5 ms·

Proseline – Git for prose, in the browser

62 points by cdubzzz 9y ago

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
HaoZeke 9y ago
This is some sort of poorly designed joke I guess.
mosselman 9y ago
I like the typography of the site where the article is on. Is there an open-source CSS stylesheet for it?
- kemitchell 9y ago
  The typefaces are Matthew Butterick's [Equity](https://typographyforlawyers.com/equity.html https://typographyforlawyers.com/equity.html) and [Concourse](https://typographyforlawyers.com/concourse.html https://typographyforlawyers.com/concourse.html). Matthew sells broad licenses for a pretty reasonable fee, as custom type goes.
  - mosselman 9y ago
    Thanks for the information! It makes for a readable and professional look.
- zichy 9y ago
  I like the typefaces, but the line-height should be at least 1.5 and the links should be underlined for accessibility.
  - kemitchell 9y ago
    I've been thinking about going to 140% for a while. And also tagging links with a sigil, as I do on this blog: https://blog.licensezero.com/2018/03/04/fulcrums.html https://blog.licensezero.com/2018/03/04/fulcrums.html
marijn 9y ago
Did proseline.com do anything for anybody? Is it supposed to? Trying to create/open an actual draft crashes for me on both Firefox and Chrome (with different errors).
- icedchai 9y ago
  I was intrigued, but could not get it to work. I found the UI very confusing.
onion2k 9y ago
Proseline is the collaborating parts of Docs without the complex, Word-like parts of Docs. Google Docs has 'Full Screen Mode' in the View menu that hides all the Word-like menus and functions as a very useful distraction-free UI.
- kemitchell 9y ago
  That's true. But there's way more of Word that I'd rather do without. Comments and edits are complex in Word. There's no clear way to do the starting point - comment - edit - resolution flow that we're familiar with as pull requests or traditional document turns. Track Changes works as intended, but creates complex mismatches between the state of a document and the state of a document to which a comment referred. Versioning is difficult. Almost everyone does it with multiple copies. Clean and redline copies. And so on. I prepare and negotiate legal documents every day. That practice is almost entirely Word based. Most tech-savvy practitioners have a brief spree with features they discover and master---automatic numbering, cross-references, style separators, tables of contents, and so on. In time, we tend to work back to a lowest common denominator, for simplicity and ease of collaboration. The best way to prepare a transaction document is often to treat Word as much like a typewriter as possible. As a rule of thumb, if you can't safely export to RTF, someone will mangle your document at some point. It may be you.
__s 9y ago
There's also https://www.gitbook.com https://www.gitbook.com I was looking to move off fiction.wikia.com, was looking into using gitbook, ended up only applying to their job listing, since it was easier to convert mediawiki into markdown[1] & dump it into a repo. Less than an hour going over the typesetting with a friend & GH pages was able to have the legible minimalism I sought[2] [1] https://github.com/serprex/serprex.github.io/blob/master/w/mwmd.py https://github.com/serprex/serprex.github.io/blob/master/w/m... [2] https://serprex.github.io/w/A%20Knight's%20Left%20Sword https://serprex.github.io/w/A%20Knight's%20Left%20Sword
RobertRoberts 9y ago
I really like new projects like this. It's simple, it's got a neat idea and I like GIT (use it every day), but I couldn't even figure out how to edit my original document, and when I tried multiple browsers, the interaction was confusing. I hope he improves this, because I like the concept.
- kemitchell 9y ago
  Thanks for your note. My first commits on this project were in November of last year, and I only really started developing it actively last month. I didn't post here on HN, and I think that's premature. To fill in with a hint that the UI itself should provide: There's no such thing as changing text of a draft in Proseline. Rather, you can create a new draft based on an old one, edit, and save. The relevant "Start a new draft based on this one." button is buried a bit at the bottom of draft pages right now.
  - RobertRoberts 9y ago
    Yes, it would be good to tweak the layout a bit to make it more obvious on how the workflow should be. Starting over from a new copy every time doesn't fit with my understanding of either normal document editing or even GIT. This almost seems like "block-chain" <sigh>, it's that's appropriate. Therefore, it wasn't intuitive automatically on how to use the tool. I have a friend who edits my work, and it's good to have someone help you see the forest through the trees, especially on interface design. (though I often don't like the suggestions, they are mostly right)
    - kemitchell 9y ago
      I've had some wonderful feedback from other folks, both for what to do about the editor experience, and also what to do about the UI, to make things more intuitive. Looking forward to spending more time on it soon.

