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Show HN: Coisas, an open-source client-side CMS for static site generators

68 points by fiatjaf 9y ago

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
eitland 9y ago
Is the license MIT? It looked like but I was not sure (it might also just be that I read it too early in the morning.)
- ZiiS 9y ago
  Yes, the desktop version of github highlights common licenses: https://github.com/fiatjaf/coisas/blob/master/LICENSE https://github.com/fiatjaf/coisas/blob/master/LICENSE
rozenmd 9y ago
Anyone else unable to actually get it to do anything? Running it from their URL: https://coisas.alhur.es/ https://coisas.alhur.es/
- the_duke 9y ago
  You need to enter a Github repo url and click go, then you can start editing. The grey 'fiatjaf/coisas'e is just a placeholder.
erlend_sh 9y ago
> t is similar to Netlify CMS and Prose, the difference is that, unlike the first, it doesn't try to be a multipurpose CMS, it lets you edit files, create text files, upload files, browse your files, but doesn't try to look like a fancy CMS with custom schema and objects and all that mess; Err, "all that mess" are the additional features that actually make it a worthwhile upgrade from GitHub's in built file management. I'm using a CMS because I'd like to interact with raw files as little as possible.
- fiatjaf 9y ago
  I didn't mean that Netlify CMS is horrible, just that this one is more low level and has less magic, serving a different purpose.
xtiansimon 9y ago
Crap like this, Headless CMS Auth by fiatjaf wants to access your xxxxxx account Personal user data: Full access Repositories: Public and private ...makes me think Trojan Horse.
- codegladiator 9y ago
  What do you want the CMS to do without write permission ? It does give you option to just browse without logging in.
- fiatjaf 9y ago
  You didn't read a single line of the README, right? It is written there that you may AND SHOULD use your own authentication methods, and that's quite easy to implement. Now if you were going to freak out because you don't want to authorize access to your account I just can't imagine why you clicked at "authorize with GitHub".
codegladiator 9y ago
Didnt work on firefox. Works on chrome.
- fiatjaf 9y ago
  Sorry about that. Didn't test it on Firefox yet. I'll do.
fiatjaf 9y ago
This is a weekend hack, not a fully finished and polished project. I'm sorry about the errors if you encountered some. The idea is that things will improve in the near future. Criticism and suggestions are welcome.
lioeters 9y ago
This looks great, I think it solves an existing need and could be extended beyond editing files on GitHub, to be a more general-purpose tool. One suggestion: a demo where a potential user can try editing files without needing to authenticate with a GitHub account. I actually haven't seen the editing interface yet - I'll clone the repo locally since I'm curious, but it would be a better on-boarding process if I could try it first.
- pollyannas 9y ago
  Why would anyone want to use it to edit files on their own computer?
- fiatjaf 9y ago
  Here's a demo: https://coisas.alhur.es/#!/geraldoquagliato/geraldoquagliato.github.io/ https://coisas.alhur.es/#!/geraldoquagliato/geraldoquagliato... The access token will work out of the box (it is hardcoded), and the site is a Jekyll which will automatically be rendered by GitHub and shown at https://geraldoquagliato.github.io/ https://geraldoquagliato.github.io/
nunobrito 9y ago
Hello fiatjaf, are there some example sites that we can take a quick look to see how they end up? Thanks
rubenbe 9y ago
I'm using Lektor[0] as a static site CMS for a non-technical user. It's not super advanced nor shiny, but it does the job. [0] https://github.com/lektor/lektor https://github.com/lektor/lektor
- fiatjaf 9y ago
  The problem with Lektor is that you need a server running this Python app.
jonaf 9y ago
It's interesting to me that, before I learned about databases (circa 2004), I built 3 distinct software products based on flat files (no database). They were all written in PHP (the only backend language I knew at the time). This was before the days of GitHub, so I don't have links to the software anymore, but I may still have the (horrendous) source code. The products were: a forum (!) system called "DatForum"; a chat app called "Chategory"[1] (this one still apparently exists on SourceForge); and a flat-file backed bookmark manager that synchronized with del.icio.us called "LinkDex." I did also build a blog/CMS based on flat files, which I used personally, but it was hardly productized (practically server-side includes). Obviously, using flat file databases is very different from static site generation, but since all of these were written using flat file databases, it would have been easy to optimize their (often poor) performance by statically regenerating the site periodically, instead of reading the flat file database at render time. [1] http://chategory.sourceforge.net/ http://chategory.sourceforge.net/

68 points by fiatjaf 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

eitland 9y ago

Is the license MIT? It looked like but I was not sure (it might also just be that I read it too early in the morning.)

