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Ask HN: Is there a site that is just a text scratchpad?
I'm looking for a site that is basically just a text editor. It doesn't need to save, support multiple files, etc. I just want to type in xyz.com and copy/paste some text. Google Docs is too complicated and slow to load.
Does something like this exist?
- _odey 4y agohttps://firepad.io/ https://firepad.io/
- yieldcrv 4y agohttps://pastebin.com https://pastebin.com
- skyyler 4y agopastebin.com is what I use for this. I'm curious if there's something more lightweight out there.
- shaantam 4y agohttps://wordcounter.net/ https://wordcounter.net/
- leros 4y agoThis is actually pretty good. It saves text between loads.
- pwg 4y agoWhat is the intended purpose that is not supported by a local text editor (i.e., notepad if on windows)?
- leros 4y ago- Staying within my workflow. I'm already in a browser and I want to save a few thoughts. I can type xyz.com and write a few words without context switching. Opening a notepad app would make me context switch enough to lose flow state. - Having a single, always open file. Something like notepad would require me to open the app and then open a particular file. Again, too much effort.
- jasonjmcghee 4y agoThis is a good example of what https://lazy.so https://lazy.so is trying to solve. I'm sure there are others I'm not aware of.
- leros 4y agoLooks interesting. I'll keep an eye on it. FYI, the site took about 10 seconds to load which isn't an ideal situation.
- jasonjmcghee 4y agoI have no ties to this app, just have been seeing it around. Fwiw that's just the landing page, almost positive it's a downloadable application.
- pwg 4y ago> I can type xyz.com and write a few words without context switching. But you have context switched there -- you had to open either a new tab or new window, and type "xyz.com" (or hit a bookmark) or replace your current page. So you had to context switch there as well. > Opening a notepad app would make me context switch enough to lose flow state. No less than the context switch of having to open another tab/window and type "xyz.com" or replace the current page. > Having a single, always open file. Something like notepad would require me to open the app and then open a particular file. Notepad (nor most other editors) does not require an always open file. Notepad (and others) work just fine to type into as transient storage with no backing files at all. The most you get is an "unsaved data" prompt when you have decided to close the window. But if you really want this to be "in a browser" you don't need an "xyz.com" at all. All you need is a minimal html file with a textarea tag inside. I.e., this minimal html file below (hopefully this comes through): <textarea cols="80" rows="25"> Plus, opening a local file will be your absolute fastest way to get your preferred "in browser" editor open.
- tomcam 4y agoDo you mind explaining how you use such a site, and if any of the other suggestions here worked? If it's because you want to paste clipboard contents without formatting maybe you don't know about Ctrl+Shift+V (Windows) or Cmd+Shift+V (Mac) which does that for you.
- leros 4y agoI'm trying to offload a thought from my brain in the least amount of effort possible, so I can let the thought go, knowing I can come back to it later. Least amount of effort possible is so I can write the note without losing my current thought process as I'm very easily distracted. In my ideal world, I'd type in xyz.com and it would have a blank text area I can type a few words into. Then going back to xyz.com would still have that data in the text area. Tools like Notion are too heavy and would tempt me into taking proper notes. Things like a notepad app on my desktop require too much context switching. I have to leave the browser, open notepad, etc A blank Google doc isn't a bad solution, except it takes a bit of time to load and then I end up with lots of little abandoned note docs in my Google Drive. Literally a site with a text area that saves the text to local storage would be perfect. Maybe it supports Markdown.
- jez 4y agoYour favorite note taking apps probably have registered a domain name in the .new TLD If you like secretly like Google Docs but just don’t want to have to go though Drive to make a new doc: https://doc.new https://doc.new or https://docs.new https://docs.new If you want to use GitHub Gist: https://gist.new https://gist.new Similarly https://paper.new https://paper.new for Dropbox Paper Also definitely not a good idea in general, but I found https://md.new https://md.new by guess and check. I can’t vouch for the site itself but it might be just the tool you’re looking for? (I’ve prefixed all these with https:// https:// so HN will linkify them but in your browser’s address bar you can usually omit that to make it more convenient)
- n4r9 4y agoThis is pretty much exactly what I use Sublime Text for. On windows I just have to type the windows key, "sub", and enter. Then it pops up with my todo list and various notes. I can open a new tab to jot a thought down. The notes persist despite closing the application and restarting the computer, even without saving to disk.
- CrypticShift 4y agoIf you are satisfied with absolutely zero features, just enter this in the address bar (+ save it as a bookmark) data:text/html, <html contenteditable> Works at least in chromium based + Firefox
- leros 4y agoThat's pretty darn good. If it only saved the data so I could open it again and see my note, it would be perfect.
- CrypticShift 4y agoIf you want something that saves + local, you need an extension. This one comes to mind (chromium) https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/papier/hhjeaokafplhjoogdemakihhdhffacia https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/papier/hhjeaokafpl...
- adamredwoods 4y agoIf one only needs a scratch pad, localStorage works. Just save this to a file and load the file into Chrome: <html contenteditable="true"><body></body></html> <script> const a=localStorage.getItem('saved-text-data'); document.querySelector('body').innerHTML=a; setInterval(()=>{localStorage.setItem('saved-text-data', document.querySelector('body').innerHTML);}, 2000); </script>
- leros 4y agoI just about considered buying a short domain and putting this code up on there
- leros 4y agoThis is the winner. Opening a new tab is the lightest weight action. Thanks for suggesting it!
