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Show HN: Intro.js v2.3.0 – Step-by-step guide and feature introduction

82 points by afshinmeh 10y ago

sleepychu 10y ago
No support Not sure this reads well. ;-)
bshimmin 10y ago
I'm sorry, but the commercial aspect of this just seems crazy. Would people really pay money for this, or ever want a code review (one of the plan differentiators)?
- wwalser 10y ago
  It's possible. I've worked with the commercial side of an open source project where the company that I worked for paid the OS team for some dev-time and guaranteed code reviews. It worked out okay but I assume that the cost was significantly higher than the numbers on this page. The project that we did this for was significantly more complex than Intro.js. Companies are willing to trade money for a guarantee that something they are adopting in anger will stick around. That said I don't know if this pricing model is the right way to go about it, price signaling is a big factor at the enterprise level. For everyone below enterprise this will feel like a donation. On a slightly different note, is anyone familiar with a successful AGPL licensed project? I worked with an OS teams a few years back where someone involved made the decision to go AGPL for commercial reasons and 100% of the OS contributions dried up over night.
- paulrosenzweig 10y ago
  If you're using the library for a commercial purpose, a $10 lifetime license seems pretty cheap. You only pay more than that if you want support/themes.
sosuke 10y ago
This looks almost exactly like the intro for Promethease http://imgur.com/a/Guov3 http://imgur.com/a/Guov3
- anilgulecha 10y ago
  They're probably using intro.js
nathanstitt 10y ago
Library looks attractive, but it has 185 open issues and 106 pull requests. The pull requests go back to 2013, I have no idea why people continue to open new ones since it appears they have little chance of getting them merged.
- NDizzle 10y ago
  Thanks for pointing that out. I'm looking for a product exactly like this. Right now bootstraptour looks to be what I'm going with.
- afshinmeh 10y ago
  Intro.js author is here. Most of issues are pretty old and have already fixed. I'm going to close them in next two weeks so we will have less than 30 open issues.
planetjones 10y ago
I was evaluating using this library recently. At the time I wasn't sure if they forced you to take a commercial license or not. On their website it says: if you are using the library for your business you can subscribe to one of commercial licenses plus support, code review and support by Intro.js team. However, then on their github it says: If you want to use Intro.js for a commercial application, theme or plugin the commercial license is the appropriate license. which does not sound so optional. The page says you can "subscribe" to their commercial plans, but it doesn't specify if the payment is a one-off or recurring. Too much hassle. In the end I opted for http://bootstraptour.com http://bootstraptour.com
- wwalser 10y ago
  For others wondering about how this works and considering their options: I've spent a significant time around lawyers who do license/copyright work for the two startups I've worked for. I am not a lawyer myself and this isn't legal advice. This is a fairly standard dual-license setup where the author hopes to offer the software for free to other open source creators and providers but wants to take a small rake from commercial entities that use the software. "Dual-license" refers to the fact that by default this code uses one license but for a fee, it can be used under a different license. Some libraries are dual-licensed but do not require a fee but instead allow consumers to choose which license they would prefer to use the code under. jQuery fell into this category for a long time[1]. The first and default license that this code carries is the AGPL. High-level notes about the AGPL: * Requires[2] code "linked" with this code in an application to be Open Source. * Requires changes to this code to also be free. * Is a derivative of the GPL designed to cover holes in the "linking" terminology that allowed networked software to skirt the "linked code must be free" requirement. * Plays nicely with other OS licenses such as the GPL, WTFPL, MIT, Apache, BSD etc. in that it doesn't require other code "linked" with it use the AGPL but does require them to be Open Source. The second license, which requires a fee, allows the code to be used under a different set of restrictions. In this case, the only restriction appears to be the number of uses of the code. This effectively frees a private entity to make modifications to the code and to "link" it to other code without having to share those modifications or the linked code. 1. https://blog.jquery.com/2012/09/10/jquery-licensing-changes/ 2. My understanding is that using AGPL code in a commercial application is usually advised against by corporate lawyers who work with IP/Copyright issues. To my knowledge, it's never been tested in court but no one is excited to be the first to try and therefore it's a risk rarely taken.
throwawaymaroon 10y ago
because your users are DUMB
leesalminen 10y ago
I would pay monthly for a SaaS that allowed non-technical users to create (complex) tours with a fancy UI. Anybody know about these offerings?
- bigtones 10y ago
  Pendo.io does this and a lot more.
- sorich87 10y ago
  Try http://www.getchaperone.com http://www.getchaperone.com. It's based on the open-source http://bootstraptour.com http://bootstraptour.com.
MikeKusold 10y ago
If the licensing is a concern, LinkedIn open sourced their onboarding library a while ago: https://github.com/linkedin/hopscotch https://github.com/linkedin/hopscotch Hopscotch has an Apache license which should play better for commercial use.
ceyhunkazel 10y ago
I have used bootstraptour, Intojs and hopscotch in order for my recent project http://www.jeviz.com http://www.jeviz.com . Here prons and cons: I started with bootstraptour and it was pretty good on desktop and it is even fine with ajax DOM change while tour. Shame on me I did not test my site after adding tour on mobile then I announced jeviz.com on hackernews, a user commented about scrolling issue on mobile. Tour did not automatically scrolled down on mobile and it also prevent me scroll-down manually. Maybe it is because of dynamic content issue and I tried to fix it without success so I searched for another tour library which was intro.js Intro.js at first seemed to be more polished than bootstraptour and I liked how it highlights on target element and gray out remaining parts. It has problems with ajax DOM change so I changed my tour without using ajax. It worked good on chrome then I tested on firefox and internet explorer, both with same issue: first step was fine but after that, in second step and so on tour popup and most of the site content turned to be invisible as shown below: https://s13.postimg.org/4xd0f731j/introjs2.png https://s13.postimg.org/4xd0f731j/introjs2.png Then I googled for another alternative and found Hopscotch which is Linkedin open source project. It is very solid with best scrolling experience. It does not support DOM changes but found a workaround in issue page https://github.com/linkedin/hopscotch/issues/56 https://github.com/linkedin/hopscotch/issues/56 my tour code: http://www.jeviz.com/static/js/tour.js http://www.jeviz.com/static/js/tour.js
- sorich87 10y ago
  Bootstrap Tour author here. Thanks for the feedback. :) Do you, by any chance, still have your tour code from when you used Bootstrap Tour. I'm very interested in learning more about this issue and eventually fixing it. FYI, Bootstrap Tour also has the "element highlight" feature. It's called "backdrop".
  - ceyhunkazel 10y ago
    Wow did not know backdrop feature, thanks for interesting fixing the issue. Problem was only on mobile when it introduces element at below which is off the screen. I guess problem was at the #id_sort_group element.Here is the code: https://jsfiddle.net/aqcb8Lmv/1/ https://jsfiddle.net/aqcb8Lmv/1/
pablobaz 10y ago
For something simpler and less time consuming for users I'd recommend https://heelhook.github.io/chardin.js/ https://heelhook.github.io/chardin.js/
bastijn 10y ago
I feel completely lost using any of the options in this thread on their sample pages. Especially on a mobile phone, it's jumping everywhere an popups and grey outs..Yanks. What's wrong with creating a proper page that your users can read from top to bottom. To me this is fancy over usability, cuz we can.
vorotato 10y ago
If you have to highlight where the user should read next you have failed wrt UX.

