
Show HN: My first web app – PDF memo creator - probolsky
http://www.createamemo.com
======
dilliwal
I liked it as well, but from his tweet
([https://twitter.com/AdamProbolsky/status/793357675996196864](https://twitter.com/AdamProbolsky/status/793357675996196864))
seems he didnt make it!

~~~
sideproject
You're right. Looks like the actual development is done by CodeGophers.

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

"Email us a programming task and we'll finish it in 48 hours"

I would say most HN'ers (me included) thought this was done by a beginner web
developer and looking for feedback from the community. And based on the
comments provided, many of them are quite positive and constructive.

~~~
shostack
Frankly I'd be interested in a write-up on their experience using this
service, walking us through they scoped it, solved challenges, cost etc.

Part of running a business is effectively and efficiently allocating capital.
Depending on their goal with this project and how much it cost, this could be
an excellent approach for getting low tech MVPs built.

~~~
marcell
If you're interested, we put together a quick blog post describing the
process. You can read it here: [https://blog.codegophers.com/createamemo-com-
idea-to-mvp-in-...](https://blog.codegophers.com/createamemo-com-idea-to-mvp-
in-48-hours/)

------
johnwheeler
I like it. Dead simple. Makes nice output. The UI is correct. I would use.

Feedback:

Consider replacing "We take privacy seriously" with "I take privacy
seriously".

Better yet, consider removing that sentence so you don't make people second
guess it. It's even easier then because there's less information that needs
mental processing. You might just say, "Once you generate your memo, your
information is deleted forever" or you might not say anything at all.

~~~
curryhoward
> Consider replacing "We take privacy seriously" with "I take privacy
> seriously".

There's some tension between wanting to be taken seriously ("we" makes it
sound like there is a team supporting the product) and using the correct
pronoun number for a single author. I see the appeal of using the royal "we"
everywhere, even when there is only one person behind the project, because at
least then the pronouns don't need to be updated once a second team member
joins.

~~~
Reedx
Yeah, I'd be very curious to hear what people think about this.

Is it better to us "I" or "We" when running a site yourself? And does the
answer change depending on the type of site?

~~~
reneherse
We choose "we".

Even if you're the sole author of the app/site, the voice of any text should
be abstracted away from your identity at least to this small degree. Use "I"
only in testimonials, quotes, or in a "message from our founder".

This discipline helps keeps the voice/tone of the text consistent throughout
the app, which inspires trust and confidence. It's more polished and
professional, especially if you ever contemplate expanding your team.

------
todd3834
Nice work! Would you be interested in sharing anything interesting you used or
learned while making this?

These are the kinds of posts that made me fall in love with HN over 2535 day
ago.

~~~
markdown
> These are the kinds of posts that made me fall in love with HN over 2535 day
> ago.

And are sadly relatively rare these days :(

~~~
icebraining
Not really, they just don't always surface to the front page.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/shownew](https://news.ycombinator.com/shownew)

------
saurabhjha
This is really great! Thanks for sharing.

Here are some comments: * Make a title of your webpage using <title> tag in
<head> * I was not sure the "organization" was meant to be a input field.
Please make it more obvious.

It's great! The first web app I made printed "hello, world" in HTML :-). One
thing I would recommend is releasing some part of your code so that people can
give feedback on that as well.

Keep it up!

------
shiven
Not really "Show HN" stuff. Poster did not code it, mercenary programming shop
did.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
What's really funny, is I saw the link submitted on /new at least five or six
times yesterday. So there was a lot of work put in to get it up here on the
front page too.

~~~
probolsky
Not true.

------
Vilkku
Seems nice and simple, good job! Some comments/suggestions:

* There seems to be no <title> tag on the page, or at least I don't see a title for the page.

* When the browser downloads the output, it is served to it as a "binary file" (Firefox on Mac), not PDF, meaning I have no other option than to download it. I think (though I'm not sure) that if you set the content type correctly it could open straight in a new tab, or at least let me open it straight in a PDF viewer.

* The paper format looks a bit off to me, I guess it's because it's letter? In that case, not everyone uses that (we use A4), though lettings users set it would increase UI complexity.

~~~
frankquist
Maybe kind of quirky, but I think letter is more popular in the USA and a4
more popular in some other countries... So maybe base it on IP location?

