5 ms·

Markdown and mock = textmock

71 points by lgm_ 9y ago

godot 9y ago
This could be a very convenient tool! Is it an open source project? If it is, I can imagine using this to quickly create landing sites or web sites for code projects. No worries if not.
- lgm_ 9y ago
  No, it's not OOS, but I'm thinking about it. Why not? I saw that as a useful to quickly prototype an idea. But I'm not yet sure frankly.
  - tptacek 9y ago
    This is smart. If you're not going to do anything else with it, you should publish it.
  - codetrotter 9y ago
    If/when you do, consider using the ISC license. It is a simple and highly permissive license. https://choosealicense.com/licenses/isc/ https://choosealicense.com/licenses/isc/
dustingetz 9y ago
useless on mobile safari can’t even watch the video or see any of the copy
- lgm_ 9y ago
  It's only 88KB, but I should not display the video on mobile indeed. I'm removing it right now.
  - dustingetz 9y ago
    thanks much better
tobyhinloopen 9y ago
Neat but what was wrong with HTML again?
- lgm_ 9y ago
  That's indeed a valid question. I think it's quite a bit simpler than HTML, albeit not by a huge factor. I think that that makes a difference, as the relative success of Markdown shows. But I agree I might be wrong, we'll see.
- pdonis 9y ago
  > what was wrong with HTML again? That it's a lot harder to correctly type HTML than it is to express a basic page layout in this new form. In other words, on this view HTML is not source code, it's object code, and should be produced by a program, not by humans. I would agree with that.
- zokier 9y ago
  It is telling that the generated HTML for the example document ends up being almost 2x the size of the input, in terms of markup overhead the generated HTML is almost 3x worse than this TextMock (by a very crude estimate).
RickS 9y ago
If you enjoy writing html without the annoying punctuation, you might also like Pug: https://codeburst.io/getting-started-with-pug-template-engine-e49cfa291e33 https://codeburst.io/getting-started-with-pug-template-engin...
- lgm_ 9y ago
  Very cool, thanks for the link! I've also seen extensions of Markdown (CommonMark generic directives) that I could use instead of the syntax I made up.
- Terretta 9y ago
  Formerly known as Jade.
skybrian 9y ago
Beware, there's a popup video when you open the page.
- lgm_ 9y ago
  Indeed, it's small (88KB) and silent, but I shouldn't do that on mobile. I've just removed it.
- RickS 9y ago
  For possibly the first time ever, I really liked this one, and it makes great sense why it happens. It showed a clear demo in seconds, and then automatically closed itself to reveal the UI it was just showing. The demo is so robust I probably wouldn't have figured out the tool's purpose in 10 seconds without the video.
gojomo 9y ago
Great idea, but is the TextMock->HTML interpreter open-source for rendering elsewhere? If the format is only easily usable/previewable on some proprietary site that might go away, people will be reluctant to learn/adopt the format.
- lgm_ 9y ago
  I completely agree, I'm thinking about that. I should probably specify the grammar and make my tm->html converter open source. And probably allow to store on a personal git repo so that nobody is afraid to be locked in. So many interesting things to do, and so little time :)
zzmp 9y ago
They typo’ed on the word poopular. Or not. :D
fouc 9y ago
Using markdown as a sort of templating language, like Haml, is a pretty cool idea.
jscharlack 9y ago
Love this. Would be great to have the converter. Not so much to mockup sites but to generate help docs and blog posts on my bootstrap site.
burntcaramel 9y ago
Nice to see someone else working on tools like this. I think Markdown has a good level of ‘accessibility’ in that the syntax is friendly while fairly capable. If you’re curious, here’s some of my experiments (best viewed on desktop): - https://datadown.collected.design/github/RoyalIcing/lofi-bootstrap/master https://datadown.collected.design/github/RoyalIcing/lofi-boo... - https://lofi.design/syntax/ https://lofi.design/syntax/ - http://collected.design/research http://collected.design/research Keen to collaborate with people!
- dustingetz 9y ago
  hard to tell exactly what you’re doing from mobile but looos interesting and i’ll look more later - here’s mine let’s collaborate http://www.hyperfiddle.net http://www.hyperfiddle.net
shortformblog 9y ago
I'm glad someone's experimenting with this idea. The makers of CakeMail did something similar with email templates a while back (see http://cakedown.alexandredeschamps.ca/ http://cakedown.alexandredeschamps.ca/), and I always thought it was a bummer that they didn't keep going with the idea.
spchampion2 9y ago
This is great! I'm not sure if I'm missing it somewhere, but it would be nice to be able to see the resulting HTML without having to view the page source.
- lgm_ 9y ago
  Agreed, you are not the first to give this feedback. I'll work on that, it should be available tomorrow.
chrstphrknwtn 9y ago
This is cool. I also can't help but notice the objective-c [method message] smalltalk-like syntax.
molestrangler 9y ago
I use the markdown editor http://typora.io/ http://typora.io/ for a few years now. It's a downloadable client and for on Windows, Linux & OS X

