15 ms·

Launchaco – Instantly generate a responsive, free, website

929 points by marclave 10y ago

izzydoesizzy 10y ago
Holy shit this is incredible!
gschier 10y ago
The builder works very well once you realize what you're supposed to do. After designing the first block, I didn't realize I had to keep going. Maybe a more apparent CTA would be appropriate? I'm curious, will you be adding a hosting option for these? Right now they provide a good starting point, but I would love a one-click hosting option so that I can quickly made a page and push it live. The ability to plug in things like Google Analytics token would also be awesome.
- marclave 10y ago
  We've talked about it in the past, we very well might implement something like this in the future. This is something we are exploring as a future release :) Thanks for that input, the GA plugin would be awesome!
aaronpk 10y ago
I was pleasantly surprised to receive a .zip file with the site after I made it to the bottom, rather than a call-to-action pushing me to sign up for some hosting plan! Well done.
vishyav 10y ago
whoa this is the fastest product website process ever.
SimianLogic2 10y ago
looks great! could definitely see myself using this as a starter
drew-y 10y ago
Nice! Really easy to use and the templates look great. One question though: > Launchaco website builder is licensed under CC0 Does that mean both the website builder itself and the website you build with it are CC0? And is the source to the builder available anywhere?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- marclave 10y ago
  Apologies, copy isn't clear there - will deploy a change. The website you download is licensed under cc0, however if there's interest we wouldn't mind open sourcing our builder. It's written in Elm, & go.
  - axlee 10y ago
    Interesting choices, I would definitely be interested in checking out the code behind it.
  - insulinrocks 10y ago
    I personally would love to run this on a local server to fiddle around with. It is seriously fun, and looks like a great fit for a total newbie like me that just wants to mess around.
  - drew-y 10y ago
    Thanks for the clarification! I'd definitely be interested in the source if it were available. Elm looks promising to me and it'd be neat to check out how it was used here.
  - zem 10y ago
    @insulinrocks you appear to be shadowbanned
    - insulinrocks 10y ago
      That's odd. I've only mostly lurked here. Does that happen when you're a new poster or something? I've only had a handful of posts. I hope I didn't break any rules.
wzy 10y ago
I was pleasantly surprised this worked as well as it did, without the need for me signing up or providing an email.
- marclave 10y ago
  We hate having to sign up for things ,we firmly believe you should only ever be on boarded after you get to try out the product and love it :)!
  - wzy 10y ago
    I actually gave you my email address because the site wasn't pressuring me for it.
    - marclave 10y ago
      thank you!
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - webtechgal 10y ago
    Bravo!!!
gavi 10y ago
Very nice. For creating a quick app site, this is perfect!
marclave 10y ago
Fun fact: Every device is in pure css, this means adding your own app images is dead simple.
- giarc 10y ago
  Could instructions be added to the site? I was going to add a top level comment to say "Why does every image include the launchaco name?"
  - cameronrohani 10y ago
    Yah good idea, I'll make a readme attached to the download.
aaronm14 10y ago
Really awesome. Surprised by how much time I spent on there. I noticed when I tried to download it in Safari, it didn't work because I don't think fetch is supported. Would have been good to get a notice about that earlier on. Would also be nice to see what exactly the download button is going to provide (just a zip of HTML/css/JS files I assume?) Thanks for sharing, will probably come back to this. Happy to sign up for email updates
- marclave 10y ago
  Apologies, deploying fix asap!
  - Abundnce10 10y ago
    Love the builder feature! I, too, had a problem downloading in Firefox. It worked fine in Chrome though.
- marclave 10y ago
  Refresh your page! Just released a fix for safari :D
bgnm2000 10y ago
This is fantastic.
ndarilek 10y ago
This is interesting. I'm blind, and while I can think of ideas for products/side projects, designing a nice-looking website is such a huge momentum-killer. I mean, I know that I could just focus on features, keep the site design simple, and build a good design later. Then I visit <insert random Show HN here>, and half the comments are about how some UI element or other breaks on some combination of browser or other, and the last thing I want is to have my idea dismissed because it's ugly. I thought Bootstrap would help with this, but when my sighted GF takes one look at my attempts at site design, her first comments revolve around lack of color, and I don't even know where to begin with that. And yes, I know about themes, but sometimes that feels like I'd have to make my idea fit the theme, whereas this seems to let me pick and choose what elements I want. Unfortunately, when asked to select a hero block, I'm greeted with a series of images. Would you consider adding alt attributes to these? If I knew roughly what they looked like, I could probably pick and choose something semi-appropriate for a given project. I don't know what other issues I'm likely to hit, but I'd be interested in providing additional feedback if this at all seems like a viable direction. Also, just noticed I can't select a hero block via the keyboard. Items aren't tab-focusable and keyboard-selectable. Maybe this won't work at all for me, but I'd really like something between "Here's a fully-formed theme" and "Here's a completely inaccessible website builder that gives you a blank canvas and assumes you don't want to touch the final HTML." :) If anyone knows of anything like that, please do share.
- cameronrohani 10y ago
  Thank you for this enlightening comment, and apologies that our website isn't more accessible. We'll be looking in to this through out the day and will try to add some better html to accommodate for anyone who may be in a similar boat to you. I'm really sorry we didn't think about this stuff up front, and will do my best to from here on out.
  - ndarilek 10y ago
    No worries, I get that we're probably not a demographic you've considered, and like I said, I don't even know if in the end this tool will work for me. To give you an idea of what I'm thinking of, I've looked into https://github.com/dennybritz/neal-react https://github.com/dennybritz/neal-react (unfortunately the hosted demo appears to no longer be up.) I'm sure this will bring out the "JavaScript shouldn't be abused like this!" haters, and I'm not the biggest React fan, but I like that I can position a few high-level components without having to think "I need 2 divs, one that's a panel, one that's X width and another 12-X, etc." Granted, I've never built anything with this React library and don't even know if it looks good, but it's closest to what I want in a page design system. Just give me a few high-level blocks that are responsive and look good, and I'll go from there.
nedwin 10y ago
Looks awesome. Have reviewed a ton of website builders and this is one of the easier ones. Only problem is when I hit the download button the .txt file is blank.
- cameronrohani 10y ago
  That is indeed a big problem, we're deploying some changes atm that should hopefully fix this. Sorry about that.
  - nedwin 10y ago
    Would love to see the conversion rate from visit to creat, visit to download and visit to provide email. I suspect you're going to have a super high email capture conversion because of the value you're giving up front.
- insulinrocks 10y ago
  When I hit download, it is a zip but doesn't have a zip extension, just blank. Love it to death anyway though!
telekid 10y ago
Holy hell this is well done. Congrats.
uberstuber 10y ago
Love the builder! Wish I had seen this a week ago.
jwcrux 10y ago
This is fantastic. One argument people will make (just like they did with Bootstrap) is that if every product used something like this, all the webpages would look the same. To be honest, if all product webpages looked like this, I'd be quite alright with it, because this look great. Well done!
- shostack 10y ago
  And the reality is that despite this, the vast majority of people have no idea what Bootstrap is, won't notice, and frankly wouldn't care. Increasingly site design is differentiated by the imagery used as images get elevated in prominence, and that is all you need to differentiate your design many times.
