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Hey HN, In my opinion, platforms like WordPress can feel bloated or be intimidating to new users. For this reason, I wanted to build a blogging platform on to

Hey HN, In my opinion, platforms like WordPress can feel bloated or be intimidating to new users. For this reason, I wanted to build a blogging platform on top of Google Docs. I actually run my own blog as a side project, and I use GDocs religiously because of its excellent collaboration and sharing features. When I’m collaborating with dozens of writers, it’s convenient to be able to use a product that everyone is familiar with. Another cool thing, I built and launched this project in 24 hours and streamed the whole thing on Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/313288148 https://www.twitch.tv/videos/313288148). I started with just an idea, and streamed the entire process to launch and had a few thousands viewers tune in. Excited to get your feedback. Pat

arayh 8y ago
Nice to see an open-source project like this, but where can we find the repository / source?
- sp332 8y ago
  https://github.com/patwalls/ydnw https://github.com/patwalls/ydnw
saberworks 8y ago
I really like this. I have a pretty big legacy site with one section full of user-contributed (HTML/images) tutorials written over a period of 20 years (yes, the site has been up over 20 years) and it'd be nice to just copy/paste them into something like google docs, tweak them a bit to make all the styles match, and then republish them. Your site says the project is open source, but I can't find any link. Will you share a link to the source?
- patwalls 8y ago
  Sure! https://github.com/patwalls/ydnw https://github.com/patwalls/ydnw Contributions are very welcome! Code is very hacky and I've been trying to manage making some changes between all the feedback I've gotten and my full time job.
CJefferson 8y ago
It looks like good fun, but I'll be honest I find the name very insulting. I've had a wordpress website for 8 years. Is this going to work in 8 years? 6 months?
- ggregoire 8y ago
  The name is inspired from You Don’t Need jQuery, You don’t Need MomentJS and so on.
  - keypress 8y ago
    Context context, always good to add context.
- ashelmire 8y ago
  You don't need a lot of things in your life; you shouldn't get insulted by people saying so.
- Mononokay 8y ago
  Getting offended over hobby projects, wow, this is a new low for HN.
- paulcole 8y ago
  I guess you're not going to like my side project: You Don't Need To Be Insulted By You Don't Need WordPress.
rasengan 8y ago
Solving accessibility (and simplicity) to blogging and freedom of speech, and in just 24 hours; this is awesome to say the least. I look forward to the words and wisdom that people will share with us through the platform.
fucking_tragedy 8y ago
Very cool! I'm guessing that this relies on Google not breaking, disabling or rate-limiting their Docs API, correct?
- patwalls 8y ago
  Yes, very true. Important to think aboout. There is a rate limit on their API although I don't think I will hit it at this point of the project, but I do plan to start thinking about how I can cache/save the export from the Google doc for pages that are getting hit really hard. Any ideas?
scott_s 8y ago
It's not cool to grab someone else's blog posts to use as your demo.
- gitgud 8y ago
  I also thought that was strange. Took me a minute to realise that he wasn't the author.
hjek 8y ago
I agree think there's plenty of room for new ideas for collaborative blogging, but I do think relying on centralised proprietary SaaSS is very problematic. Google can just take down your blog any day if they feel like it. With Wordpress I can host my own. I wonder if it would be possible to use something like Etherpad as backend instead?
- vezycash 8y ago
  >Google can just take down your blog any day if they feel like it. That's just the best case scenario. They could close your email, locking you out of gmail, youtube, and any other service tied to the registered email. And then since Google has been tracking related emails, they'll close those too.
l_t 8y ago
It seems like YDNW is like a CMS that uses Google Drive as the "backend"/admin UI. Personally, I see the benefits to using GDrive as the backend, but instead of having to host a server, I would rather be able to run a static site generator that exports my GDrive folder into some HTML that I can push to a free/cheap hosting provider. Is that something you've considered? Static site generation would also obviate the concern that Google could "delete your blog" -- at worst, they could delete the source documents, but the published blog would be unaffected.
- askmike 8y ago
  I do agree that static site generators are preferable for many reasons. But I think that people who want to deal with statically generated files (all technical people) rather write their content in markdown anyway. I don't think there is enough overlap in the two audiences.
wefarrell 8y ago
I would suggest using google oauth for authentication rather than the username/password combo.
asdf1234tx 8y ago
"...I'm collaborating with dozens of writers.." You may be collaborating with more people than you know. Cause it's, you know, google. I wonder how many third parties get access to your data. Remember, when you aren't paying or pay very little, _you_ are the product.
- 52-6F-62 8y ago
  Does Google have any clauses like this with regard to Google Docs contents? I didn't think they did, but maybe I'm naive. On another note that sentiment always reminds me of Morning Moon by the Tragically Hip (https://youtu.be/o-cI87djK2Y https://youtu.be/o-cI87djK2Y). It's a sentiment that bears a lot of truth, regardless of Google's privacy policy. But I digress... I'm not making strain Said, "Someone's paying When something's too cheap Somebody's paying something" You said, "Some one's paying something." Under a morning moon, yeah Say those little things that don't make anyone feel better, yeah
- jpatokal 8y ago
  The data that G Suite organizations and users put into our systems is theirs, and we do not scan it for advertisements nor sell it to third parties [...] Google does not collect, scan or use data in G Suite Core Services [including Google Docs] for advertising purposes. https://gsuite.google.com/learn-more/security/security-whitepaper/page-6.html https://gsuite.google.com/learn-more/security/security-white... Disclaimer: I work at Google Cloud, but not G Suite/Docs.
- crummy 8y ago
  You're saying that Google might be reading my blog posts if I use Google Docs? Somehow crawling it for content, maybe?
pier25 8y ago
Don't you find it difficult to maintain a consistent format/schema between many authors? I thought about using Google Docs for a publishing project, but the lack of an enforced schema made me pick a JS rich text editor instead. Also, how do you deal with images?
keypress 8y ago
I find Gdocs hard, because I'm not used to it. So it's really a case of which tool you are used to working with and are proficient at. People take to Wordpress relatively easily in my experience. So I'm reading your plus point specifically as the collaboration support in Gdocs.

