
Show HN: Notepin – Extremely simple blogging platform - okozzie
https://notepin.co/blog/
======
FreeKill
Would be nice to see an example of an actual blog using the platform, on that
page, without having to sign up first.

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okozzie
Agreed, thanks for the input!

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zepearl
I see a huge empty area at the top (on all pages, tested on Firefox and Chrome
on Linux, e.g. on [https://osman.notepin.co](https://osman.notepin.co) and
[https://notepin.co/blog](https://notepin.co/blog) )

~~~
muthdra

      .content{
        position: absolute;
        top: 42%;
        left: 50%;
        transform: translateX(-68%);
        padding-bottom: 40px;
      }
    

This is all kinds of wrong.

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okozzie
What is wrong with using this CSS format? The whitespace is deliberate and
matches the theme

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muthdra
It rattles the content back and forth and when it's done calculating, the
content is likely off-screen in lower resolutions.

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keb_
Looks nice so far. I'm a fan of these new minimal blogging alternatives to
Medium.

Also, check out WriteFreely for an open-sourced blogging platform that is
federated with ActivityPub, that you can also deploy yourself. Write.as is the
main instance.

[https://writefreely.org/](https://writefreely.org/)

[https://write.as/about](https://write.as/about)

~~~
omnimus
Sad thing about writefreely is the mysql requirement. I am big fan of flat
markdown files for content. And if not that then sqlite is perfect.

~~~
thebaer
Just to mention, MySQL isn't actually required for WriteFreely -- as of v0.6,
you can use SQLite instead.

~~~
omnimus
Awesome.

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ourcat
Looks nice.

But my advice is: don't getting in to the business of hosting other people's
stuff. It's just not worth it these days, unless they're paying. But even
then, it has potential to be a huge can of legal worms these days. So much so
that it'll suck the life out of you and the project, along with whatever you
make on 'upgrades'.

IMHO: Self-hosting (and installing your software) should be the way (back) to
go.

Very nice UI though. :)

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fermienrico
Self-hosting doesn't sell. You and I can probably self-host but majority of
the bloggers can't.

The fact that Medium exists (and Blogger, Tumblr, etc.) is a testament to the
fact that most (99% of the users) don't want to or know how to self-host a
blog.

They just need a place to write.

~~~
ourcat
Oh, I completely agree that market exists. Along with all the business models
and data collection value that goes along with them, in order to make them
sustainable.

But look where that's got us ;)

The tools/software just need to be very simple and easy (/foolproof, if such
an app exists).

Also: 'webrings' need to be a thing again ;)

~~~
52-6F-62
The dream is still alive, friend:

dir.webring.org

~~~
O_H_E
With an "s" or without

webrings.org???

~~~
52-6F-62
Without. `webrings.org` doesn't even resolve for me.

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AndrewKemendo
I just moved to write.as from Medium and it's great. Primarily because it's $1
a month hosted, I can use my own domain and there is literally zero clutter in
either the drafting page or the display page.

No customization aside from fonts and some light markup makes it really clean.

Example: [https://write.as/andrewkemendo/relative-complexity-and-
impor...](https://write.as/andrewkemendo/relative-complexity-and-importance-
of-systems-within-evolved-organizations)

~~~
nudpiedo
why to pay for a platform if everyone could use github static pages and just
publish by git commit?

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nvr219
because on github everyone sees when I make stupid commits to fix my stupid
typos

~~~
isacikgoz
pro tip: squash (rebase) your commits then force push to remove "fix typo"
history

~~~
pferde
An even "proer" tip: rebase your commits into something coherent BEFORE
pushing, and you can drop the "force".

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asien
This is really optimized for Mobile.

Tried on my 25inch screen , I thought the call to action was broken it just
that the slider was already open it seems like.

Love the idea and the concept, a bit more detail in UI would be nice. Just
having an app that render fast unlike Medium is already a huge plus in my
opinion.

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cyberferret
Seems nice, but I still really miss the simplicity of 'post to your blog via
an email' that Posterous used to do before they shut it down.

That methodology suited me best, because it allowed me to post to my (then)
blog regularly just be sending an email to a certain address (and _from_ a
certain address). I could be in the field on my iPhone or something and take a
couple of pictures and write up a quick post and send it to go live in
seconds.

~~~
kwhitefoot
I wish more things used email. It's really handy to be able to compose
something in email and send it without having to think about whether or not I
am online.