71 points by lgm_ 9y ago

This could be a very convenient tool! Is it an open source project? If it is, I can imagine using this to quickly create landing sites or web sites for code projects. No worries if not.

lgm_ 9y ago
No, it's not OOS, but I'm thinking about it. Why not? I saw that as a useful to quickly prototype an idea. But I'm not yet sure frankly.
- tptacek 9y ago
  This is smart. If you're not going to do anything else with it, you should publish it.
- codetrotter 9y ago
  If/when you do, consider using the ISC license. It is a simple and highly permissive license. https://choosealicense.com/licenses/isc/ https://choosealicense.com/licenses/isc/

dustingetz 9y ago

useless on mobile safari can’t even watch the video or see any of the copy

lgm_ 9y ago
It's only 88KB, but I should not display the video on mobile indeed. I'm removing it right now.
- dustingetz 9y ago
  thanks much better

tobyhinloopen 9y ago

Neat but what was wrong with HTML again?

lgm_ 9y ago
That's indeed a valid question. I think it's quite a bit simpler than HTML, albeit not by a huge factor. I think that that makes a difference, as the relative success of Markdown shows. But I agree I might be wrong, we'll see.
pdonis 9y ago
> what was wrong with HTML again? That it's a lot harder to correctly type HTML than it is to express a basic page layout in this new form. In other words, on this view HTML is not source code, it's object code, and should be produced by a program, not by humans. I would agree with that.
zokier 9y ago
It is telling that the generated HTML for the example document ends up being almost 2x the size of the input, in terms of markup overhead the generated HTML is almost 3x worse than this TextMock (by a very crude estimate).

RickS 9y ago

If you enjoy writing html without the annoying punctuation, you might also like Pug: https://codeburst.io/getting-started-with-pug-template-engine-e49cfa291e33 https://codeburst.io/getting-started-with-pug-template-engin...

lgm_ 9y ago
Very cool, thanks for the link! I've also seen extensions of Markdown (CommonMark generic directives) that I could use instead of the syntax I made up.
Terretta 9y ago
Formerly known as Jade.

skybrian 9y ago

Beware, there's a popup video when you open the page.

lgm_ 9y ago
Indeed, it's small (88KB) and silent, but I shouldn't do that on mobile. I've just removed it.
RickS 9y ago
For possibly the first time ever, I really liked this one, and it makes great sense why it happens. It showed a clear demo in seconds, and then automatically closed itself to reveal the UI it was just showing. The demo is so robust I probably wouldn't have figured out the tool's purpose in 10 seconds without the video.

gojomo 9y ago

Great idea, but is the TextMock->HTML interpreter open-source for rendering elsewhere? If the format is only easily usable/previewable on some proprietary site that might go away, people will be reluctant to learn/adopt the format.

lgm_ 9y ago
I completely agree, I'm thinking about that. I should probably specify the grammar and make my tm->html converter open source. And probably allow to store on a personal git repo so that nobody is afraid to be locked in. So many interesting things to do, and so little time :)

zzmp 9y ago

They typo’ed on the word poopular. Or not. :D

fouc 9y ago

Using markdown as a sort of templating language, like Haml, is a pretty cool idea.

jscharlack 9y ago

Love this. Would be great to have the converter. Not so much to mockup sites but to generate help docs and blog posts on my bootstrap site.

burntcaramel 9y ago

Nice to see someone else working on tools like this. I think Markdown has a good level of ‘accessibility’ in that the syntax is friendly while fairly capable. If you’re curious, here’s some of my experiments (best viewed on desktop): - https://datadown.collected.design/github/RoyalIcing/lofi-bootstrap/master https://datadown.collected.design/github/RoyalIcing/lofi-boo... - https://lofi.design/syntax/ https://lofi.design/syntax/ - http://collected.design/research http://collected.design/research Keen to collaborate with people!

dustingetz 9y ago
hard to tell exactly what you’re doing from mobile but looos interesting and i’ll look more later - here’s mine let’s collaborate http://www.hyperfiddle.net http://www.hyperfiddle.net

shortformblog 9y ago

I'm glad someone's experimenting with this idea. The makers of CakeMail did something similar with email templates a while back (see http://cakedown.alexandredeschamps.ca/ http://cakedown.alexandredeschamps.ca/), and I always thought it was a bummer that they didn't keep going with the idea.

spchampion2 9y ago

This is great! I'm not sure if I'm missing it somewhere, but it would be nice to be able to see the resulting HTML without having to view the page source.

lgm_ 9y ago
Agreed, you are not the first to give this feedback. I'll work on that, it should be available tomorrow.

chrstphrknwtn 9y ago

This is cool. I also can't help but notice the objective-c [method message] smalltalk-like syntax.

molestrangler 9y ago

I use the markdown editor http://typora.io/ http://typora.io/ for a few years now. It's a downloadable client and for on Windows, Linux & OS X