  - teleclimber 10y ago
    I disagree that people "won't notice". They totally do. The other day my gf (medical field professional, not a "techie") was looking for a good restaurant to go to and, completely unprompted by me, blurted out "OMG why does every freaking restaurant website look the same!?!" (she couldn't keep track of which restaurant was which among her open tabs.) I think more people notice than we'd like to admit. There just isn't any direct way for them to tell us about it.
    - mgkimsal 10y ago
      Maybe it was the same (overused) restaurant wordpress theme that has nothing to do with Bootstrap? Sites looking similar was an 'issue' well before Bootstrap.
      - MrFurious 10y ago
        Many wordpress themes are based in bootstrap too.
    - prawn 10y ago
      I wish restaurants used a clear and consistent format. They can differentiate with their branding, colours, and obviously food photographs. I'd prefer they had a consistent layout! Too many have shoddy intros, tiny text, difficult to find details and then their beloved PDF menus.
soneca 10y ago
Asking for my email after letting me download my template?? I'm not sure if it is the most effective way to collect emails, but it sure is a good UX. As a reward, I included my email :)
- shostack 10y ago
  Maybe a candidate for a yet-to-be-built "lightpatterns.org"?
  - navs 10y ago
    Looks like someone had the intention to start one but hasn't quite gotten there yet: http://www.lightpatterns.org http://www.lightpatterns.org
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- pmulv 10y ago
  Although it pleases me that they asked for the email after download instead of before, it bothered me that I couldn't navigate back to the page if I didn't want to include my email without refreshing the page altogether.
dested 10y ago
This is the most simple and intuitive template builder I have ever played with.
- tucaz 10y ago
  Second that!
  - cdelb 10y ago
    Fully agree. Unbounce and other landing page builders should take note. The simplicity of the experience was impressive.
- webtechgal 10y ago
  Yes, count me in too!!
necrodawg 10y ago
dude this is hella crazy nice yo. gonna use this for my next landing page
reacharavindh 10y ago
Very efficiently done! Love that you didn't force me with any annoying pop-ups or interfering spaces to ask for email. I gave you anyway, with my 100% will. Looking forward to your finished product. My girlfriend wants to build a Yoga website to put in all her stuff and promote her private lessons. I was going to build it myself, but your product is so intuitive that I might give her this and ask her to build it herself!
dbg31415 10y ago
Really well done. Few quick questions... Why not use an off-the-shelf grid system like Bootstrap or Foundation? Would probably make this easier to edit / extend for people already familiar with those layout frameworks. For SEO... things like Page Title, Meta Description, OG/Sharing Meta Data... those would be good to add somehow. "Click here to add your fav icon / bookmark icon / social share icon / etc." At least adding them as empty fields so people know to add them in manually... Could you add in semantic elements? Wouldn't take long to add those to the base template... http://www.w3schools.com/html/html5_semantic_elements.asp http://www.w3schools.com/html/html5_semantic_elements.asp Really nice tool, can see a lot of people getting use out of this.
- dbg31415 10y ago
  Found 2 minor bugs between the builder and the downloaded version: Body Styles break with multiple paragraphs - http://imgur.com/YOjjGkB http://imgur.com/YOjjGkB Emoji break when you change them - http://imgur.com/FE8VUgH http://imgur.com/FE8VUgH
  - cocoflunchy 10y ago
    The emoji bug is an encoding issue, add <meta charset="utf-8"> to the generated html to fix it (and fix any accented characters issues too)
ffef 10y ago
When dark theme is activated you cannot see the headings "Name Your Business" or "Build Your Website" on the homepage.
pbrumm 10y ago
Very interesting. I did loose track of the 4 steps and was confused on how to finish the project.
- cameronrohani 10y ago
  Agreed, I think there's simple things we can do to help with this. The UX is flawed atm, with out a doubt.
- creeble 10y ago
  Something like that myself. I wasn't quite sure I believed the page was dynamically updating at first. This is, like, crazy great anyway. I'm freaked.
shostack 10y ago
Really fantastic UI. And I LOVE party parrot at the end. Made me smile. Depending on your target audience, I'd love to see some tooling to help with a signup form. Maybe offer some integration options (and an affiliate link) for Mailchimp or something else? I'd also love the ability to easily create multiple pages linked to each other within the app. Sure I can create separate pages, but would be nice to have that done for me and add some basic organization. Overall this is really awesome. Would love to know more about what technology you used to build this, why you built it, and what your future product/monetization plans are.
- enraged_camel 10y ago
  >>Really fantastic UI. And I LOVE party parrot at the end. Made me smile. Agreed. Really nice touch.
  - wingerlang 10y ago
    Just to get all view points in. I hated it, made the site feel unprofessional at a crucial moment.
    - bagels 10y ago
      Completely agree. Went from moderately professional to childish meme unexpectedly. Made me question whether there would be party parrot easter eggs in the download.
gilstroem 10y ago
Super cool idea - Though one of my first interactions was to search for an emoji, which failed completely as it deleted my query when I typed more than one letter. (MacOS Sierra, Safari.) Other than that, thumbs up on the delicious UX.
prawn 10y ago
Brilliant execution and so refreshing to just be given everything needed at the end rather than a download link via email. Throw in an optional donation button (so people can tip you $20, $50, $100, $150, etc) and careful hosting upsells to make it painless and this will become a solid earner. Well done and good luck - you're on the right track.
- cameronrohani 10y ago
  Thanks for the kind words. We honestly would rather people's emails then any money at all. We're working really hard to make good design more accessible, and monetization will certainly come down the line! Plus we already make a bit of money with our other tool listed on the website :)
  - GavinMcG 10y ago
    It doesn't have to be an either/or thing, especially if it's presented as an option to tip rather than to purchase!
    - prawn 10y ago
      Exactly. I'm a web designer/developer and even I could use something like this as a shortcut for a job. If it saves me a few hours of stuffing around, then $20-100 as a voluntary tip is an easy decision. Still free for third world businesses or students or tightarses, but at least gives people an option of saying "Thanks, this was worth it." And while I can grab the files and set up my own hosting, being able to hit a button, enter card details and have everything done automatically would be powerful. Every web developer inevitably does quick jobs on the sides for friends and family, and making that process pain-free would be useful.
    - cvburgess 10y ago
      Agreed. I may use your other products, but I WILL use this and I amp happy to throw $10-$50 at you for it. Incredible work.
  - duck 10y ago
pqdbr 10y ago
Could you please make it possible to add more than one social template and more than one footer template, just like you do with the feature blocks?
- nathan_f77 10y ago
  After you download the generated HTML, you can just copy/paste.
huula 10y ago
Nice work! Really like the way you provide color palette instead wild crazy color selector for your user, that simplifies things so much! However, A common problem with this product and a lot of other template based website builders like Squarespace, Weebly, Wix is, you will end up creating so many sites that looks just the same. If you just want a clone, then I have nothing to say. But more customization and more unique intelligent generation certainly needs advanced models other than naive templates.
- chenster 10y ago
  Second that. Static site generator seems like popular those days. But they don't have much template selections so they end up look similar. Or spend $10 ~ $20 on Themeforrest https://themeforest.net/category/site-templates https://themeforest.net/category/site-templates with nearly infinitely number of options.
Mgardepe 10y ago
Reason I'm not getting into web development.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- gshulegaard 10y ago