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SamWhited
The "Get Started" button doesn't appear to do anything.

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scegit
Maybe their intent was to show the sidebar on the right when it's clicked.

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emddudley
It's bad design. Most people will miss that little flash and assume the site
is broken. I did.

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qwerty456127
Does it let you create microbolog-like posts without titles? Does it support
tags? Does it support MarkDown? Does it support ATOM/RSS? Does it let people
comment and discuss the posts easily? Does it let you embed media (pictures,
YouTube videos, SoudCloud tracks, formulae and diagrams etc)? Can I take a
look at an example blog on this platform?

~~~
nvr219
> Does it let you create microbolog-like posts without titles?

yes

> Does it support tags?

yes

> Does it support MarkDown?

yes

> Does it support ATOM/RSS?

yes

> Does it let people comment and discuss the posts easily?

kinda

> Does it let you embed media (pictures, YouTube videos, SoudCloud tracks,
> formulae and diagrams etc)?

no

> Can I take a look at an example blog on this platform?

yes - stand by

~~~
qwerty456127
Pretty impressed with the first part (I didn't yet know a reasonably
functional blogging CMS that doesn't require posts to have titles) but lack of
media embedding feature effectively disqualifies the rest for me. Lack of way
to embed pictures seems next to ridiculous nowadays, lack of way to embed
YouTube videos feels a huge inconvenience (this is exactly what makes me
unhappy with GitHub Pages), native support for SoudCloud tracks, formulae and
diagrams is what I would love to have but can substitute with a workaround (by
hosting audio tracks on YouTube and rendering formulae/diagrams to pictures).

~~~
egypturnash
FWIW, Wordpress is happy to let you post something with a blank title field.
I'm looking at my self-hosted WP installation and I've got a couple dozen that
float to the top when I sort by title.

~~~
qwerty456127
IMHO Wordpress is _unreasonably_ functional. It seems a Lovecraftian monster
of complexity to me.

~~~
egypturnash
Yeah, it’s got a lot of features, even without opening up the Pandora’s vault
of plugins. Anything that’s getting close to old enough to vote is scary
inside.

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johnmarcus
with no judgements on this iteration, I wish I had a $1 for every "simple
blogging platform" ever developed. I would be ghetto rich, at least.

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usaphp
What if someone runs a script that registers all the names with random
passwords? Don’t you need an email validation or something to prevent that?

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qwerty456127
HN doesn't require e-mail verification and seems fine.

~~~
coolreader18
One second - going to try something out.

/s

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abtinf
The design of the front page makes it look like an image failed to load.

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z3t4
How does private posts work ? Are they password protected ? Do I need to
generate a user/pw for each person I want to show it to ?

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okozzie
Hi, a private post means that it will not appear on your public blog and can
only be viewed from your management panel. You can still share a private post
and generate a unique link for it to be shown to others.

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greensoup
Its not logical, when making a new post, to get all the content of all the
previous posts as starting point.

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chrischen
On mobile the learn more menu seems to be cut off at the bottom. On iphone at
least.

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todipa
Super interested. Will it be similar to Medium?

~~~
SamWhited
If by "similar to Medium" you mean "shows your users annoying popups if
they're not logged in and doesn't actually do RSS so you can't get all your
feeds in one place", then I certainly hope not :)

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anastalaz
You can actually get the RSS feed for a publication when you add /feed/ in
front of the publication's name, for example [https://medium.com/feed/the-new-
york-times](https://medium.com/feed/the-new-york-times)

~~~
SamWhited
It's not advertised the correct way, so feed readers can't find it, which
makes it effectively a non-starter for most people I'd think. They're doing
the Google thing where they implement the spec _just_ enough to claim they
implement it, but not enough for anyone to use it so that they can claim it
wasn't their fault and no one used it.

That's still good to know for the future though, thanks.

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abhinav_1941
nice one!

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miki123211
I'm thinking about creating something like that but open source. Would be
interesting.

~~~
SamWhited
Look into Writefreely (or write.as for a hosted instance). You might end up
liking it or wanting to contribute:
[https://github.com/writeas/writefreely](https://github.com/writeas/writefreely)

~~~
miki123211
This definitely looks interesting. I like their viewpoint on privacy (and the
fact that it's written in Golang)

~~~
SamWhited
Pedantic aside: The language is called "Go", please don't propagate "golang"
:)

