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That’s not the world’s simplest text editor. This is: data:text/html, <html contenteditable> That’s a working URL. Paste it into your browser. Bookmark it
by goodside 7y ago
That’s not the world’s simplest text editor.
This is:
data:text/html, <html contenteditable>
That’s a working URL. Paste it into your browser. Bookmark it for later.
No distracting GUI. No superfluous features like “save” or “open”. Does not track active user statistics. Works offline.
- jabits 7y agoNeat! So simple.
- ent101 7y agoThat's actually pretty awesome!
- sandoooo 7y agoI don't think it counts if it can't actually edit text, i.e. open and save at minimum.
- goodside 7y agoIt’s a text editor. It can edit text just fine. If you need to do esoteric stuff like opening/saving you might as well install Visual Studio or something.
- zzo38computer 7y agoYou can open and save. Just use the browser's save function, to save a local HTML file. (At least on my computer, this saves the text you put in, at least if you select the "complete" option when saving.) You can then recall that file just as easily. Of course, it will only save as HTML and recall the same HTML file you saved in this way, and doesn't support plain text files. But, nevertheless, you can open and save.
- _carl_jung 7y agoYou can even export as PDF and print
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- buzzerbetrayed 7y agoJust added this to my bookmarks bar. Super handy as a quick scratch pad.
- t0astbread 7y agoIf it's so good, how many monthly active users does it have?
- goodside 7y agoBased on upvotes, at least 16. Once the current funding round is over we’ll have more time for user acquisition but right now we just want to deliver a solid MVP.
- busymom0 7y agoTime to throw some ads and analytics in there! Maybe even an autoplay video in there!
- gibolt 7y agoUI is too complicated for me to comprehend. I need 3 animated generic icons on a Bootstrap site to explain all the features
- test1235 7y agoI'm going to need to upgrade it to an electron app so users can create and add plugins ... also some sort of signup/login system so they can receive useful update emails and monthly newsletters
- applecrazy 7y agoAnd machine learning! ML makes everything better!
- jankotek 7y agoDoes it run on DOS?
- vbezhenar 7y agoIt is web scale!
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- hopia 7y agoWhat a lifehack!
- avip 7y agoShould I feel dumb about not quite understanding why this url works?
- goodside 7y agoNot at all. It’s called a data URI, and most people will never have any reason to think about them. They’re mostly useful for inlining very small icons in CSS files as hexdumps. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_URI_scheme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_URI_scheme
- nkrisc 7y agoYou often see these data URLs used with a different content type and more usually a base64 encoded blob, often an image.
- tenant 7y agoIt needs a browser which is a lot more hungry than notepad.exe
- jffhn 7y agoAgreed. When I consider the complexity of a piece of software, I always take into account the conceptual weight of all the stack behind it, down to ubiquitous basic constructs like primitive types, conditional operators, etc (but simple binary size can be an easier indicator). Otherwise it's like saying that an application is simpler because its launch command name is shorter.
- boblivion 7y agoNah, my browser tells me it's insecure.
- bobowzki 7y agoIt depends on what you type in I guess...
- goodside 7y agoDid you link to it? We don’t support being linked to, which admittedly is a concern for SEO down the road. It works in Chrome, and Firefox claims to support data URIs when directly navigated to by the user. Are you on Edge? If it lets you override the warning you should be fine. There’s no substitute for a thorough audit of course, but if you’re worried you’ve been MITM’ed the MD5 is: 5ad110542ebf6a3fbae7840260b0bee5
- skrebbel 7y ago> the MD5 is: I giggled! ^_^
- hyperpallium 7y agoAll it needs is a browser! BTW didn't work in android FF.
- elrobinto 7y agoWorks for me on android firefox
- hyperpallium 7y agoThanks! I tried again, and it is working. It was so simple (and no cursor until select), I thought it was just a blank screen.
- kraigie 7y agoWhat about cat example.txt? No browser needed. No GUI. Works offline. Surely that's simpler?
- skrebbel 7y agoit's also not an editor.
- jraph 7y agoWould cat >> example.txt be one, however?
- lainproliant 7y agoYes, and it is my preferred method of editing `.gitignore` files: cat >> .gitignore *.pyc ^D
- yitchelle 7y agobut you need the cat executable and CLI environment. Harder to do these days than double clicking on the browser icon.
- bigbong 7y agoI bookmarked this.. Can I open the URI in a new tab?
- goodside 7y agoHold ctrl (on Windows) or cmd (on Mac) when clicking the bookmark. It’s actually tricky to open a data URI in a new window using JS, in a bookmarklet or elsewhere. Browsers block it because it can be a vector for phishing attacks.
- oefrha 7y agoNo, ed(1) is the simplest and the standard text editor. And it has more than 16 users. https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed-msg.en.html https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed-msg.en.html
- goodside 7y agoThe source code to ed(1) is substantially harder to memorize, and the mobile experience is sub-par. ed(1) may seem to have strong user metrics, but they’re artificially inflated by users who don’t know how to close it and thus have kept the same session open since the early 1970s, making it difficult to inform them of other options.
- oefrha 7y ago> the mobile experience is sub-par To be fair, your editor’s tty experience is pretty much nonexistent. Tty is surely more important than mobile, don’t you think?! Now, data:text/html, <textarea> at least works with w3m, but when I try to edit the textarea (surprise!) it just launches ed(1).
- anthk 7y agoed shines on movile on advanced usage, much more than any other editor.
- lasagnaphil 7y agohttps://xkcd.com/378/ https://xkcd.com/378/
- andrewflnr 7y agoButterflies are actually pretty complex, especially relative to their usage as editors.
- dang 7y agoOk, I've taken "world's simplest" out of the title, since it's baity and obviously editorialized (which breaks the rules at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and leads to maybe not the optimally interesting discussion.
- usrme 7y agoTo those who want an automatic focus to the editable area after opening the bookmark: data:text/html, <html contenteditable><script>document.querySelector('html').focus()</script></html>
- nkrisc 7y agoWhy does it need to bloat to nearly twice the size for a simple feature? This is becoming Electron all over again.
- Riccardo_G 7y agoThat is actually very cool! I personally use my own chat in Slack to take random notes, and of course it saves them, but I also cannot open it as easily.
- Insanity 7y agothat's quite cool actually!
- rgoulter 7y agoEven IE6 supported this, apparently https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Global_attributes/contenteditable https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Global_att...
- hootbootscoot 7y agothank you.
- MrGilbert 7y agoExpanded a bit for a fancy title: data:text/html, <html contenteditable><head><title>InstaEdit The corresponding .app-tld is available. Should help with VC. For better obfuscation (competitors!), here is a base64 version: data:text/html;charset=utf-8;base64,PGh0bWwgY29udGVudGVkaXRhYmxlPjxoZWFkPjx0aXRsZT5JbnN0YUVkaXQ= P.S.: Doesn't work on IE.