ZiiS 9y ago
Yes, the desktop version of github highlights common licenses: https://github.com/fiatjaf/coisas/blob/master/LICENSE https://github.com/fiatjaf/coisas/blob/master/LICENSE

rozenmd 9y ago

Anyone else unable to actually get it to do anything? Running it from their URL: https://coisas.alhur.es/ https://coisas.alhur.es/

the_duke 9y ago
You need to enter a Github repo url and click go, then you can start editing. The grey 'fiatjaf/coisas'e is just a placeholder.

erlend_sh 9y ago

> t is similar to Netlify CMS and Prose, the difference is that, unlike the first, it doesn't try to be a multipurpose CMS, it lets you edit files, create text files, upload files, browse your files, but doesn't try to look like a fancy CMS with custom schema and objects and all that mess; Err, "all that mess" are the additional features that actually make it a worthwhile upgrade from GitHub's in built file management. I'm using a CMS because I'd like to interact with raw files as little as possible.

fiatjaf 9y ago
I didn't mean that Netlify CMS is horrible, just that this one is more low level and has less magic, serving a different purpose.

xtiansimon 9y ago

Crap like this, Headless CMS Auth by fiatjaf wants to access your xxxxxx account Personal user data: Full access Repositories: Public and private ...makes me think Trojan Horse.

codegladiator 9y ago
What do you want the CMS to do without write permission ? It does give you option to just browse without logging in.
fiatjaf 9y ago
You didn't read a single line of the README, right? It is written there that you may AND SHOULD use your own authentication methods, and that's quite easy to implement. Now if you were going to freak out because you don't want to authorize access to your account I just can't imagine why you clicked at "authorize with GitHub".

codegladiator 9y ago

Didnt work on firefox. Works on chrome.

fiatjaf 9y ago
Sorry about that. Didn't test it on Firefox yet. I'll do.

fiatjaf 9y ago

This is a weekend hack, not a fully finished and polished project. I'm sorry about the errors if you encountered some. The idea is that things will improve in the near future. Criticism and suggestions are welcome.

lioeters 9y ago

This looks great, I think it solves an existing need and could be extended beyond editing files on GitHub, to be a more general-purpose tool. One suggestion: a demo where a potential user can try editing files without needing to authenticate with a GitHub account. I actually haven't seen the editing interface yet - I'll clone the repo locally since I'm curious, but it would be a better on-boarding process if I could try it first.

pollyannas 9y ago
Why would anyone want to use it to edit files on their own computer?
fiatjaf 9y ago
Here's a demo: https://coisas.alhur.es/#!/geraldoquagliato/geraldoquagliato.github.io/ https://coisas.alhur.es/#!/geraldoquagliato/geraldoquagliato... The access token will work out of the box (it is hardcoded), and the site is a Jekyll which will automatically be rendered by GitHub and shown at https://geraldoquagliato.github.io/ https://geraldoquagliato.github.io/

nunobrito 9y ago

Hello fiatjaf, are there some example sites that we can take a quick look to see how they end up? Thanks

rubenbe 9y ago

I'm using Lektor[0] as a static site CMS for a non-technical user. It's not super advanced nor shiny, but it does the job. [0] https://github.com/lektor/lektor https://github.com/lektor/lektor

fiatjaf 9y ago
The problem with Lektor is that you need a server running this Python app.

jonaf 9y ago

It's interesting to me that, before I learned about databases (circa 2004), I built 3 distinct software products based on flat files (no database). They were all written in PHP (the only backend language I knew at the time). This was before the days of GitHub, so I don't have links to the software anymore, but I may still have the (horrendous) source code. The products were: a forum (!) system called "DatForum"; a chat app called "Chategory"[1] (this one still apparently exists on SourceForge); and a flat-file backed bookmark manager that synchronized with del.icio.us called "LinkDex." I did also build a blog/CMS based on flat files, which I used personally, but it was hardly productized (practically server-side includes). Obviously, using flat file databases is very different from static site generation, but since all of these were written using flat file databases, it would have been easy to optimize their (often poor) performance by statically regenerating the site periodically, instead of reading the flat file database at render time. [1] http://chategory.sourceforge.net/ http://chategory.sourceforge.net/