
Prose, a content editor for GitHub - avinashv
http://prose.io
======
AdrianRossouw
Prose.io is a completely client side editor that authenticates against github
to allow you to directly edit your markdown files in the repo.

It has a tiny tiny server-side component that exists only to complete the
oauth handshake (for the remote server to have something to call back to),
called gate keeper.

It's completely open source and self-hostable. They also make a webhook so you
can trigger rebuilding on your own server.

They built it to be able to replace their need on a traditional CMS when they
switched from Drupal to Node.JS many years ago.

[http://developmentseed.org/blog/2012/07/27/build-cms-free-
we...](http://developmentseed.org/blog/2012/07/27/build-cms-free-websites/)

DevelopmentSeed was the company that eventually spun off into MapBox.com, the
open source open data map tile hosted service.

They have a long history with the open source community, and are spearheading
a lot of the open source mapping stack by employing the lead developers of
mapnik, leaflet and much more.

Other than Mapbox.com and Prose.io they also built :

TileMill -
[https://www.mapbox.com/tilemill/](https://www.mapbox.com/tilemill/) \- An
node-webkit based map designer

Id - [http://ideditor.com/](http://ideditor.com/) \- The OpenStreetMap editing
interface

(disclaimer: I used to work for them, and left around the time they spun off
into mapbox)

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jorde
Could anyone provide screenshots? I hate to be a hater but authorizing an app
to access all my private repos is little too much (not sure how GH allows
OAuth scoping)

~~~
jgeewax
Couldn't agree more... Do we really need to grant read and write access to all
repos? Sucks if GH's scoping is that coarse.

~~~
Wingman4l7
It definitely isn't that coarse:
[https://developer.github.com/v3/oauth/#scopes](https://developer.github.com/v3/oauth/#scopes)

~~~
VoxPelli
GitHub are also working on enabling users to accept just a subset of the
requested scopes, like just access to public repos, which will make using all
of the more fine-grained scopes easier:
[https://developer.github.com/changes/2013-10-04-oauth-
change...](https://developer.github.com/changes/2013-10-04-oauth-changes-
coming/)

------
pron
Prose is made by Development Seed (the company behind the healtcare.gov
frontend, IIRC).

There are screenshots here:
[http://developmentseed.org/blog/2012/june/25/prose-a-
content...](http://developmentseed.org/blog/2012/june/25/prose-a-content-
editor-for-github/)

Prose is an open source node.js app, and can be self-hosted:
[https://github.com/prose/prose](https://github.com/prose/prose)

~~~
gregchapple
Actually, it's a Backbone.js application. It uses the browserify library to
load other modules, which is what the "require('blah')" bits are. this
confused me too when I first read it. so essentially you can run this on a
static file server like GH pages.

As far as I remember in order to get the GitHub authentication piece working
you need to use an external app simply for the authentication with GitHub.
DevelopmentSeed also wrote an app for this called gatekeeper (I think) which I
believe is a node.js application.

impressive stuff.

~~~
kjell
Yes:
[https://github.com/prose/gatekeeper](https://github.com/prose/gatekeeper)

I believe all the gatekeeper does is forward the oauth confirmation callback
to prose so the client side app can use it.

So, anyone worried about security can run their own gatekeeper and their own
prose without having to worry about the NSA (oh, wait…)

------
hablahaha
Two Things: 1\. The link to view the Github projects sites are wrong, they
attach the prose.io domain to the actual domain.

2\. It's cool that there is a publish button that shows if it has been
published, but then when I clicked on it, it said it would be unpublished. I
know I have to save first, but that was kind of bad UX. Also when I click it
again to set it back to publish, the record still appears to be dirty, with
changes to save. Kind of unsettling since I was just browsing to see the
functionality.

One more thing: Is there a service (hosted or otherwise) that has this kind of
web based editing with a preview of MY website, not just the plain Markdown? I
like that non devs could edit it, but we also have our own CSS that could
change the way it looks (video embedding, etc.).

------
skybrian
It seems nice, but I'd like to know more about where the UI is hosted and
whether I can easily host it myself. Is there an architecture diagram
somewhere?

(Ideally I'd run it on App Engine.)