  I am not sure if building static HTML pages represents the bulk of what web development is about. (Disclaimer: I am a "web developer")
  - choward 10y ago
    The other way you could take his comment is he doesn't want to have to build apps like Launchaco. Because they way you interpreted it, which is probably correct, is completely ignorant. Launchaco generates marketing web sites. Web developers build the web apps that some of these marketing sites are trying to sell. It might be a reason not to become a web designer though. (Disclaimer: I am a "web developer")
  - Mgardepe 10y ago
    Apologies everyone,I didn't mean to offend anyone. I was trying to imply that as these technologies become better (what will they look like in 10 years) being/finding a job as a web developer will only get more difficult. I'm very young and just starting out so when I was planning my career (very recently) I took things like these as warning signs
  - Mgardepe 10y ago
    Apologies everyone,I didn't mean to offend anyone. I was trying to imply that as these technologies become better (what will they look like in 10 years) being/finding a job as a web developer will only get more difficult. I'm very young and just starting out so when I was planning my career (very recently) I took things like these as warning signs
- nathan_f77 10y ago
  This is not web development. This is throwing up a static landing page while you build your actual web application.
forgetsusername 10y ago
I haven't even checked the site out (yet, hear me out), but this is one of the most positive reactions I've seen on HN. So congrats on that already.
0x1d 10y ago
Really good job! It turned out better than most templates.
codingdave 10y ago
Once I figured out what was going on, I liked it. But at first, I thought you were really trying to sell me domains the whole time. I thought it was a big marketing page for a hosting/domain service, and did not realize it was actually all editable. You really need to make it clear what is going on if you want to open this to a larger audience.
- webtechgal 10y ago
  >...and did not realize it was actually all editable. This. Speaking for myself, at a pinch I thought this was just a sign-up page, and that the actual designer/editor was not available. Perhaps, adding something like 'Just click any element to edit' somewhere in the header would make it immediately apparent that its all working and ready to go.
- blunte 10y ago
  Well I still have no idea. All I can see is a bunch of options which lead to external services, like Twitter, Google Fonts, GoDaddy, etc. This UI fails miserably at guiding me through any sort of process.
demircancelebi 10y ago
Great work. Do you have any plans to make it open source?
- aioprisan 10y ago
  This. I would love to see this open sourced.
kmeade 10y ago
Sorry to be negative, but I'm honestly mystified by the complimentary comments. First, attempting to set up a domain name sends me to some site named shareasale.com. The site is blocked on my system because I'm using the winhelp2002.mvps.org HOSTS file to block shady web sites. Next, I follow the 4 steps to select the Hero, Feature, Social and Footer templates. How I'm supposed to make an intelligent choice based on the shadowy outlines is beyond me. Finally, I'm apparently supposed to click the Download... link. This gets me a little "success" message - but the end result is a file called "download" with no extension. Renaming the download to download.zip gives me something to extract which is... a single HTML file plus css and image folders. Clicking on the HTML gives me a local copy of the launchaco main page with no sort of customizations or anything. WTF?
- HNSucksAss 10y ago
  That's more than I got from clicking the download button. Didn't do anything for me.
- kmeade 10y ago
  Reply to myself... In spite of the downvotes, I'll plow ahead with this. I see now that you're supposed to "play" with the website and put it into some sort of personally pleasing configuration and download the result. (The download feature still doesn't work properly for me, SORRY.) People won't be surprised to learn that I'm an older programmer. I found it interesting to see how apparently out of step I am. People seem to like this and I think it cries for more structure and a tiny bit of DOCUMENTATION. And those CSS/JS files. (f7e531b07478dedf9916.js??) There's no way I'd want to maintain something like this unless it used Bootstrap or some other established system. So, downvote away. I personally remain unimpressed.
  - tobz 10y ago
    (disclaimed: not tied to Launchaco but I felt compelled to address your points) #1 - can you provide an example of where buying/setting up a domain takes you to somewhere called "shareasale.com"? At worst, it seems like the links to the registrars (which are all legit, as far as I can tell) go through some sort of analytics/tracking service. #2 - have you considered rephrasing your download issue as "Hey, this seems broken, and here's why: ..."? #3 - what customizations did you expect there to be in the downloaded archive? are you not seeing the selected hero/feature/social/footer templates you selected? #4 - while others have brought up the idea of using Bootstrap/Foundation/etc as a more familiar and tweakable base, the point is around easily making a website WITHOUT having to know or understand the underlying technologies. if you're already deadset of needing/wanting to do things yourself, the tool clearly isn't for you. you may be unimpressed, but you could be a little more positive/helpful with explaining issues rather than writing about them in such a dismissive tone that sreams "i don't care about your thing, but let me tell you everything i think is wrong with it"
HNSucksAss 10y ago
Interesting, and I even like the name. But... when I click on "Let's do it" under "Build your Website," nothing happens. This appears to be because what you need to do next is already on the screen: select a template. So I would replace "Let's do it" with "Get started by selecting a template below." Currently, it looks broken (especially since clicking on "Let's do it" under "Name Your Business" DOES result in something happening). Also, after selecting a template, the grid of templates disappeared and the bottom of the screen was replaced by a bunch of other elements. It wasn't clear at first that this was an example of the selected template, because the grid of templates disappeared (and was replaced by a smaller line of them). I thought I might need to interact with this large pane of items to proceed. I suggest keeping the array of template thumnails consistent at all times, so when you click on one, the entire screen doesn't change; the example simply appears. In fact, you should probably start with the first template highlighted and the example layout shown (with an arrow or other indicator pointing from the template thumbnail to the layout). Also... because the example layout fills the entire bottom portion of the screen and sometimes appears to fit perfectly, it's not readily apparent that you proceed to the next step by scrolling down. At first I was looking for a "proceed" or "next step" arrow. Reducing the example layout in size and confining it to a defined area on the screen would let you make navigation through the steps more clear. You could also let the user select different devices for the layout preview, and simply change the shape of the confined area instantly to show the layout on the selected device. And finally: Is the download button supposed to work? It doesn't do anything for me.
drivingmenuts 10y ago
How do we make money? Volume! Seriously, though. This is an interesting idea, but what's the endgame?
0vermorrow 10y ago
I love this. Also a super fan of the UI. Seamlessly led me to a download button with the source. They've coupled it with an awesome hosting setup process. I can promise you I will use this service for the very next project of mine. Commoditisation of design cannot come soon enough! ( at least the web design part :) )
- wapz 10y ago
  So I hit the download button and got a file named download with no extensions. Am I doing something wrong (I didn't change anything just wanted to see what it spits out)?
  - throwaway29292 10y ago
    It's a zip file containing HTML/CSS.
    - wapz 10y ago
      Wow thanks. I've never been more ashamed to say I work with computers every day.
arikrak 10y ago
This looks great but was a little confusing at first. Maybe make it clearer to the user what's going on so they know they're just building their own site. I think it's nice not to have to enter an email at the end, but you'll miss out on a lot of emails. Maybe provide the prompt to enter an email first, but let them skip it.
