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The web has gotten boring. I'm starting a static web host where every page is remixable by default. One click and you have a copy of any web page hosted on th

The web has gotten boring. I'm starting a static web host where every page is remixable by default. One click and you have a copy of any web page hosted on the platform. Not only that, but the front-end code (HTML, CSS, JS) is treated as the source of truth. Whatever changes the owner makes to a page (through DevTools, some custom JS, or clicking a button that does something) is saved permanently to the DB. This makes it possible for front-end devs to create interactive applications just by adding a JS plugin to the page. I'm hoping projects like this idea will lead to a renaissance of blogs, personal websites, and remixable apps that push our normal conception of what a website is to the breaking point. (Email in my profile if you want to discuss. This is a new project I haven't started yet.)

vaishnavsm 5y ago
You can also add page versioning and forks to this! If I want to see an older version of the page I like: click click click I have a (like really) permalink If I wanna modify a page that someone else made, fork and edit! It's like Github, but for our pages! (too many exclamations smh)
- toto444 5y ago
  I don't know if you're being sarcastic or not but there is literally something called github pages that does exactly what you describe.
aklemm 5y ago
Sounds pretty exciting. Be sure to implement Webmentions and IndieAuth and other IndieWeb stuff as a first step so you're not re-inventing things that are solved, but need more traction. The web has gotten boring. This is so true. Before it was boring, it was hard to use, though. I think that's why the federated/decentralized/indie stuff still struggles to find mindshare.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
marginalia_nu 5y ago
I've been approaching it from the other end. The web hasn't gotten boring, but the signal to noise ratio has gotten really bad. The big problem for both creative websites and their long tail audience is discoverability. There still seems to be a lot of interesting creative content out there, but it doesn't play by google and social media's rules, so what you find is listicles, blogspam, click funnels, various forms of low effort crap made in bad faith. Here are just a few links to websites I've found that I thought were interesting (I'm not affiliated with any of them). Tell me, when was the last time you saw that type of stuff on google, facebook, or reddit, or twitter, or HN? http://sod.jodi.org/index.html http://sod.jodi.org/index.html https://dreamcult.xyz/ https://dreamcult.xyz/ https://www.floppyswop.co.uk/ https://www.floppyswop.co.uk/ http://godxiliary.com/ http://godxiliary.com/ https://dannarchy.com/ https://dannarchy.com/ https://www.toiletpapermagazine.org/ https://www.toiletpapermagazine.org/ I think it should be possible to build something genuinely useful in this space. I'm not exactly sure how or what, so I'm still experimenting with various ways of bringing audiences to websites off the beaten path, but it feels like I'm closing in on something. I've been approaching this in a sort of independent R&D fashion, just trying things and seeing what sticks. If anyone is into this general space, maybe shoot me an email. Not really sure what's a good format for collaboration though.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- toiletfuneral 5y ago
jazzyjackson 5y ago
I went through a couple of rounds of a similar project, started just snapshotting a document's innerHTML to disk to capture edits, then created a customElements framework (really a thin wrapper around the official api) to swap out one custom element for another while maintaining all the state on the DOM. I called it MIXINT for remixable interface. It's abandoneware now but IMO a pretty good vanilla-JS approach to window panes with class-sensitive menus. see github for code and manic dreams in the readme [0] and video of the interface swapping out one class of window for another [1] But what I really wanted was to expose the guts of the code in a way that made it easier to edit, and as a protest to JSX I threw together a unified JSON syntax for templates that get rendered into HTML/CSS so that I could write javascript code that returns objects and just build up DOMs that way - but when I started implementing variable substitution and array mapping in my JSON templates, I realized I could do away with the javascript altogether and write entire web pages as declarative JSON, just using a few prefixes that trigger macro expansions, replacing one branch of the tree with another until no more prefixes are left (the eureka moment came when reading about macro expansion in the TRAC language - I was just going to stick to feature parity with Handlebars before realizing I had a bone fide programming language on my hands) This is all off and on the last 4 years. I'm about to overhaul the years-old homepage with better examples but you can see the concept here [2]. Maybe some of the code would be useful, I'm certainly on board with the mission, I just wish I was better at avoiding those pesky rabbit holes :) [0] https://github.com/jazzyjackson/MIXINTvNegative1 https://github.com/jazzyjackson/MIXINTvNegative1 [1] https://youtu.be/URMHbhK0zrs https://youtu.be/URMHbhK0zrs [2] https://lookalive.software https://lookalive.software
thex10 5y ago
This reminds me of https://glitch.com https://glitch.com
Artistry121 5y ago
I really like this. And remake looks very powerful. I'd like to support this. I have a project management tool that ties in with financial planning for small businesses and am looking to add on basic web design features / customer portals for all my clients in a sustainable way that also unleashes their creativity. This type of tool - remake - and this seem to open the path to a more fun place and a useful place for making partnerships / getting to meet new people . Very cool.
TIPSIO 5y ago
I like this. Your messaging is a little weird to me. The product seems less ‘the web has gotten boring’ and more ‘we are low code development’ — a happy fun place between no code development and the normal overly complex web development of today. Which funny enough, I think your audience/clients are best for actually big boring development via some enterprise clients who require stricter security rules or giant less skilled employees with occasional custom requirement (imagine a big painful US gov type organization). I don’t see this getting hobbyists but easily could be wrong. Cheers and congrats. Really cool stuff! Excited to see where you land.