------
photonios
++kudos for that. Simple, yet effective. Does one thing, but does it well. I
was impressed that when I didn't fill in the "Organization" field, it left it
out of the PDF completely. I sort of had the expectation that it would create
an empty box in the PDF. But it didn't, that shows that you thought about it.

Any chance you can share some information on what you used to build this?

One piece of feedback though: The "contact" placeholder didn't seem like a
text field to me. It took me a while to figure that it's editable. The same
goes for the "Organization" placeholder.

~~~
glaberficken
> One piece of feedback though: The "contact" placeholder didn't seem like a
> text field to me. It took me a while to figure that it's editable. The same
> goes for the "Organization" placeholder.

Came here to say exactly the same thing. Other than that, 5 stars. =)

------
arkadiyt
Looks great, works great. I'd recommend setting up a free TLS certificate from
LetsEncrypt

------
golergka
I really like the fact that something this simple can make the top of the HN's
front page. It makes this site feel really beginner-friendly and encouraging.
A great contrast with many other websites where programmers exercise in
putting down other's work to boost their own ego.

And while I don't have any use for this app, I have to admit that it looks
awesome and simple. Good job.

------
probolsky
Thank you all for such great feedback, encouragement. I am adopting a lot of
your suggestions. Please, keep them coming.

------
onlyrealcuzzo
Looks beautiful, dude. I love your typography. Very similar design in terms of
simplicity to something I'm working on. So maybe I'm just patting myself on
the back, but I dig it. Great job!

------
ohstopitu
so umm if the poster didn't do it...why is this here?

I'm not saying it should not be here...just asking what exactly the "show HN"
in about. If it's about showing of the skills of codegophers...should they
have not worked on something more complex?

just confused.

------
athyuttamre
Congrats! Always great to see first time apps. Keep on learning and building,
and always share what you make with this and other communities. :)

~~~
anondon
> share what you make with this and other communities

Just curious, apart from some programming related subreddits, where else would
one share something like this?

~~~
tomtompl
There are local groups on facebook for example. You could share it on twitter.
You can share it in your company. You can share it in your university group.

------
eschutte2
Cool. For even more privacy, you could generate the PDF client-side.

~~~
thenaturalist
Asking as a self-taught not-so-advanced-yet guy wanting to build a similar I/O
web app: Could you elaborate a bit on how client-side transformation/
generation could be achieved?

~~~
mypalmike
Perhaps using [http://pdfkit.org/](http://pdfkit.org/)

~~~
escap
or using
[https://github.com/bpampuch/pdfmake](https://github.com/bpampuch/pdfmake)
e.g. [http://pdfmake.org/playground.html](http://pdfmake.org/playground.html)
"pdfmake is based on a truly amazing library pdfkit.org"

------
drewm1980
I couldn't tell if it was an "office space" joke or not, and didn't want to
put my e-mail address in just to find out.

~~~
Jugurtha
Here: [https://mytemp.email/2](https://mytemp.email/2)

The link takes you, without clicking on anything, to the inbox of a disposable
email address that perishes if you don't visit it for 24 hours or if you close
the session.

------
toomanybeersies
I just recently used Prawn to make a PDF receipt generator in Rails for work.

It's surprisingly fun when you get into it, and Prawn is very powerful.

I've been thinking of making a Resume generator using Prawn in my spare time,
but I haven't really found the time.

~~~
laurieg
Prawn is wonderful. I used it to make a worksheet generator for teaching and
was blown away by what I could do.

------
p333347
Two things stood out right away (on Firefox 42) and point 2 particularly
dissuaded me from checking it out any further. 1\. It doesn't check for empty
content and produces a pdf with just 'memo' and horizontal line. 2\. Can't
paste, ctrl+v won't work and there is no paste in context menu.

------
anondon
Very nice!

A few questions:

\- Where are you hosting this site?

\- What is your tech stack?