colbyh 10y ago
would like to point out that the author has not only built a tool that is making a bunch of people happy, but is also responding brilliantly to all comments with a super helpful tone. very cool all around.
Procrastes 10y ago
Great idea. This could save me all sorts of wasteful dithering. Looks like it's broken right now. When I try to download, I get a file called "download.txt" which contains the text "Internal Server Error"
btcboss 10y ago
T H I S I S E P I C !!!!!
- tooFastFuckYou 10y ago
  Modded down.
voycey 10y ago
This is great - I am literally just finishing a site that looks exactly like this (single product site). I would 100% use this for future things! I agree about the donation buttons as well - even keep it to micro-donating - you would be surprised at how many people would use it!
transposed 10y ago
Very cool - I've had ideas for a few sites, but when the time came to create the site and get a half decent design going, I found myself running out of time to work on the actual content. Best of luck to your idea/service
tomschlick 10y ago
nitpick: please enable HTTPS I just had some issues on airline wifi because they man-in-the-middle the connection to inject their crappy "flight tracker" menubar and it covered some of the builder controls. That wouldn't happen with SSL and your visitors would be more secure.
the_wheel 10y ago
I noticed you posted Launchaco a few months ago. Why do you think this post succeeded in generating traction while the previous failed? Love the product!
- marclave 10y ago
  Great question, I guess the community feels stronger about this product than the name page. I read your post on "Ask HN: What are some successful products that had a disappointing Show HN?", loved the dropbox comment!
beardog 10y ago
Doesn't load at all without JavaScript :)
- jlgaddis 10y ago
  The problem is not that the site doesn't load without JavaScript. The problem is that a very small vocal minority mistakenly think that anyone else gives a damn that they can't surf the Internet with JavaScript turned off.
keyle 10y ago
Definitely put that "download" file as "template.zip" or something. I was baffled getting a file without extension, and Windows 10 didn't see it as a zip, but just a binary blob.
tooFastFuckYou 10y ago
Interesting, and I even like the name. But... when I click on "Let's do it" under "Build your Website," nothing happens. This appears to be because what you need to do next is already on the screen: select a template. So I would replace "Let's do it" with "Get started by selecting a template below." Currently, it looks broken (especially since clicking on "Let's do it" under "Name Your Business" DOES result in something happening). Also, after selecting a template, the grid of templates disappeared and the bottom of the screen was replaced by a bunch of other elements. It wasn't clear at first that this was an example of the selected template, because the grid of templates disappeared (and was replaced by a smaller line of them). I thought I might need to interact with this large pane of items to proceed. I suggest keeping the array of template thumnails consistent at all times, so when you click on one, the entire screen doesn't change; the example simply appears. In fact, you should probably start with the first template highlighted and the example layout shown (with an arrow or other indicator pointing from the template thumbnail to the layout). Also... because the example layout fills the entire bottom portion of the screen and sometimes appears to fit perfectly, it's not readily apparent that you proceed to the next step by scrolling down. At first I was looking for a "proceed" or "next step" arrow. Reducing the example layout in size and confining it to a defined area on the screen would let you make navigation through the steps more clear. You could also let the user select different devices for the layout preview, and simply change the shape of the confined area instantly to show the layout on the selected device. And finally: Is the download button supposed to work? It doesn't do anything for me. Oh... and you ask for feedback on ProductHunt, but that site is an offensive pile of crap. After insisting that you log in, it doesn't take you back to the page you were on. It just dumps you on some main ProductHunt page. And then, after I navigate back to your page, I have to beg for permission to post? Screw that. ProductHunt is insulting to users and a liability for developers. People are taking time to provide feedback FREE, and this site is deliberately WASTING those people's time. I looked for some other way to provide feedback, but you guys don't appear to have one. That's a problem.
emrahayanoglu 10y ago
That's one of the brilliant service as I have ever tried. Actually, I'll also consider to pay something to this wonderful service. I think producer should consider about adding premium staff for small prices.
navs 10y ago
I absolutely love this and thats coming from a "professional" web developer. I gave this to a client of mine to try for one of her personal projects and she was somewhat confused. After I pointed out the steps vs previews, she got the hang of it. But by that time she'd made a bit of a mess with a lot of extra feature blocks/steps. She wanted a clean slate but it looks like you're storing progress in a cookie. Can we have a reset all? While I'd love an arbitrary HTML block, the ability to add meta tags, custom fonts, blah blah...don't. If people want that kind of power there's a lot of alternative static site tools/CMS' out there.
blunte 10y ago
I'm pretty used to being different from most people, but I'm not used to being so utterly different from the hackernews crowd as I feel right now. Am I seeing a different website than everyone is talking about? All I see is a bunch of different boxes with links, where most links just shove me to some external service (GoDaddy, Twitter, Google Fonts, etc.) Where's the "website builder"?
- arrmn 10y ago
  Next to their logo at top you can either click at "name your business" or "build your website". I was also confused at first
- naasking 10y ago
  Those links and that text are all editable. It's sample content for the layout you're building. A little confusing at first.
minhajuddin 10y ago
Shameless plug, I made something related which makes testing out public static sites pretty easy. You can check it out at https://slugex.com/ https://slugex.com/ It also allows you to deploy via the terminal. All you need is bash and curl :)
Warp__ 10y ago
Very Cool. Thank you. Will sign up :)
nodesocket 10y ago
Awesome job! It would be great if you added a pricing feature block.
annnnd 10y ago
Now THIS is how it should be done! Congrats to author! Where can we pay you? :) This hits a sweet spot for me because I am in full control of HTML if I want it, but I can still put together a responsive page in literally a minute. About missing colors and stuff - yeah, it would be nice if we could select background images, set more colors and similar, but that's secondary. Building a responsive skeleton is what this tool does for me, and first impression is great. Kudos!
ayh 10y ago
Nice UI. Bad idea to do domain lookups on a site without SSL.
ekevjn 10y ago
Find some excited site which you like and fit your business. Right click and there your template done!
moh_maya 10y ago
This is just what I was looking for! I needed a simple landing page for our startup, and the layouts / design are perfect. Quick noob question though: Do you have / are you planning to include templates where I can add video (hosted on Vimeo / Youtube) instead of the computer / browser images? I know I can edit the HTML / CSS files, but my background is statistics / R, and I am wary of mucking up the code and spoiling the layout. I signed up with my email. Looking forward to seeing where this goes, and would gladly pay for the service as & when you start accepting payments. Thank you! :)
black2night 10y ago
great work
mxuribe 10y ago
Holy smokes, this is such a useful tool! For any little updates that could certainly be applied in the future (e.g. adding more accessibility aspects, other color palettes, etc.), the sheer ease and speed with which I was able to create a website was absolutely astonishing, and overshadows any shortfall. I seldom share my email but submitted it in this case, because I believe this is a solid product, and I have this feeling the authors behind this tool really know what they're doing (as far as product dev.). Kudos to the creators! Great job!
manish7 10y ago
nice product.