~~~
tmcw
The UI is hosted on Github pages: there's no server-side code. The only
required server-side component is
[https://github.com/prose/gatekeeper](https://github.com/prose/gatekeeper) \-
an app that makes OAuth possible with CORS.

------
Malarkey73
This is another of those websites that asks you to sign up without explaining
what it does

... except for the "learn more" button which takes you to a page which
explains very very little.

nice font.

------
antjanus
Why does this show up once a month on Hacker News? Seriously. We've discussed
this tool to death. And every time, the same discussions follow:

"Hi! I'm a purist. I use VIM to edit my Github textfiles. If you configure VIM
correctly, it'll work better than anything in the world!"

"Hi! I'm a non-purist and have tried 50 different tools, let me list them
out!"

I don't ever see any other tool or article reposted as much as Prose.io

~~~
nilliams
I think you're sort of missing the point.

It's not about 'editing your github files', and anybody who brings up VIM is
_definitely_ missing the point (it's not for you!). As I understand it Prose
is about the potential to host totally CMS-free sites (e.g. Jekyll sites) on
Github and give your customers a decent editor to alter their content.

It's potentially combining the best of the 'push to git to deploy static site'
ethos with 'CMS-like editing capabilities so your customers can reasonably
edit content'. I think that's why a lot of people are watching this project
closely.

I personally would be happy to see this reposted once a month so we can see
its progress and maybe encourage more competition in this space.

~~~
antjanus
I'm not here to discuss the tool. It's a good tool. Nothing wrong with it.
It's a great tool, worth discussing. It has its uses etc.

However, there's nothing visibly new with each repost. If someone posted like
a release, or maybe a changelog, or a blog post with some feature updates,
sure. But as of right now, I see Prose get reposted monthly, with no visible
changes. And THAT'S annoying.

~~~
eevilspock
Is the same person reposting it? If so, its spam and should be reported. If
it's a new person each time, and each time it continues to get up-voted, then
you're going to have to just live with it just like we all have to live with
articles we don't care for making it to the front page. Obviously HN has
consciously made a decision to allow reposts after some cool-off period.

------
venantius
This seems like a great product, but the fact that they include no product
details or information doesn't meet the high bar that should be met for
someone to provide OAuth access to GitHub.

------
mrmondo
"This application will be able to read and write all public and private repo
data. This includes the following:

Code, Issues, Pull requests, Wikis, Settings, Webhooks and services, Deploy
keys"

...nope!

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entelarust
Use this all the time to update READMEs and documentation

Great, clean interface

~~~
dominotw
Could you tell me how this differs from githubs own markdown editor. I played
with this for a bit but I failed to notice anything.

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woutervdb
Too bad the site doesn't work on my phone _at all_. Xperia T using Dolphin
Browser. Gives me all kinds of floating boxes and a useless progress spinner.

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sntran
I used Prose before. However, after Heartbleed incident, I removed many OAuth
tokens in GitHub, including Prose, and now the site won't load for me at all.

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monokrome
I don't understand how anything like this could just assume that I'm going to
give it access to my private repos. Do people seriously do this?

------
artellectual
this is really good stuff, its very fast to navigate through different files
and edit content. it will work really well with my up coming gem.

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laacz
How is it better than github editor?

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camus2
Nice,definetly a nice idea.

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jackmaney
While the design looks nice, what does this offer that GitHub's editing
functionality[1] does not?

[1]: [https://help.github.com/articles/editing-
files](https://help.github.com/articles/editing-files)

~~~
craigmccaskill
Prose is tweaked specifically to offer additional features to sites built with
Jekyll.

They have a markdown editor, similar to the one github offers, but have a few
extra features to deal with Jekyll specific stuff like drafts, image uploading
and a distraction free writing mode.

~~~
tsm
I don't know much about Jekyll, but vanilla Github offers a distraction-free
editor called "zen mode".

------
rando289
The editor is content? Absolutely anything you are editing could be described
as content. I edit the contents of my editing buffer.