- adamredwoods 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- felixr 4y agoUsing one of the many JS editors in something like codepen.io works well: eg https://codepen.io/quill/full/KzZqZx https://codepen.io/quill/full/KzZqZx or https://codepen.io/JessieWooten/full/wYObEX https://codepen.io/JessieWooten/full/wYObEX Or one of the many online markdown editors (https://markdownlivepreview.com/ https://markdownlivepreview.com/, https://dillinger.io/ https://dillinger.io/)
- Oxidation 4y agoI realise it's not a solution that you want to use, but I have a global hotkey set for launching or focusing a preferred text editor: Windows + Shift + E. You can even have a special hotkey for opening a specific file. The big advantage for me there is that you get real text editor, not just a browser text box and I can delete lines with "dd" like God intended.
- abrax3141 4y agoBut if you use a gdoc you can access it from anywhere (incl offline) and it’s always up to date a version controlled. For me that’s enough additional value to be worth a bit of a speed hit.
- amadeuspagel 4y agoI made thinktype[1], which is not just a text editor, but you can use it that way—you can immidiately start typing. [1]: https://thinktype.app/ https://thinktype.app/
- Slackwise 4y agoI use HackMD, which supports Markdown and various other plain-text formats, including LaTeX, Mermaid, GraphViz, etc: https://hackmd.io/c/tutorials/%2Fs%2Ffeatures https://hackmd.io/c/tutorials/%2Fs%2Ffeatures For your use case, it saves files immediately as you type them. It's also collaborative and can sync to GitHub. As an extra bonus, optional Vim and Emacs keybindings are built right in.
- cornstalks 4y agoMore features than you asked for, but I’ve enjoyed https://stackedit.io/app# https://stackedit.io/app# If you’re not using Markdown though then I wouldn’t use it. But for those needing a quick Markdown tool, it’s been great
- jose-cl 4y agoLoved editpad.org when was minimal, but sadly now is more sophisticated
- eat_veggies 4y agoetherpad https://pad.riseup.net/ https://pad.riseup.net/
- ghghgfdfgh 4y agoThe simplest one I know of is https://textarea.online https://textarea.online, which I use when I want to get some thought down without waiting for some word processing application to open. It's just a simple <textarea> HTML element with a monospace font. My only issue with it is that it does not allow you to scroll down if the text fills up the screen; my way of fixing this is removing the "overflow" CSS property with my browser developer tools.
- skydhash 4y agoI used that [0] when I've needed some kind of markdown markup. But this day I just use a small app called Tot[1] to jot things down quickly. [0]: https://stackedit.io https://stackedit.io [1]: https://tot.rocks/ https://tot.rocks/
- ikornaselur 4y agoMy goto one is https://zenpen.io https://zenpen.io - very minimal UI, just let's me focus on writing something down, with basic features such as bold and italics
- leros 4y agoThis is good and the domain is short and easy to remember.
- danstewart_ 4y agoCheck out https://rustpad.io/ https://rustpad.io/
- adamredwoods 4y agoJust to note, you can write this site yourself as a file, load in Chrome, and it will load/save to localStorage: <html contenteditable="true"><body></body></html> <script> const a=localStorage.getItem('saved-text-data'); document.querySelector('body').innerHTML=a; setInterval(()=>{localStorage.setItem('saved-text-data', document.querySelector('body').innerHTML);}, 2000); </script> It will save images as links, URLs, and you can bookmark it.
- codazoda 4y agoOooh, I built one of those. This is just a textarea. Edits are saved to local storage. You have 10 “files”. https://ponder.joeldare.com/app https://ponder.joeldare.com/app
- leros 4y agoI love this. I question whether the 10 files is too complex or a brilliant feature. I've been thinking about building something similar and I don't know the answer.
- aaron695 4y ago
- quickthrower2 4y agoFor that, I usually just use the built in editor of the OS. On iPhone use notes
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- explosion-s 4y agohttps://textarea.online https://textarea.online is my go to, it works really well, I also use this userscript to persist changes: https://gist.github.com/Explosion-Scratch/660ab8fe88f605f62ae47b3e700cf1c8 https://gist.github.com/Explosion-Scratch/660ab8fe88f605f62a...
- ErnesTechDotCom 4y ago[flagged]
- anotherhue 4y agoI like [0] but [1] also looks interesting 0: https://writer.bighugelabs.com/welcome https://writer.bighugelabs.com/welcome 1: https://typewritesomething.com/ https://typewritesomething.com/
- sinamim 4y agohttps://www.calmlywriter.com/online/ https://www.calmlywriter.com/online/
- fattybob 4y agoMoniker.com have a handy online notepad kinda thingy, beware as it auto wiped after a year of inactivity, but that’s fine for most users. I used it lots in the past, mostly when mobile, less so when home or office based.
- al_james 4y agoA friend set up https://textareaplease.com/ https://textareaplease.com/ which I keep coming back to. Useful to have ability to eval JavaScript on the text too.
- julienreszka 4y agodata:text/html, <html><textarea autofocus style="width:99vw;height:98vh"> Text area preserves newlines when copy and pasting
- rspk 4y agoI think you are looking for Awfice: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24752546 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24752546
- codegladiator 4y agohttps://etherpad.mit.edu/ https://etherpad.mit.edu/