82 points by afshinmeh 10y ago

No support Not sure this reads well. ;-)

I'm sorry, but the commercial aspect of this just seems crazy. Would people really pay money for this, or ever want a code review (one of the plan differentiators)?

wwalser 10y ago
It's possible. I've worked with the commercial side of an open source project where the company that I worked for paid the OS team for some dev-time and guaranteed code reviews. It worked out okay but I assume that the cost was significantly higher than the numbers on this page. The project that we did this for was significantly more complex than Intro.js. Companies are willing to trade money for a guarantee that something they are adopting in anger will stick around. That said I don't know if this pricing model is the right way to go about it, price signaling is a big factor at the enterprise level. For everyone below enterprise this will feel like a donation. On a slightly different note, is anyone familiar with a successful AGPL licensed project? I worked with an OS teams a few years back where someone involved made the decision to go AGPL for commercial reasons and 100% of the OS contributions dried up over night.
paulrosenzweig 10y ago
If you're using the library for a commercial purpose, a $10 lifetime license seems pretty cheap. You only pay more than that if you want support/themes.

sosuke 10y ago

This looks almost exactly like the intro for Promethease http://imgur.com/a/Guov3 http://imgur.com/a/Guov3

anilgulecha 10y ago
They're probably using intro.js

nathanstitt 10y ago

Library looks attractive, but it has 185 open issues and 106 pull requests. The pull requests go back to 2013, I have no idea why people continue to open new ones since it appears they have little chance of getting them merged.

NDizzle 10y ago
Thanks for pointing that out. I'm looking for a product exactly like this. Right now bootstraptour looks to be what I'm going with.
afshinmeh 10y ago
Intro.js author is here. Most of issues are pretty old and have already fixed. I'm going to close them in next two weeks so we will have less than 30 open issues.

