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Hi, co-creator of tiptap here and the one who wrote the heading: We went with “renderless” for tiptap v1, but this is not really correct and a lot of people sw

Hi, co-creator of tiptap here and the one who wrote the heading: We went with “renderless” for tiptap v1, but this is not really correct and a lot of people switched to “headless”. Give me a better word that’s know to more people, I’d love to change it! With web artisans I wanted to point out it’s for people who really care about every detail. If you just want to slap in an editor and that’s it: tiptap is not for you. If you want to really customize every aspect of the editor: You should definitely consider using tiptap. Edit: typo

nightowl_games 5y ago
"Styleless" Headless means a command line program without a GUI.
- bitwize 5y ago
  Back in my day, "headless" meant a computer without a monitor, for example a server or a PC that had been repurposed to server duty. We also had the opposite: before Xrandr or Xinerama, there was an older X feature called "Zaphod Mode" that allowed you to drive a graphics card's multiple outputs (on cards that supported such) mapping each to a different X "screen", Zaphod Beeblebrox, of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, had two heads, you see.
  - m3ta4a 5y ago
    "Headless" can also refer to a browser that doesn't render to the screen, useful for automated integration tests.
- hanspagel 5y ago
  Then it’s styleless and markupless (that’s not a word, is it?), too.
- gman83 5y ago
  Yeah I think the Jamstack folks have decided to use headless in an entirely different way. For example search for headless CMS you'll find loads of CMSs that just run on a server and use an API to talk to the client, but they're just web pages. It just means not WordPress I think in this context.
lelanthran 5y ago
> Give me a better word that’s know to more people, I’d love to change it! Thank you for being flexible :-) Headless literally means "gui-less" (without a gui) and has had the same meaning since 1998 or so so it's probably not a good idea to reuse the word to mean something else in the same context. I would go with either "style-less" (which is a bit awkward to say") or "effortless", which is better even if not totally accurate. With "effortless" you fully capture how easy it is to use. > With web artisans I wanted to point out it’s for people who really care about every detail. You can keep artisan - it looks correct in this context.
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  effortless is great, I was going to say completely customizable but effortless is better. Styleless is bad because to be without style is to be bad. the effortless editor you can customize every aspect of.
  - growt 5y ago
    effortless sounds good, but is it really true here? If I have to style the complete editor myself that sounds like a lot of effort. I would go in the direction of "The fully customizable editor" or something similar.
  - minusf 5y ago
    doesn't effortless mean exactly the opposite? drop in, fire and forget. "non-opinionated WYSISWYG Text Editor" ?
    - hanspagel 5y ago
      tiptap is very powerful, but definiteley not for people looking for an effortless solution. Yes, that’s what I think too.
- hanspagel 5y ago
  tiptap comes without a graphical user interface. It’s an API and you have to build the gui. Are you sure headless is so wrong?
mkl 5y ago
Well I'm probably not really in the target audience, so take my confusion with a grain of salt if those are widely used terms among those who are. The list of features in your other comment does sound pretty appealing though. Maybe the site should have something like that as a column down the side or something - I would have immediately understood instead of coming here and complaining about headlines! I'd call it "stylable", "freely stylable", "add your own CSS", "DIY CSS" or similar, as they seem like they mean what you're talking about even to people who haven't run into them before. Artisanal to me suggests obviously handmade and deliberately unpolished (as a stylistic choice, not a negative). The immediate image that sprang to mind was pottery with finger marks in it, so I was a bit lost with "web artisan". The strengths of tiptap seem to be the flexibility and customisability, and realtime collaboration, so a word that got that sort of thing across would communicate more.
SahAssar 5y ago
Style-agnostic is probably what I would go with.
austinjp 5y ago
Instead of "headless", which I agree is confusing, perhaps instead: bare-bones; unstyled; fully customisable; extensible; unopinionated (maybe). "Artisan" seems fine, although it's slightly obscure. Perhaps instead: control-freak; obsessive; perfectionist. They are somewhat negative, but they're also points of pride for some. So for example: tiptap, the fully customisable editor for website perfectionists. Just some suggestions :)
yoshyosh 5y ago
headless instantly made sense to me, I was thinking of it like contentful/headless shopify even if there is a little bit of a gui. I interpreted it as something I'd have maximum control over in just one word.
- d0gbread 5y ago
  Makes sense to me too. Given all the attempts at alternatives that don't quite work, I'd fully support an evolution of what headless means and hope to see other libraries about it. The context makes it pretty obvious.
gumby 5y ago
I use headless editors every day, mainly ed and sed. This appears to have little relationship to that word. It still can be a good product, but it would be more useful to have a description that reflected its use and benefit.