\- Do have any plan to build on this web app?

~~~
dan1234
Quite simple to work out some of this yourself:

>Where are you hosting this site?

    
    
        $ dig +short a www.createamemo.com
        memo-gen.herokuapp.com.
        us-east-1-a.route.herokuapp.com.
        23.23.225.163
    

> What is your tech stack?
    
    
        $ curl -I www.createamemo.com
        ...
        Server: WEBrick/1.3.1 (Ruby/2.2.4/2015-12-16)
        ...
    

So, it looks like it’s a Rails app hosted on Heroku.

------
pklien
So cool something like this hits #1 here. What a community!

------
gchokov
It's so much easier to open up Ms Word, have a template by your choice, and
export as PDF. I don't get it guys. Super nice domain occupied for a trivial
thing... edit: Maybe an OK solution if you don't have Ms Word. But, almost all
text editors can export as PDF anyway..

~~~
icebraining
What would you use that domain for?

~~~
gchokov
Keeping a Meeting Memo in the cloud, for teams, for example. Memo as a PDF? No
thanks.

------
abijeet
Looks neat and clean.

Here's my review -

1\. Add -

<meta charset="utf-8">

in the head section of the page.

2\. Try to avoid jumping from h1 directly to h3. Heading progression should be
from h1 to h2 to h3 and so on.

3\. Towards the end I see you've added some <br> tags to space out content.
I'd use CSS margin top and bottom to do that.

------
csydas
Very cool. Pretty much flawless on iOS (8.3) right down to just opening the
pdf in iBooks. Loads fast enough that I can grab it between stops on the
metro.

Is the date going to pre-fill with the current date in future revisions? On my
red. It was 06/15/2016 I think.

~~~
reitanqild
Agree with csydas. Just looked at it and read the text and have to say this is
really nice. Makes me happy.

More constructive feedback: If it is to be used in Europe the date must be
either configurable or default to a format that isn't totally confusing like
month/day/year is.

------
keyle
Very nice. Two features you could add is - more templates and - using local
storage to cache what's been typed and remember the fields contents.

Agree with the others, you probably want to mention what you're saving on the
server and a privacy statement.

------
Twisell
"We take privacy seriously"

With an unencrypted service, without any way for others to audit your code,
without even basic contact info and with a misleading company name...

Who are you kidding? Is that some sort of social science experiment?

~~~
nodesocket
Take it easy. Let's encourage others and give feedback, not nerd rage on them
for releasing their first web app.

~~~
Twisell
I really dunno people also come here to read tech advices. And even if I
appreciate the effort, it would really be dangerous to use this service for
real confidential uses.

I mean unless someone personally know the author how can you tell this isn't a
guy phishing for personnal data and posing as a newbie? Here more than
everywhere else we should not take privacy statement at face value. And even
if he's honestly wrong, lake of encryption mean this really isn't as secure as
claimed.

I find it confusing, especially in the middle of the Hilary e-mail stuff that
so much HN commenters are so forgiving about a serious flaw.

Of course I understood that there is a lots of irony in some comments. So
sorry to be captain obvious. But I'm not sure given the context that irony is
more serving than a plain and brutal reminder.

~~~
frankquist
Everything you said could have been said in a polite, or even educational way,
without sacrificing its importance. Usually we use "but this is wrong!" or
"this really needs to be said and I am passionate about it" as an excuse to be
harsh or to vent but really it just causes your comment to drop to the bottom
of the comments where people are less likely to read it.

~~~
Twisell
Well English is not my mother thong so maybe I was harsher than I though.

However the current top comment is basically saying that the OP is a poser and
that it might have been a viral campaign for codegophers this don't qualify as
not harsh... When reality is harsh how are we supposed to soften it without
lying?

~~~
frankquist
NP :). There are many ways to not deny reality and still be polite! One of
them is reserving outrage or judgement until one is sure it is actually
warranted. (not referring to you specifically with that one)

------
teeboy
Would you publish the code too? Congrats!

------
a_j_s
Hi,nice work! found a bug only worked for me when filled all the fields.
Internal Server Error when i left "cc" field empty. Keep up the good work.

------
kelvin0
I tried copying some text from a URL (copy/paste the content of that page)
into the memo box and hit the create button: Internal Server Error

Here's the URL I used. Hope this helps.

[http://www.thedrive.com/tech/5246/how-george-
hotzs-999-auton...](http://www.thedrive.com/tech/5246/how-george-
hotzs-999-autonomous-driving-tech-actually-works)

------
sigjuice
Preview.app says "PDF Producer: Qt 4.8.6" and "Content creator: wkhtmltopdf
0.12.2.1". Is that intentional?

------
shanecleveland
So now we know all about the development of this idea, but what is the genesis
behind this probolsky? Why did you want it built? If it was to truly learn
"development," then I suspect you would have done it yourself. Scratch your
own itch? Expand it into a business offering? Where does it go from here?

------
adam77
'Pretigious Technologies'

typo?