vaishnavsm 5y ago

You can also add page versioning and forks to this! If I want to see an older version of the page I like: click click click I have a (like really) permalink If I wanna modify a page that someone else made, fork and edit! It's like Github, but for our pages! (too many exclamations smh)

toto444 5y ago
I don't know if you're being sarcastic or not but there is literally something called github pages that does exactly what you describe.

aklemm 5y ago

Sounds pretty exciting. Be sure to implement Webmentions and IndieAuth and other IndieWeb stuff as a first step so you're not re-inventing things that are solved, but need more traction. The web has gotten boring. This is so true. Before it was boring, it was hard to use, though. I think that's why the federated/decentralized/indie stuff still struggles to find mindshare.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

marginalia_nu 5y ago

I've been approaching it from the other end. The web hasn't gotten boring, but the signal to noise ratio has gotten really bad. The big problem for both creative websites and their long tail audience is discoverability. There still seems to be a lot of interesting creative content out there, but it doesn't play by google and social media's rules, so what you find is listicles, blogspam, click funnels, various forms of low effort crap made in bad faith. Here are just a few links to websites I've found that I thought were interesting (I'm not affiliated with any of them). Tell me, when was the last time you saw that type of stuff on google, facebook, or reddit, or twitter, or HN? http://sod.jodi.org/index.html http://sod.jodi.org/index.html https://dreamcult.xyz/ https://dreamcult.xyz/ https://www.floppyswop.co.uk/ https://www.floppyswop.co.uk/ http://godxiliary.com/ http://godxiliary.com/ https://dannarchy.com/ https://dannarchy.com/ https://www.toiletpapermagazine.org/ https://www.toiletpapermagazine.org/ I think it should be possible to build something genuinely useful in this space. I'm not exactly sure how or what, so I'm still experimenting with various ways of bringing audiences to websites off the beaten path, but it feels like I'm closing in on something. I've been approaching this in a sort of independent R&D fashion, just trying things and seeing what sticks. If anyone is into this general space, maybe shoot me an email. Not really sure what's a good format for collaboration though.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
toiletfuneral 5y ago

jazzyjackson 5y ago

I went through a couple of rounds of a similar project, started just snapshotting a document's innerHTML to disk to capture edits, then created a customElements framework (really a thin wrapper around the official api) to swap out one custom element for another while maintaining all the state on the DOM. I called it MIXINT for remixable interface. It's abandoneware now but IMO a pretty good vanilla-JS approach to window panes with class-sensitive menus. see github for code and manic dreams in the readme [0] and video of the interface swapping out one class of window for another [1] But what I really wanted was to expose the guts of the code in a way that made it easier to edit, and as a protest to JSX I threw together a unified JSON syntax for templates that get rendered into HTML/CSS so that I could write javascript code that returns objects and just build up DOMs that way - but when I started implementing variable substitution and array mapping in my JSON templates, I realized I could do away with the javascript altogether and write entire web pages as declarative JSON, just using a few prefixes that trigger macro expansions, replacing one branch of the tree with another until no more prefixes are left (the eureka moment came when reading about macro expansion in the TRAC language - I was just going to stick to feature parity with Handlebars before realizing I had a bone fide programming language on my hands) This is all off and on the last 4 years. I'm about to overhaul the years-old homepage with better examples but you can see the concept here [2]. Maybe some of the code would be useful, I'm certainly on board with the mission, I just wish I was better at avoiding those pesky rabbit holes :) [0] https://github.com/jazzyjackson/MIXINTvNegative1 https://github.com/jazzyjackson/MIXINTvNegative1 [1] https://youtu.be/URMHbhK0zrs https://youtu.be/URMHbhK0zrs [2] https://lookalive.software https://lookalive.software

thex10 5y ago

This reminds me of https://glitch.com https://glitch.com

Artistry121 5y ago

I really like this. And remake looks very powerful. I'd like to support this. I have a project management tool that ties in with financial planning for small businesses and am looking to add on basic web design features / customer portals for all my clients in a sustainable way that also unleashes their creativity. This type of tool - remake - and this seem to open the path to a more fun place and a useful place for making partnerships / getting to meet new people . Very cool.

TIPSIO 5y ago

I like this. Your messaging is a little weird to me. The product seems less ‘the web has gotten boring’ and more ‘we are low code development’ — a happy fun place between no code development and the normal overly complex web development of today. Which funny enough, I think your audience/clients are best for actually big boring development via some enterprise clients who require stricter security rules or giant less skilled employees with occasional custom requirement (imagine a big painful US gov type organization). I don’t see this getting hobbyists but easily could be wrong. Cheers and congrats. Really cool stuff! Excited to see where you land.