nightowl_games 5y ago

"Styleless" Headless means a command line program without a GUI.

bitwize 5y ago
Back in my day, "headless" meant a computer without a monitor, for example a server or a PC that had been repurposed to server duty. We also had the opposite: before Xrandr or Xinerama, there was an older X feature called "Zaphod Mode" that allowed you to drive a graphics card's multiple outputs (on cards that supported such) mapping each to a different X "screen", Zaphod Beeblebrox, of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, had two heads, you see.
- m3ta4a 5y ago
  "Headless" can also refer to a browser that doesn't render to the screen, useful for automated integration tests.
hanspagel 5y ago
Then it’s styleless and markupless (that’s not a word, is it?), too.
gman83 5y ago
Yeah I think the Jamstack folks have decided to use headless in an entirely different way. For example search for headless CMS you'll find loads of CMSs that just run on a server and use an API to talk to the client, but they're just web pages. It just means not WordPress I think in this context.

lelanthran 5y ago

> Give me a better word that’s know to more people, I’d love to change it! Thank you for being flexible :-) Headless literally means "gui-less" (without a gui) and has had the same meaning since 1998 or so so it's probably not a good idea to reuse the word to mean something else in the same context. I would go with either "style-less" (which is a bit awkward to say") or "effortless", which is better even if not totally accurate. With "effortless" you fully capture how easy it is to use. > With web artisans I wanted to point out it’s for people who really care about every detail. You can keep artisan - it looks correct in this context.

bryanrasmussen 5y ago
effortless is great, I was going to say completely customizable but effortless is better. Styleless is bad because to be without style is to be bad. the effortless editor you can customize every aspect of.
- growt 5y ago
  effortless sounds good, but is it really true here? If I have to style the complete editor myself that sounds like a lot of effort. I would go in the direction of "The fully customizable editor" or something similar.
- minusf 5y ago
  doesn't effortless mean exactly the opposite? drop in, fire and forget. "non-opinionated WYSISWYG Text Editor" ?
  - hanspagel 5y ago
    tiptap is very powerful, but definiteley not for people looking for an effortless solution. Yes, that’s what I think too.
hanspagel 5y ago
tiptap comes without a graphical user interface. It’s an API and you have to build the gui. Are you sure headless is so wrong?

mkl 5y ago

Well I'm probably not really in the target audience, so take my confusion with a grain of salt if those are widely used terms among those who are. The list of features in your other comment does sound pretty appealing though. Maybe the site should have something like that as a column down the side or something - I would have immediately understood instead of coming here and complaining about headlines! I'd call it "stylable", "freely stylable", "add your own CSS", "DIY CSS" or similar, as they seem like they mean what you're talking about even to people who haven't run into them before. Artisanal to me suggests obviously handmade and deliberately unpolished (as a stylistic choice, not a negative). The immediate image that sprang to mind was pottery with finger marks in it, so I was a bit lost with "web artisan". The strengths of tiptap seem to be the flexibility and customisability, and realtime collaboration, so a word that got that sort of thing across would communicate more.

SahAssar 5y ago

Style-agnostic is probably what I would go with.

austinjp 5y ago

Instead of "headless", which I agree is confusing, perhaps instead: bare-bones; unstyled; fully customisable; extensible; unopinionated (maybe). "Artisan" seems fine, although it's slightly obscure. Perhaps instead: control-freak; obsessive; perfectionist. They are somewhat negative, but they're also points of pride for some. So for example: tiptap, the fully customisable editor for website perfectionists. Just some suggestions :)

yoshyosh 5y ago

headless instantly made sense to me, I was thinking of it like contentful/headless shopify even if there is a little bit of a gui. I interpreted it as something I'd have maximum control over in just one word.

d0gbread 5y ago
Makes sense to me too. Given all the attempts at alternatives that don't quite work, I'd fully support an evolution of what headless means and hope to see other libraries about it. The context makes it pretty obvious.

gumby 5y ago

I use headless editors every day, mainly ed and sed. This appears to have little relationship to that word. It still can be a good product, but it would be more useful to have a description that reflected its use and benefit.