62 points by cdubzzz 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

HaoZeke 9y ago

This is some sort of poorly designed joke I guess.

mosselman 9y ago

I like the typography of the site where the article is on. Is there an open-source CSS stylesheet for it?

kemitchell 9y ago
The typefaces are Matthew Butterick's [Equity](https://typographyforlawyers.com/equity.html https://typographyforlawyers.com/equity.html) and [Concourse](https://typographyforlawyers.com/concourse.html https://typographyforlawyers.com/concourse.html). Matthew sells broad licenses for a pretty reasonable fee, as custom type goes.
- mosselman 9y ago
  Thanks for the information! It makes for a readable and professional look.
zichy 9y ago
I like the typefaces, but the line-height should be at least 1.5 and the links should be underlined for accessibility.
- kemitchell 9y ago
  I've been thinking about going to 140% for a while. And also tagging links with a sigil, as I do on this blog: https://blog.licensezero.com/2018/03/04/fulcrums.html https://blog.licensezero.com/2018/03/04/fulcrums.html

marijn 9y ago

Did proseline.com do anything for anybody? Is it supposed to? Trying to create/open an actual draft crashes for me on both Firefox and Chrome (with different errors).

icedchai 9y ago
I was intrigued, but could not get it to work. I found the UI very confusing.

onion2k 9y ago

Proseline is the collaborating parts of Docs without the complex, Word-like parts of Docs. Google Docs has 'Full Screen Mode' in the View menu that hides all the Word-like menus and functions as a very useful distraction-free UI.

kemitchell 9y ago
That's true. But there's way more of Word that I'd rather do without. Comments and edits are complex in Word. There's no clear way to do the starting point - comment - edit - resolution flow that we're familiar with as pull requests or traditional document turns. Track Changes works as intended, but creates complex mismatches between the state of a document and the state of a document to which a comment referred. Versioning is difficult. Almost everyone does it with multiple copies. Clean and redline copies. And so on. I prepare and negotiate legal documents every day. That practice is almost entirely Word based. Most tech-savvy practitioners have a brief spree with features they discover and master---automatic numbering, cross-references, style separators, tables of contents, and so on. In time, we tend to work back to a lowest common denominator, for simplicity and ease of collaboration. The best way to prepare a transaction document is often to treat Word as much like a typewriter as possible. As a rule of thumb, if you can't safely export to RTF, someone will mangle your document at some point. It may be you.

__s 9y ago

There's also https://www.gitbook.com https://www.gitbook.com I was looking to move off fiction.wikia.com, was looking into using gitbook, ended up only applying to their job listing, since it was easier to convert mediawiki into markdown[1] & dump it into a repo. Less than an hour going over the typesetting with a friend & GH pages was able to have the legible minimalism I sought[2] [1] https://github.com/serprex/serprex.github.io/blob/master/w/mwmd.py https://github.com/serprex/serprex.github.io/blob/master/w/m... [2] https://serprex.github.io/w/A%20Knight's%20Left%20Sword https://serprex.github.io/w/A%20Knight's%20Left%20Sword

RobertRoberts 9y ago

I really like new projects like this. It's simple, it's got a neat idea and I like GIT (use it every day), but I couldn't even figure out how to edit my original document, and when I tried multiple browsers, the interaction was confusing. I hope he improves this, because I like the concept.

kemitchell 9y ago
Thanks for your note. My first commits on this project were in November of last year, and I only really started developing it actively last month. I didn't post here on HN, and I think that's premature. To fill in with a hint that the UI itself should provide: There's no such thing as changing text of a draft in Proseline. Rather, you can create a new draft based on an old one, edit, and save. The relevant "Start a new draft based on this one." button is buried a bit at the bottom of draft pages right now.
- RobertRoberts 9y ago
  Yes, it would be good to tweak the layout a bit to make it more obvious on how the workflow should be. Starting over from a new copy every time doesn't fit with my understanding of either normal document editing or even GIT. This almost seems like "block-chain" <sigh>, it's that's appropriate. Therefore, it wasn't intuitive automatically on how to use the tool. I have a friend who edits my work, and it's good to have someone help you see the forest through the trees, especially on interface design. (though I often don't like the suggestions, they are mostly right)
  - kemitchell 9y ago
    I've had some wonderful feedback from other folks, both for what to do about the editor experience, and also what to do about the UI, to make things more intuitive. Looking forward to spending more time on it soon.