5 ms·

Show HN: Open Source Search Engine to Learn Anything

145 points by nikivi 9y ago

tyleranton 9y ago
Awesome tool, Nikita! This is a great step into organized, open knowledge.
blacksmith_tb 9y ago
The idea is great, the results seem a little minimal so far, "Mandarin Chinese" produced one result, "Arduino" was a bit better, "knot tying" was a null result. There's a lot of info on contributing which is great, but the process is not what I'd call easy - I'd think especially on searches that return nil it'd be good to throw up some kind of form, and ask the user if they wouldn't mind clicking through to the DDG results, looking at a few of the top hits, and then pasting in what they found to be the most helpful?
- nikivi 9y ago
  The idea is that each map is open for contributions so all maps can be improved with the help of the community. Right now new things can be added by adding things directly to the JSON code that generates these maps but soon we will have a visual editor to simply this process even further. And we provide a fallback search to DuckDuckGo in cases where no map is found for what you are searching for. We are also thinking of releasing a browser extension that will do what you proposed. You collect links from outside and then come back to our search engine and help improve it.
  - blacksmith_tb 9y ago
    Both of those approaches sound very much easier for people to make submissions, good to hear.
  - rhizome 9y ago
    The idea is that each map is open for contributions so all maps can be improved with the help of the community. Right now new things can be added by adding things directly to... Like DMOZ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMOZ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMOZ
goda90 9y ago
I have to say that the UI confused me for a moment. The fact that what I searched didn't stay in the search box, and instead it replaced it with a new suggested search term was confusing.
- nikivi 9y ago
  Sorry you found this confusing. We show suggestions in greyed out text to encourage new searches for new things you can learn about. The goal of this search engine is to let users both explore and search for what they need, not just search like what you can do with conventional search engines.
  - goda90 9y ago
    I think it's just a matter of the dominant elements on the page. The thing you searched is in small text beneath the very large search bar so it takes a moment to figure out what is going on. Otherwise very cool, good work!
  - rhizome 9y ago
    Is that backed up by anything regarding information retrieval ergonomics, or is it just a "hey lets try this" design decision?
Khanthulhu 9y ago
I really dig this website. When I want to learn a new topic my first step is always to discover the scope of the topic and find sources so this site is a real help. Pro-tip: type in 'everything'
primitivesuave 9y ago
This is a brilliant idea and I love the minimal design. I was most inspired when I found that all the data is easily accessible through GitHub. I think the most important missing piece right now is authentication - if you implemented GitHub OAuth you could make it much easier for people to make contributions and record their progress without having to roll out your own authentication. You could also potentially save a user's progress and custom mind maps in a gist, eliminating the need to even have your own database. I checked out the roadmap (https://learn-anything.github.io/2017/06/15/roadmap.html https://learn-anything.github.io/2017/06/15/roadmap.html) and your comment below about a visual editor, and am now so excited to see where this project goes and hope to find ways I can contribute to it!
- nikivi 9y ago
  Thank you a lot for the kind comment. Our next update is focused on authentication and 'personalising' the search engine as much as possible. Some features we plan to add are : - Ability to bookmark maps - Ability to mark maps as learned - Ability to see a progress bar of how many maps you have learned compared to how many maps there exist - Ability to create and share learning paths with other people. A learning path is a collection of maps that can be followed to achieve some goal or skill like becoming a web developer. - We also want to create APIs that other developers can use to build their own visualisations and use our search and our public database in their own projects - We also want to add ability to trigger nodes as learned and ability to hide nodes you dislike or have learned - We also plan to add a text editor that is tied to your account so users can make notes on various topics they have learned or discovered Our goal with this is to make it a completely personal search engine for learning any topic in this world in the most efficient way. Everything is open source too so if anyone wants to fork it and create their own search engine, they can. If you want to help us with this, please do. We have an active Slack channel we use for all our communication. https://knowledge-map.slack.com/shared_invite/MTgxNTYzMjIzNjM5LTE0OTQzMzA4MDAtYzY1YWY0ZDc0NQ https://knowledge-map.slack.com/shared_invite/MTgxNTYzMjIzNj... There are also lots of open issues on our search engine we can certainly wish to get help with : https://github.com/learn-anything/search-engine/issues https://github.com/learn-anything/search-engine/issues
lousken 9y ago
Can't see the map in MS Edge.
- nikivi 9y ago
  Sorry about this. This is an open issue still, sadly no one for our team has MS edge to test it on. There is a pending issue on the search engine for this : https://github.com/learn-anything/search-engine/issues/54 https://github.com/learn-anything/search-engine/issues/54 We certainly would love some help on this from people who own MS Edge and can help test it there.
  - lousken 9y ago
    You can use https://www.browserstack.com/ https://www.browserstack.com/ or VM with edge to test it https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/ https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/v... :) edit: edge testing is free in browserstack
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

145 points by nikivi 9y ago

Awesome tool, Nikita! This is a great step into organized, open knowledge.