929 points by marclave 10y ago

Holy shit this is incredible!

The builder works very well once you realize what you're supposed to do. After designing the first block, I didn't realize I had to keep going. Maybe a more apparent CTA would be appropriate? I'm curious, will you be adding a hosting option for these? Right now they provide a good starting point, but I would love a one-click hosting option so that I can quickly made a page and push it live. The ability to plug in things like Google Analytics token would also be awesome.

marclave 10y ago
We've talked about it in the past, we very well might implement something like this in the future. This is something we are exploring as a future release :) Thanks for that input, the GA plugin would be awesome!

aaronpk 10y ago

I was pleasantly surprised to receive a .zip file with the site after I made it to the bottom, rather than a call-to-action pushing me to sign up for some hosting plan! Well done.

vishyav 10y ago

whoa this is the fastest product website process ever.

SimianLogic2 10y ago

looks great! could definitely see myself using this as a starter

drew-y 10y ago

Nice! Really easy to use and the templates look great. One question though: > Launchaco website builder is licensed under CC0 Does that mean both the website builder itself and the website you build with it are CC0? And is the source to the builder available anywhere?

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
marclave 10y ago
Apologies, copy isn't clear there - will deploy a change. The website you download is licensed under cc0, however if there's interest we wouldn't mind open sourcing our builder. It's written in Elm, & go.
- axlee 10y ago
  Interesting choices, I would definitely be interested in checking out the code behind it.
- insulinrocks 10y ago
  I personally would love to run this on a local server to fiddle around with. It is seriously fun, and looks like a great fit for a total newbie like me that just wants to mess around.
- drew-y 10y ago
  Thanks for the clarification! I'd definitely be interested in the source if it were available. Elm looks promising to me and it'd be neat to check out how it was used here.
- zem 10y ago
  @insulinrocks you appear to be shadowbanned
  - insulinrocks 10y ago
    That's odd. I've only mostly lurked here. Does that happen when you're a new poster or something? I've only had a handful of posts. I hope I didn't break any rules.

wzy 10y ago

I was pleasantly surprised this worked as well as it did, without the need for me signing up or providing an email.

marclave 10y ago
We hate having to sign up for things ,we firmly believe you should only ever be on boarded after you get to try out the product and love it :)!
- wzy 10y ago
  I actually gave you my email address because the site wasn't pressuring me for it.
  - marclave 10y ago
    thank you!
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- webtechgal 10y ago
  Bravo!!!

gavi 10y ago

Very nice. For creating a quick app site, this is perfect!

marclave 10y ago

Fun fact: Every device is in pure css, this means adding your own app images is dead simple.

giarc 10y ago
Could instructions be added to the site? I was going to add a top level comment to say "Why does every image include the launchaco name?"
- cameronrohani 10y ago
  Yah good idea, I'll make a readme attached to the download.

aaronm14 10y ago

Really awesome. Surprised by how much time I spent on there. I noticed when I tried to download it in Safari, it didn't work because I don't think fetch is supported. Would have been good to get a notice about that earlier on. Would also be nice to see what exactly the download button is going to provide (just a zip of HTML/css/JS files I assume?) Thanks for sharing, will probably come back to this. Happy to sign up for email updates

marclave 10y ago
Apologies, deploying fix asap!
- Abundnce10 10y ago
  Love the builder feature! I, too, had a problem downloading in Firefox. It worked fine in Chrome though.
marclave 10y ago
Refresh your page! Just released a fix for safari :D

bgnm2000 10y ago

This is fantastic.

ndarilek 10y ago

This is interesting. I'm blind, and while I can think of ideas for products/side projects, designing a nice-looking website is such a huge momentum-killer. I mean, I know that I could just focus on features, keep the site design simple, and build a good design later. Then I visit <insert random Show HN here>, and half the comments are about how some UI element or other breaks on some combination of browser or other, and the last thing I want is to have my idea dismissed because it's ugly. I thought Bootstrap would help with this, but when my sighted GF takes one look at my attempts at site design, her first comments revolve around lack of color, and I don't even know where to begin with that. And yes, I know about themes, but sometimes that feels like I'd have to make my idea fit the theme, whereas this seems to let me pick and choose what elements I want. Unfortunately, when asked to select a hero block, I'm greeted with a series of images. Would you consider adding alt attributes to these? If I knew roughly what they looked like, I could probably pick and choose something semi-appropriate for a given project. I don't know what other issues I'm likely to hit, but I'd be interested in providing additional feedback if this at all seems like a viable direction. Also, just noticed I can't select a hero block via the keyboard. Items aren't tab-focusable and keyboard-selectable. Maybe this won't work at all for me, but I'd really like something between "Here's a fully-formed theme" and "Here's a completely inaccessible website builder that gives you a blank canvas and assumes you don't want to touch the final HTML." :) If anyone knows of anything like that, please do share.

cameronrohani 10y ago
Thank you for this enlightening comment, and apologies that our website isn't more accessible. We'll be looking in to this through out the day and will try to add some better html to accommodate for anyone who may be in a similar boat to you. I'm really sorry we didn't think about this stuff up front, and will do my best to from here on out.
- ndarilek 10y ago
  No worries, I get that we're probably not a demographic you've considered, and like I said, I don't even know if in the end this tool will work for me. To give you an idea of what I'm thinking of, I've looked into https://github.com/dennybritz/neal-react https://github.com/dennybritz/neal-react (unfortunately the hosted demo appears to no longer be up.) I'm sure this will bring out the "JavaScript shouldn't be abused like this!" haters, and I'm not the biggest React fan, but I like that I can position a few high-level components without having to think "I need 2 divs, one that's a panel, one that's X width and another 12-X, etc." Granted, I've never built anything with this React library and don't even know if it looks good, but it's closest to what I want in a page design system. Just give me a few high-level blocks that are responsive and look good, and I'll go from there.