planetjones 10y ago

I was evaluating using this library recently. At the time I wasn't sure if they forced you to take a commercial license or not. On their website it says: if you are using the library for your business you can subscribe to one of commercial licenses plus support, code review and support by Intro.js team. However, then on their github it says: If you want to use Intro.js for a commercial application, theme or plugin the commercial license is the appropriate license. which does not sound so optional. The page says you can "subscribe" to their commercial plans, but it doesn't specify if the payment is a one-off or recurring. Too much hassle. In the end I opted for http://bootstraptour.com http://bootstraptour.com

wwalser 10y ago
For others wondering about how this works and considering their options: I've spent a significant time around lawyers who do license/copyright work for the two startups I've worked for. I am not a lawyer myself and this isn't legal advice. This is a fairly standard dual-license setup where the author hopes to offer the software for free to other open source creators and providers but wants to take a small rake from commercial entities that use the software. "Dual-license" refers to the fact that by default this code uses one license but for a fee, it can be used under a different license. Some libraries are dual-licensed but do not require a fee but instead allow consumers to choose which license they would prefer to use the code under. jQuery fell into this category for a long time[1]. The first and default license that this code carries is the AGPL. High-level notes about the AGPL: * Requires[2] code "linked" with this code in an application to be Open Source. * Requires changes to this code to also be free. * Is a derivative of the GPL designed to cover holes in the "linking" terminology that allowed networked software to skirt the "linked code must be free" requirement. * Plays nicely with other OS licenses such as the GPL, WTFPL, MIT, Apache, BSD etc. in that it doesn't require other code "linked" with it use the AGPL but does require them to be Open Source. The second license, which requires a fee, allows the code to be used under a different set of restrictions. In this case, the only restriction appears to be the number of uses of the code. This effectively frees a private entity to make modifications to the code and to "link" it to other code without having to share those modifications or the linked code. 1. https://blog.jquery.com/2012/09/10/jquery-licensing-changes/ 2. My understanding is that using AGPL code in a commercial application is usually advised against by corporate lawyers who work with IP/Copyright issues. To my knowledge, it's never been tested in court but no one is excited to be the first to try and therefore it's a risk rarely taken.

throwawaymaroon 10y ago

because your users are DUMB

leesalminen 10y ago

I would pay monthly for a SaaS that allowed non-technical users to create (complex) tours with a fancy UI. Anybody know about these offerings?

bigtones 10y ago
Pendo.io does this and a lot more.
sorich87 10y ago
Try http://www.getchaperone.com http://www.getchaperone.com. It's based on the open-source http://bootstraptour.com http://bootstraptour.com.

MikeKusold 10y ago

If the licensing is a concern, LinkedIn open sourced their onboarding library a while ago: https://github.com/linkedin/hopscotch https://github.com/linkedin/hopscotch Hopscotch has an Apache license which should play better for commercial use.

ceyhunkazel 10y ago

I have used bootstraptour, Intojs and hopscotch in order for my recent project http://www.jeviz.com http://www.jeviz.com . Here prons and cons: I started with bootstraptour and it was pretty good on desktop and it is even fine with ajax DOM change while tour. Shame on me I did not test my site after adding tour on mobile then I announced jeviz.com on hackernews, a user commented about scrolling issue on mobile. Tour did not automatically scrolled down on mobile and it also prevent me scroll-down manually. Maybe it is because of dynamic content issue and I tried to fix it without success so I searched for another tour library which was intro.js Intro.js at first seemed to be more polished than bootstraptour and I liked how it highlights on target element and gray out remaining parts. It has problems with ajax DOM change so I changed my tour without using ajax. It worked good on chrome then I tested on firefox and internet explorer, both with same issue: first step was fine but after that, in second step and so on tour popup and most of the site content turned to be invisible as shown below: https://s13.postimg.org/4xd0f731j/introjs2.png https://s13.postimg.org/4xd0f731j/introjs2.png Then I googled for another alternative and found Hopscotch which is Linkedin open source project. It is very solid with best scrolling experience. It does not support DOM changes but found a workaround in issue page https://github.com/linkedin/hopscotch/issues/56 https://github.com/linkedin/hopscotch/issues/56 my tour code: http://www.jeviz.com/static/js/tour.js http://www.jeviz.com/static/js/tour.js

sorich87 10y ago
Bootstrap Tour author here. Thanks for the feedback. :) Do you, by any chance, still have your tour code from when you used Bootstrap Tour. I'm very interested in learning more about this issue and eventually fixing it. FYI, Bootstrap Tour also has the "element highlight" feature. It's called "backdrop".
- ceyhunkazel 10y ago
  Wow did not know backdrop feature, thanks for interesting fixing the issue. Problem was only on mobile when it introduces element at below which is off the screen. I guess problem was at the #id_sort_group element.Here is the code: https://jsfiddle.net/aqcb8Lmv/1/ https://jsfiddle.net/aqcb8Lmv/1/

pablobaz 10y ago

For something simpler and less time consuming for users I'd recommend https://heelhook.github.io/chardin.js/ https://heelhook.github.io/chardin.js/

bastijn 10y ago

I feel completely lost using any of the options in this thread on their sample pages. Especially on a mobile phone, it's jumping everywhere an popups and grey outs..Yanks. What's wrong with creating a proper page that your users can read from top to bottom. To me this is fancy over usability, cuz we can.

vorotato 10y ago

If you have to highlight where the user should read next you have failed wrt UX.