arayh 8y ago

Nice to see an open-source project like this, but where can we find the repository / source?

sp332 8y ago
https://github.com/patwalls/ydnw https://github.com/patwalls/ydnw

saberworks 8y ago

I really like this. I have a pretty big legacy site with one section full of user-contributed (HTML/images) tutorials written over a period of 20 years (yes, the site has been up over 20 years) and it'd be nice to just copy/paste them into something like google docs, tweak them a bit to make all the styles match, and then republish them. Your site says the project is open source, but I can't find any link. Will you share a link to the source?

patwalls 8y ago
Sure! https://github.com/patwalls/ydnw https://github.com/patwalls/ydnw Contributions are very welcome! Code is very hacky and I've been trying to manage making some changes between all the feedback I've gotten and my full time job.

CJefferson 8y ago

It looks like good fun, but I'll be honest I find the name very insulting. I've had a wordpress website for 8 years. Is this going to work in 8 years? 6 months?

ggregoire 8y ago
The name is inspired from You Don’t Need jQuery, You don’t Need MomentJS and so on.
- keypress 8y ago
  Context context, always good to add context.
ashelmire 8y ago
You don't need a lot of things in your life; you shouldn't get insulted by people saying so.
Mononokay 8y ago
Getting offended over hobby projects, wow, this is a new low for HN.
paulcole 8y ago
I guess you're not going to like my side project: You Don't Need To Be Insulted By You Don't Need WordPress.

rasengan 8y ago

Solving accessibility (and simplicity) to blogging and freedom of speech, and in just 24 hours; this is awesome to say the least. I look forward to the words and wisdom that people will share with us through the platform.

fucking_tragedy 8y ago

Very cool! I'm guessing that this relies on Google not breaking, disabling or rate-limiting their Docs API, correct?

patwalls 8y ago
Yes, very true. Important to think aboout. There is a rate limit on their API although I don't think I will hit it at this point of the project, but I do plan to start thinking about how I can cache/save the export from the Google doc for pages that are getting hit really hard. Any ideas?

scott_s 8y ago

It's not cool to grab someone else's blog posts to use as your demo.

gitgud 8y ago
I also thought that was strange. Took me a minute to realise that he wasn't the author.

hjek 8y ago

I agree think there's plenty of room for new ideas for collaborative blogging, but I do think relying on centralised proprietary SaaSS is very problematic. Google can just take down your blog any day if they feel like it. With Wordpress I can host my own. I wonder if it would be possible to use something like Etherpad as backend instead?

vezycash 8y ago
>Google can just take down your blog any day if they feel like it. That's just the best case scenario. They could close your email, locking you out of gmail, youtube, and any other service tied to the registered email. And then since Google has been tracking related emails, they'll close those too.

l_t 8y ago

It seems like YDNW is like a CMS that uses Google Drive as the "backend"/admin UI. Personally, I see the benefits to using GDrive as the backend, but instead of having to host a server, I would rather be able to run a static site generator that exports my GDrive folder into some HTML that I can push to a free/cheap hosting provider. Is that something you've considered? Static site generation would also obviate the concern that Google could "delete your blog" -- at worst, they could delete the source documents, but the published blog would be unaffected.

askmike 8y ago
I do agree that static site generators are preferable for many reasons. But I think that people who want to deal with statically generated files (all technical people) rather write their content in markdown anyway. I don't think there is enough overlap in the two audiences.

wefarrell 8y ago

I would suggest using google oauth for authentication rather than the username/password combo.

asdf1234tx 8y ago

"...I'm collaborating with dozens of writers.." You may be collaborating with more people than you know. Cause it's, you know, google. I wonder how many third parties get access to your data. Remember, when you aren't paying or pay very little, _you_ are the product.

52-6F-62 8y ago
Does Google have any clauses like this with regard to Google Docs contents? I didn't think they did, but maybe I'm naive. On another note that sentiment always reminds me of Morning Moon by the Tragically Hip (https://youtu.be/o-cI87djK2Y https://youtu.be/o-cI87djK2Y). It's a sentiment that bears a lot of truth, regardless of Google's privacy policy. But I digress... I'm not making strain Said, "Someone's paying When something's too cheap Somebody's paying something" You said, "Some one's paying something." Under a morning moon, yeah Say those little things that don't make anyone feel better, yeah
jpatokal 8y ago
The data that G Suite organizations and users put into our systems is theirs, and we do not scan it for advertisements nor sell it to third parties [...] Google does not collect, scan or use data in G Suite Core Services [including Google Docs] for advertising purposes. https://gsuite.google.com/learn-more/security/security-whitepaper/page-6.html https://gsuite.google.com/learn-more/security/security-white... Disclaimer: I work at Google Cloud, but not G Suite/Docs.
crummy 8y ago
You're saying that Google might be reading my blog posts if I use Google Docs? Somehow crawling it for content, maybe?

pier25 8y ago

Don't you find it difficult to maintain a consistent format/schema between many authors? I thought about using Google Docs for a publishing project, but the lack of an enforced schema made me pick a JS rich text editor instead. Also, how do you deal with images?

keypress 8y ago

I find Gdocs hard, because I'm not used to it. So it's really a case of which tool you are used to working with and are proficient at. People take to Wordpress relatively easily in my experience. So I'm reading your plus point specifically as the collaboration support in Gdocs.