nedwin 10y ago

Looks awesome. Have reviewed a ton of website builders and this is one of the easier ones. Only problem is when I hit the download button the .txt file is blank.

cameronrohani 10y ago
That is indeed a big problem, we're deploying some changes atm that should hopefully fix this. Sorry about that.
- nedwin 10y ago
  Would love to see the conversion rate from visit to creat, visit to download and visit to provide email. I suspect you're going to have a super high email capture conversion because of the value you're giving up front.
insulinrocks 10y ago
When I hit download, it is a zip but doesn't have a zip extension, just blank. Love it to death anyway though!

telekid 10y ago

Holy hell this is well done. Congrats.

uberstuber 10y ago

Love the builder! Wish I had seen this a week ago.

jwcrux 10y ago

This is fantastic. One argument people will make (just like they did with Bootstrap) is that if every product used something like this, all the webpages would look the same. To be honest, if all product webpages looked like this, I'd be quite alright with it, because this look great. Well done!

shostack 10y ago
And the reality is that despite this, the vast majority of people have no idea what Bootstrap is, won't notice, and frankly wouldn't care. Increasingly site design is differentiated by the imagery used as images get elevated in prominence, and that is all you need to differentiate your design many times.
- teleclimber 10y ago
  I disagree that people "won't notice". They totally do. The other day my gf (medical field professional, not a "techie") was looking for a good restaurant to go to and, completely unprompted by me, blurted out "OMG why does every freaking restaurant website look the same!?!" (she couldn't keep track of which restaurant was which among her open tabs.) I think more people notice than we'd like to admit. There just isn't any direct way for them to tell us about it.
  - mgkimsal 10y ago
    Maybe it was the same (overused) restaurant wordpress theme that has nothing to do with Bootstrap? Sites looking similar was an 'issue' well before Bootstrap.
    - MrFurious 10y ago
      Many wordpress themes are based in bootstrap too.
  - prawn 10y ago
    I wish restaurants used a clear and consistent format. They can differentiate with their branding, colours, and obviously food photographs. I'd prefer they had a consistent layout! Too many have shoddy intros, tiny text, difficult to find details and then their beloved PDF menus.

soneca 10y ago

Asking for my email after letting me download my template?? I'm not sure if it is the most effective way to collect emails, but it sure is a good UX. As a reward, I included my email :)

shostack 10y ago
Maybe a candidate for a yet-to-be-built "lightpatterns.org"?
- navs 10y ago
  Looks like someone had the intention to start one but hasn't quite gotten there yet: http://www.lightpatterns.org http://www.lightpatterns.org
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
pmulv 10y ago
Although it pleases me that they asked for the email after download instead of before, it bothered me that I couldn't navigate back to the page if I didn't want to include my email without refreshing the page altogether.

dested 10y ago

This is the most simple and intuitive template builder I have ever played with.

tucaz 10y ago
Second that!
- cdelb 10y ago
  Fully agree. Unbounce and other landing page builders should take note. The simplicity of the experience was impressive.
webtechgal 10y ago
Yes, count me in too!!

necrodawg 10y ago

dude this is hella crazy nice yo. gonna use this for my next landing page

reacharavindh 10y ago

Very efficiently done! Love that you didn't force me with any annoying pop-ups or interfering spaces to ask for email. I gave you anyway, with my 100% will. Looking forward to your finished product. My girlfriend wants to build a Yoga website to put in all her stuff and promote her private lessons. I was going to build it myself, but your product is so intuitive that I might give her this and ask her to build it herself!

dbg31415 10y ago

Really well done. Few quick questions... Why not use an off-the-shelf grid system like Bootstrap or Foundation? Would probably make this easier to edit / extend for people already familiar with those layout frameworks. For SEO... things like Page Title, Meta Description, OG/Sharing Meta Data... those would be good to add somehow. "Click here to add your fav icon / bookmark icon / social share icon / etc." At least adding them as empty fields so people know to add them in manually... Could you add in semantic elements? Wouldn't take long to add those to the base template... http://www.w3schools.com/html/html5_semantic_elements.asp http://www.w3schools.com/html/html5_semantic_elements.asp Really nice tool, can see a lot of people getting use out of this.

dbg31415 10y ago
Found 2 minor bugs between the builder and the downloaded version: Body Styles break with multiple paragraphs - http://imgur.com/YOjjGkB http://imgur.com/YOjjGkB Emoji break when you change them - http://imgur.com/FE8VUgH http://imgur.com/FE8VUgH
- cocoflunchy 10y ago
  The emoji bug is an encoding issue, add <meta charset="utf-8"> to the generated html to fix it (and fix any accented characters issues too)

ffef 10y ago

When dark theme is activated you cannot see the headings "Name Your Business" or "Build Your Website" on the homepage.

pbrumm 10y ago

Very interesting. I did loose track of the 4 steps and was confused on how to finish the project.

cameronrohani 10y ago
Agreed, I think there's simple things we can do to help with this. The UX is flawed atm, with out a doubt.
creeble 10y ago
Something like that myself. I wasn't quite sure I believed the page was dynamically updating at first. This is, like, crazy great anyway. I'm freaked.

shostack 10y ago

Really fantastic UI. And I LOVE party parrot at the end. Made me smile. Depending on your target audience, I'd love to see some tooling to help with a signup form. Maybe offer some integration options (and an affiliate link) for Mailchimp or something else? I'd also love the ability to easily create multiple pages linked to each other within the app. Sure I can create separate pages, but would be nice to have that done for me and add some basic organization. Overall this is really awesome. Would love to know more about what technology you used to build this, why you built it, and what your future product/monetization plans are.

enraged_camel 10y ago
>>Really fantastic UI. And I LOVE party parrot at the end. Made me smile. Agreed. Really nice touch.
- wingerlang 10y ago
  Just to get all view points in. I hated it, made the site feel unprofessional at a crucial moment.
  - bagels 10y ago
    Completely agree. Went from moderately professional to childish meme unexpectedly. Made me question whether there would be party parrot easter eggs in the download.

gilstroem 10y ago

Super cool idea - Though one of my first interactions was to search for an emoji, which failed completely as it deleted my query when I typed more than one letter. (MacOS Sierra, Safari.) Other than that, thumbs up on the delicious UX.

prawn 10y ago

Brilliant execution and so refreshing to just be given everything needed at the end rather than a download link via email. Throw in an optional donation button (so people can tip you $20, $50, $100, $150, etc) and careful hosting upsells to make it painless and this will become a solid earner. Well done and good luck - you're on the right track.