~~~
probolsky
Nope. The name of my 'company'. Yes it's prestigious without the s in the
middle.

~~~
kagamine
Why? A google search only shows misspellings and an urban dictionary entry you
do not want to be associated with.

------
davidshepherd7
Minor bug: If I hit "Create a PDF" without entering any data I get an internal
server error page.

~~~
probolsky
Would you mind telling my what device you are using? OS?

Thanks.

~~~
webtechgal
CentOS 6.7 + FireFox 45.3.0 here, no error when I hit the Create PDF button
without typing anything.

~~~
ddorian43
I'm still waiting for this:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12489586](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12489586)
;)

------
mythrwy
Might default the date to current date.

------
maup
I played with the editor and a js plugin to create pdf a little bit:

[https://plnkr.co/edit/R68wzJbtsJXUIZppmETj?p=preview](https://plnkr.co/edit/R68wzJbtsJXUIZppmETj?p=preview)

------
labpdx
Maybe your server is overloaded or having some other issues - but didn't work
at all for me on Android+Chrome. Tried multiple times.

Also tried in Desktop Mode, and received a server error.

Still interested in trying it out, will wait for a bit.

------
anton_gogolev
Frequently fails with Internal Server Error. And please, add HTTPS:
[https://letsencrypt.org/](https://letsencrypt.org/)

------
m_asgari
If we can comment on functionality too (not just UI and design), I would say
at least add an option to your text editor to do left/right alignment to
support RTL languages.

------
japhyr
This is great, and you're receiving well-deserved attention. I have to ask,
did you mean to call yourself "pretigioustech" or was that an accidental
misspelling?

------
lucb1e
I am probably missing something in the mobile view. What makes this page
easier than creating this in any product from Libreoffice to Word and
exporting to pdf?

~~~
webtechgal
This app makes it possible to (easily) create PDFs on PCs (and other access
devices) that don't have LibreOffice or Word (or other similar tools)
installed, using just a web browser (and an Internet connection).

Great work, btw.

------
quantumtremor
I think you need some sort of input validation on the length/size of the text.
Is the application just throwing everything away if it's too large?

------
beher
Internal Server Error

------
vim-guru
Should it perhaps be Prestigious Technologies? And I suggest that you tint
your placeholder-text a bit, so it doesn't look like the actual input.

------
swatkat
Might want to fix typo: _© Pretigious Technologies_

------
samdung
I see simplicity i upvote. Another good example is
[https://www.resyum.com](https://www.resyum.com)

------
vyuh
I tried to use it on Opera Mini native on Android. Download dialog is shown
but it never starts transferring data. No error message shown.

------
0x54MUR41
That's great. It's very simple and I like it.

Feedback: I think you're missing your web app title. It only shows your
default URI.

------
stockkid
Good job for shipping. I'd love to use it, but the page said internal server
error when I clicked on the button.

------
randomsearch
Entering a non-American date format, or leaving the date blank, gives an
internal server error.

Nice project, well done!

~~~
uberalex
Also entering an odd number of double quotes in the from line creates an error
too.

------
NeuroKix
Special characters such as čšž are not rendered correctly in the bottom
Contact information field.

------
drivingmenuts
Someone may have misspelled "prestigious" at the bottom.

------
sangd
Good job! Very nice for a first web app.

------
coin
Content doesn't fit on an iPad

------
hellothree23
great stuff man! congrats! good idea too

------
jaspervdmeer
Pretigious?

------
feider
Wtf. 1st in the HN? Is this a joke I don't get?

~~~
bdcravens
Perhaps readers are happy to see something about a hacker hacking than the
latest Elon-love-fest or continued Apple drama or discussion of SF real
estate.

~~~
kagamine
I want Elon to get the top job at Apple, it would halve the number of posts on
reddit and HN.