The idea is great, the results seem a little minimal so far, "Mandarin Chinese" produced one result, "Arduino" was a bit better, "knot tying" was a null result. There's a lot of info on contributing which is great, but the process is not what I'd call easy - I'd think especially on searches that return nil it'd be good to throw up some kind of form, and ask the user if they wouldn't mind clicking through to the DDG results, looking at a few of the top hits, and then pasting in what they found to be the most helpful?

nikivi 9y ago
The idea is that each map is open for contributions so all maps can be improved with the help of the community. Right now new things can be added by adding things directly to the JSON code that generates these maps but soon we will have a visual editor to simply this process even further. And we provide a fallback search to DuckDuckGo in cases where no map is found for what you are searching for. We are also thinking of releasing a browser extension that will do what you proposed. You collect links from outside and then come back to our search engine and help improve it.
- blacksmith_tb 9y ago
  Both of those approaches sound very much easier for people to make submissions, good to hear.
- rhizome 9y ago
  The idea is that each map is open for contributions so all maps can be improved with the help of the community. Right now new things can be added by adding things directly to... Like DMOZ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMOZ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMOZ

goda90 9y ago

I have to say that the UI confused me for a moment. The fact that what I searched didn't stay in the search box, and instead it replaced it with a new suggested search term was confusing.

nikivi 9y ago
Sorry you found this confusing. We show suggestions in greyed out text to encourage new searches for new things you can learn about. The goal of this search engine is to let users both explore and search for what they need, not just search like what you can do with conventional search engines.
- goda90 9y ago
  I think it's just a matter of the dominant elements on the page. The thing you searched is in small text beneath the very large search bar so it takes a moment to figure out what is going on. Otherwise very cool, good work!
- rhizome 9y ago
  Is that backed up by anything regarding information retrieval ergonomics, or is it just a "hey lets try this" design decision?

Khanthulhu 9y ago

I really dig this website. When I want to learn a new topic my first step is always to discover the scope of the topic and find sources so this site is a real help. Pro-tip: type in 'everything'

primitivesuave 9y ago

This is a brilliant idea and I love the minimal design. I was most inspired when I found that all the data is easily accessible through GitHub. I think the most important missing piece right now is authentication - if you implemented GitHub OAuth you could make it much easier for people to make contributions and record their progress without having to roll out your own authentication. You could also potentially save a user's progress and custom mind maps in a gist, eliminating the need to even have your own database. I checked out the roadmap (https://learn-anything.github.io/2017/06/15/roadmap.html https://learn-anything.github.io/2017/06/15/roadmap.html) and your comment below about a visual editor, and am now so excited to see where this project goes and hope to find ways I can contribute to it!

nikivi 9y ago
Thank you a lot for the kind comment. Our next update is focused on authentication and 'personalising' the search engine as much as possible. Some features we plan to add are : - Ability to bookmark maps - Ability to mark maps as learned - Ability to see a progress bar of how many maps you have learned compared to how many maps there exist - Ability to create and share learning paths with other people. A learning path is a collection of maps that can be followed to achieve some goal or skill like becoming a web developer. - We also want to create APIs that other developers can use to build their own visualisations and use our search and our public database in their own projects - We also want to add ability to trigger nodes as learned and ability to hide nodes you dislike or have learned - We also plan to add a text editor that is tied to your account so users can make notes on various topics they have learned or discovered Our goal with this is to make it a completely personal search engine for learning any topic in this world in the most efficient way. Everything is open source too so if anyone wants to fork it and create their own search engine, they can. If you want to help us with this, please do. We have an active Slack channel we use for all our communication. https://knowledge-map.slack.com/shared_invite/MTgxNTYzMjIzNjM5LTE0OTQzMzA4MDAtYzY1YWY0ZDc0NQ https://knowledge-map.slack.com/shared_invite/MTgxNTYzMjIzNj... There are also lots of open issues on our search engine we can certainly wish to get help with : https://github.com/learn-anything/search-engine/issues https://github.com/learn-anything/search-engine/issues

lousken 9y ago

Can't see the map in MS Edge.

nikivi 9y ago
Sorry about this. This is an open issue still, sadly no one for our team has MS edge to test it on. There is a pending issue on the search engine for this : https://github.com/learn-anything/search-engine/issues/54 https://github.com/learn-anything/search-engine/issues/54 We certainly would love some help on this from people who own MS Edge and can help test it there.
- lousken 9y ago
  You can use https://www.browserstack.com/ https://www.browserstack.com/ or VM with edge to test it https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/ https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/v... :) edit: edge testing is free in browserstack

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]