cameronrohani 10y ago
Thanks for the kind words. We honestly would rather people's emails then any money at all. We're working really hard to make good design more accessible, and monetization will certainly come down the line! Plus we already make a bit of money with our other tool listed on the website :)
- GavinMcG 10y ago
  It doesn't have to be an either/or thing, especially if it's presented as an option to tip rather than to purchase!
  - prawn 10y ago
    Exactly. I'm a web designer/developer and even I could use something like this as a shortcut for a job. If it saves me a few hours of stuffing around, then $20-100 as a voluntary tip is an easy decision. Still free for third world businesses or students or tightarses, but at least gives people an option of saying "Thanks, this was worth it." And while I can grab the files and set up my own hosting, being able to hit a button, enter card details and have everything done automatically would be powerful. Every web developer inevitably does quick jobs on the sides for friends and family, and making that process pain-free would be useful.
  - cvburgess 10y ago
    Agreed. I may use your other products, but I WILL use this and I amp happy to throw $10-$50 at you for it. Incredible work.
- duck 10y ago

pqdbr 10y ago

Could you please make it possible to add more than one social template and more than one footer template, just like you do with the feature blocks?

nathan_f77 10y ago
After you download the generated HTML, you can just copy/paste.

huula 10y ago

Nice work! Really like the way you provide color palette instead wild crazy color selector for your user, that simplifies things so much! However, A common problem with this product and a lot of other template based website builders like Squarespace, Weebly, Wix is, you will end up creating so many sites that looks just the same. If you just want a clone, then I have nothing to say. But more customization and more unique intelligent generation certainly needs advanced models other than naive templates.

chenster 10y ago
Second that. Static site generator seems like popular those days. But they don't have much template selections so they end up look similar. Or spend $10 ~ $20 on Themeforrest https://themeforest.net/category/site-templates https://themeforest.net/category/site-templates with nearly infinitely number of options.

Mgardepe 10y ago

Reason I'm not getting into web development.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
gshulegaard 10y ago
I am not sure if building static HTML pages represents the bulk of what web development is about. (Disclaimer: I am a "web developer")
- choward 10y ago
  The other way you could take his comment is he doesn't want to have to build apps like Launchaco. Because they way you interpreted it, which is probably correct, is completely ignorant. Launchaco generates marketing web sites. Web developers build the web apps that some of these marketing sites are trying to sell. It might be a reason not to become a web designer though. (Disclaimer: I am a "web developer")
- Mgardepe 10y ago
  Apologies everyone,I didn't mean to offend anyone. I was trying to imply that as these technologies become better (what will they look like in 10 years) being/finding a job as a web developer will only get more difficult. I'm very young and just starting out so when I was planning my career (very recently) I took things like these as warning signs
- Mgardepe 10y ago
  Apologies everyone,I didn't mean to offend anyone. I was trying to imply that as these technologies become better (what will they look like in 10 years) being/finding a job as a web developer will only get more difficult. I'm very young and just starting out so when I was planning my career (very recently) I took things like these as warning signs
nathan_f77 10y ago
This is not web development. This is throwing up a static landing page while you build your actual web application.

forgetsusername 10y ago

I haven't even checked the site out (yet, hear me out), but this is one of the most positive reactions I've seen on HN. So congrats on that already.

0x1d 10y ago

Really good job! It turned out better than most templates.

codingdave 10y ago

Once I figured out what was going on, I liked it. But at first, I thought you were really trying to sell me domains the whole time. I thought it was a big marketing page for a hosting/domain service, and did not realize it was actually all editable. You really need to make it clear what is going on if you want to open this to a larger audience.

webtechgal 10y ago
>...and did not realize it was actually all editable. This. Speaking for myself, at a pinch I thought this was just a sign-up page, and that the actual designer/editor was not available. Perhaps, adding something like 'Just click any element to edit' somewhere in the header would make it immediately apparent that its all working and ready to go.
blunte 10y ago
Well I still have no idea. All I can see is a bunch of options which lead to external services, like Twitter, Google Fonts, GoDaddy, etc. This UI fails miserably at guiding me through any sort of process.

demircancelebi 10y ago

Great work. Do you have any plans to make it open source?

aioprisan 10y ago
This. I would love to see this open sourced.

kmeade 10y ago

Sorry to be negative, but I'm honestly mystified by the complimentary comments. First, attempting to set up a domain name sends me to some site named shareasale.com. The site is blocked on my system because I'm using the winhelp2002.mvps.org HOSTS file to block shady web sites. Next, I follow the 4 steps to select the Hero, Feature, Social and Footer templates. How I'm supposed to make an intelligent choice based on the shadowy outlines is beyond me. Finally, I'm apparently supposed to click the Download... link. This gets me a little "success" message - but the end result is a file called "download" with no extension. Renaming the download to download.zip gives me something to extract which is... a single HTML file plus css and image folders. Clicking on the HTML gives me a local copy of the launchaco main page with no sort of customizations or anything. WTF?

HNSucksAss 10y ago
That's more than I got from clicking the download button. Didn't do anything for me.
kmeade 10y ago
Reply to myself... In spite of the downvotes, I'll plow ahead with this. I see now that you're supposed to "play" with the website and put it into some sort of personally pleasing configuration and download the result. (The download feature still doesn't work properly for me, SORRY.) People won't be surprised to learn that I'm an older programmer. I found it interesting to see how apparently out of step I am. People seem to like this and I think it cries for more structure and a tiny bit of DOCUMENTATION. And those CSS/JS files. (f7e531b07478dedf9916.js??) There's no way I'd want to maintain something like this unless it used Bootstrap or some other established system. So, downvote away. I personally remain unimpressed.
- tobz 10y ago
  (disclaimed: not tied to Launchaco but I felt compelled to address your points) #1 - can you provide an example of where buying/setting up a domain takes you to somewhere called "shareasale.com"? At worst, it seems like the links to the registrars (which are all legit, as far as I can tell) go through some sort of analytics/tracking service. #2 - have you considered rephrasing your download issue as "Hey, this seems broken, and here's why: ..."? #3 - what customizations did you expect there to be in the downloaded archive? are you not seeing the selected hero/feature/social/footer templates you selected? #4 - while others have brought up the idea of using Bootstrap/Foundation/etc as a more familiar and tweakable base, the point is around easily making a website WITHOUT having to know or understand the underlying technologies. if you're already deadset of needing/wanting to do things yourself, the tool clearly isn't for you. you may be unimpressed, but you could be a little more positive/helpful with explaining issues rather than writing about them in such a dismissive tone that sreams "i don't care about your thing, but let me tell you everything i think is wrong with it"

HNSucksAss 10y ago

Interesting, and I even like the name. But... when I click on "Let's do it" under "Build your Website," nothing happens. This appears to be because what you need to do next is already on the screen: select a template. So I would replace "Let's do it" with "Get started by selecting a template below." Currently, it looks broken (especially since clicking on "Let's do it" under "Name Your Business" DOES result in something happening). Also, after selecting a template, the grid of templates disappeared and the bottom of the screen was replaced by a bunch of other elements. It wasn't clear at first that this was an example of the selected template, because the grid of templates disappeared (and was replaced by a smaller line of them). I thought I might need to interact with this large pane of items to proceed. I suggest keeping the array of template thumnails consistent at all times, so when you click on one, the entire screen doesn't change; the example simply appears. In fact, you should probably start with the first template highlighted and the example layout shown (with an arrow or other indicator pointing from the template thumbnail to the layout). Also... because the example layout fills the entire bottom portion of the screen and sometimes appears to fit perfectly, it's not readily apparent that you proceed to the next step by scrolling down. At first I was looking for a "proceed" or "next step" arrow. Reducing the example layout in size and confining it to a defined area on the screen would let you make navigation through the steps more clear. You could also let the user select different devices for the layout preview, and simply change the shape of the confined area instantly to show the layout on the selected device. And finally: Is the download button supposed to work? It doesn't do anything for me.

drivingmenuts 10y ago

How do we make money? Volume! Seriously, though. This is an interesting idea, but what's the endgame?

