmr
I think it would be great to indicate POSIX sh compatibility for every item.

------
pezo1919
Opened the site on my iphone 6S and could not even close the popup.

------
modelzero
I'm a big fan of the design / color scheme.

------
bvelica
I love it! Good job!

------
BhuvanAnand
Very useful! thanks for this