0vermorrow 10y ago

I love this. Also a super fan of the UI. Seamlessly led me to a download button with the source. They've coupled it with an awesome hosting setup process. I can promise you I will use this service for the very next project of mine. Commoditisation of design cannot come soon enough! ( at least the web design part :) )

wapz 10y ago
So I hit the download button and got a file named download with no extensions. Am I doing something wrong (I didn't change anything just wanted to see what it spits out)?
- throwaway29292 10y ago
  It's a zip file containing HTML/CSS.
  - wapz 10y ago
    Wow thanks. I've never been more ashamed to say I work with computers every day.

arikrak 10y ago

This looks great but was a little confusing at first. Maybe make it clearer to the user what's going on so they know they're just building their own site. I think it's nice not to have to enter an email at the end, but you'll miss out on a lot of emails. Maybe provide the prompt to enter an email first, but let them skip it.

colbyh 10y ago

would like to point out that the author has not only built a tool that is making a bunch of people happy, but is also responding brilliantly to all comments with a super helpful tone. very cool all around.

Procrastes 10y ago

Great idea. This could save me all sorts of wasteful dithering. Looks like it's broken right now. When I try to download, I get a file called "download.txt" which contains the text "Internal Server Error"

btcboss 10y ago

T H I S I S E P I C !!!!!

tooFastFuckYou 10y ago
Modded down.

voycey 10y ago

This is great - I am literally just finishing a site that looks exactly like this (single product site). I would 100% use this for future things! I agree about the donation buttons as well - even keep it to micro-donating - you would be surprised at how many people would use it!

transposed 10y ago

Very cool - I've had ideas for a few sites, but when the time came to create the site and get a half decent design going, I found myself running out of time to work on the actual content. Best of luck to your idea/service

tomschlick 10y ago

nitpick: please enable HTTPS I just had some issues on airline wifi because they man-in-the-middle the connection to inject their crappy "flight tracker" menubar and it covered some of the builder controls. That wouldn't happen with SSL and your visitors would be more secure.

the_wheel 10y ago

I noticed you posted Launchaco a few months ago. Why do you think this post succeeded in generating traction while the previous failed? Love the product!

marclave 10y ago
Great question, I guess the community feels stronger about this product than the name page. I read your post on "Ask HN: What are some successful products that had a disappointing Show HN?", loved the dropbox comment!

beardog 10y ago

Doesn't load at all without JavaScript :)

jlgaddis 10y ago
The problem is not that the site doesn't load without JavaScript. The problem is that a very small vocal minority mistakenly think that anyone else gives a damn that they can't surf the Internet with JavaScript turned off.

keyle 10y ago

Definitely put that "download" file as "template.zip" or something. I was baffled getting a file without extension, and Windows 10 didn't see it as a zip, but just a binary blob.

tooFastFuckYou 10y ago

emrahayanoglu 10y ago

That's one of the brilliant service as I have ever tried. Actually, I'll also consider to pay something to this wonderful service. I think producer should consider about adding premium staff for small prices.

navs 10y ago

I absolutely love this and thats coming from a "professional" web developer. I gave this to a client of mine to try for one of her personal projects and she was somewhat confused. After I pointed out the steps vs previews, she got the hang of it. But by that time she'd made a bit of a mess with a lot of extra feature blocks/steps. She wanted a clean slate but it looks like you're storing progress in a cookie. Can we have a reset all? While I'd love an arbitrary HTML block, the ability to add meta tags, custom fonts, blah blah...don't. If people want that kind of power there's a lot of alternative static site tools/CMS' out there.

blunte 10y ago

I'm pretty used to being different from most people, but I'm not used to being so utterly different from the hackernews crowd as I feel right now. Am I seeing a different website than everyone is talking about? All I see is a bunch of different boxes with links, where most links just shove me to some external service (GoDaddy, Twitter, Google Fonts, etc.) Where's the "website builder"?

arrmn 10y ago
Next to their logo at top you can either click at "name your business" or "build your website". I was also confused at first
naasking 10y ago
Those links and that text are all editable. It's sample content for the layout you're building. A little confusing at first.

minhajuddin 10y ago

Shameless plug, I made something related which makes testing out public static sites pretty easy. You can check it out at https://slugex.com/ https://slugex.com/ It also allows you to deploy via the terminal. All you need is bash and curl :)

Warp__ 10y ago

Very Cool. Thank you. Will sign up :)

nodesocket 10y ago

Awesome job! It would be great if you added a pricing feature block.

annnnd 10y ago

Now THIS is how it should be done! Congrats to author! Where can we pay you? :) This hits a sweet spot for me because I am in full control of HTML if I want it, but I can still put together a responsive page in literally a minute. About missing colors and stuff - yeah, it would be nice if we could select background images, set more colors and similar, but that's secondary. Building a responsive skeleton is what this tool does for me, and first impression is great. Kudos!

ayh 10y ago

Nice UI. Bad idea to do domain lookups on a site without SSL.

ekevjn 10y ago

Find some excited site which you like and fit your business. Right click and there your template done!

moh_maya 10y ago

This is just what I was looking for! I needed a simple landing page for our startup, and the layouts / design are perfect. Quick noob question though: Do you have / are you planning to include templates where I can add video (hosted on Vimeo / Youtube) instead of the computer / browser images? I know I can edit the HTML / CSS files, but my background is statistics / R, and I am wary of mucking up the code and spoiling the layout. I signed up with my email. Looking forward to seeing where this goes, and would gladly pay for the service as & when you start accepting payments. Thank you! :)

black2night 10y ago

great work

mxuribe 10y ago

Holy smokes, this is such a useful tool! For any little updates that could certainly be applied in the future (e.g. adding more accessibility aspects, other color palettes, etc.), the sheer ease and speed with which I was able to create a website was absolutely astonishing, and overshadows any shortfall. I seldom share my email but submitted it in this case, because I believe this is a solid product, and I have this feeling the authors behind this tool really know what they're doing (as far as product dev.). Kudos to the creators! Great job!

manish7 10y ago

nice product.