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Show HN: PRSS Site Creator – Create Blogs and Websites from Your Desktop

27 points by volted 1y ago

yuppiepuppie 1y ago
Looks interesting from the screenshots. However after downloading on Mac, I get "Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, open '/Applications/PRSS Site Creator.app/Contents/Resources/static_themes/slate/manifest.json'" and "Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, scandir '/Applications/PRSS Site Creator.app/Contents/Resources/static_themes'" errors. Also, just a bit of feedback, your developer name on the app store is a bit sketchy <random digits> Canada Inc.
- volted 1y ago
  Thanks for the bug report yuppiepuppie! Will roll out a fix for that one asap. By the way the app is available on Windows, MacOS and Linux, so all feedback across platforms is very welcome! About the developer name, we tried to get Apple to use our "doing business as" name, but no dice. But thanks, it's very important to know what the first impressions are, to remove friction as much possible.
todotask2 1y ago
This seemed like something I came across in r/WordPress discussion on Reddit. The problem here is that it's only for Mac, while we have a cross-platform solution.
- volted 1y ago
  PRSS indeed is available on Windows, MacOS and Linux! However I spend most of the time on Windows, so bugs on the other platforms sometimes are caught later on. Will keep a closer eye on all versions, any startup bugs are a no-no. Hope you get to try it and share your feedback!
  - todotask2 1y ago
    Typo, I mean Mac and Windows, didn't realise Linux is hidden in the drop down list.
8mobile 1y ago
Kudos to PRSS Site Creator, I like the idea and I installed it on my mac. As soon as the app starts I get this error, Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, scandir '/Applications/PRSS Site Creator.app/Contents/Resources/static_themes' how can I fix it? thanks
- 8mobile 1y ago
  If I go ahead and create a post I get "Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, open '/Applications/PRSS Site Creator.app/Contents/Resources/static_themes/slate/manifest.json'"
  - volted 1y ago
    Oh man, that's embarrassing. Is this with the Mac App Store (MAS) version, or the standalone MacOS "Universal" (dmg) one? Looking into it, I will push a new build soon. Update: I pushed a new UX build, hopefully that addresses it, but otherwise let me know! I added the support email in my profile. I actually cannot see the issue in my Mac Mini with the App Store build. So any more details would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!
    - JimDabell 1y ago
      I saw the same problem in the Mac App Store build. I don’t have any `static_themes` directory in the app bundle at all. There’s also something really weird going on with the window. When I have your application open and I hit ⌘Q to quit, it minimises. Bringing it back to the foreground doesn’t have a menu bar; the Finder menu bar is visible. Then after a while, the window goes away but I see it’s in the menubar. Don’t play silly games like this please. When I chose to download the Mac universal build from your website using Safari, a new blank tab opened and nothing happened. I closed the tab, returned to the original page, and saw a permission prompt asking to download from your website. The manual download version does have the `static_themes` directory. For what it’s worth, I don’t like downloading DMGs manually. In order of preference: Mac App Store Homebrew manual download.
      - 1y ago
jarofgreen 1y ago
So, reading between the lines, it's a desktop app that makes a static website and it then checks the build output (not the source with a build command) into a GitHub repository for hosting? Is it your own static website builder or did you consider using an existing one? What type of model are you going for here? I can't see anything about pricing, but I see text encouraging users to "reach out to support".
- volted 1y ago
  You got it right! It's a Static Site Generator with Github Pages integration. I was previously using WordPress and thought something that runs on my desktop with a pleasant UI could be better. I had some thoughts on how the interface should be and the features that would be cool to have. Regarding the model, there are addons for purchase within the app (for example, different editors, scheduled AI-assisted blogging, etc). But all are fully optional and will remain that way. There's also a new "book-style" theme that folks can purchase, but the free ones are very professional also. I encourage users to reach out to Support because it's the early feedback phase and the key is to understand what are folks impressions with the product and any features they would really like to have. So overall, the goal is UX and Developer Experience first, and further on there will be improvements and new offerings based on people's needs. Thank you for your feedback!
  - jarofgreen 1y ago
    Ah ok. So kinda in competition with something like https://cloudcannon.com/ https://cloudcannon.com/ I'll be honest if you want feedback - as a developer I'd prefer a solution that builds on top of an existing open source static site builder. That way us devs can carry on using the tools and deploy options we know but our less technical colleagues who just want to put up a new blog post can use the nice CMS experience. A tool that requires we switch the entire site building process over to it is a harder sell. Sorry to be negative!
    - volted 1y ago
      These are interesting options! Thanks for sharing your feedback. Dealing with an existing stack is an interesting problem. But frankly, to think of setting up an SSG and then plug it into a Cloud CMS frontend in my view sounds complicated. But I see the appeal for existing projects. I think the question to figure out is: What would be a way to keep PRSS simple for the average person, but powerful enough for Devs? Currently the approach is to have the preset build system (to reduce third party dependencies and bugs), but provide the ability for devs to fork themes locally and use them in PRSS (this is supported). Ideally folks should only need to download PRSS, and have the Wizard to automatically setup Git and the GitHub CLI, and then PRSS would take care of the rest. But as I hear of folks use cases, it brings some good perspective. I will definitely think about these further! Thanks!
JimDabell 1y ago
“PRSS” is a bit of an impenetrable name. I assumed it was some kind of variant of RSS at first, and I was looking to see what a PRSS site was. But it’s just a brand name, right? It’s “the site creator called PRSS”, not “a creator for PRSS sites”?
- volted 1y ago
  Naming things is truly hard! It's indeed the site creator called PRSS. Before PRSS, I used WordPress and thought the concept of creating sites could be simplified and improved. "Press" was vague, so PRSS Site Creator was the alternative that came to mind, and for which shorter domains were available! But I do agree that "PRSS" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. I hope that the "Site Creator" part of the name combined with good user recommendations can help with visibility on search engines.
  - JimDabell 1y ago
    I think having it in all caps is what is making it confusable with RSS. Maybe Prss would work better?
pidgeon_lover 1y ago
An alternative, if you already use your own static site generator (SSG) like Hugo, is Frontmatter (https://frontmatter.codes/ https://frontmatter.codes/), a VSCode(ium) plugin that gives you a CMS/Content Management System over your SSG. Similar use case to PRSS.
- indigodaddy 1y ago
  Interesting, how does it “deploy”, assuming it just pushes to git? And looks like I can put this on any web-based vscode-alike as well?
egberts1 1y ago
Does this static site generator require JavaScript?

27 points by volted 1y ago

Looks interesting from the screenshots. However after downloading on Mac, I get "Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, open '/Applications/PRSS Site Creator.app/Contents/Resources/static_themes/slate/manifest.json'" and "Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, scandir '/Applications/PRSS Site Creator.app/Contents/Resources/static_themes'" errors. Also, just a bit of feedback, your developer name on the app store is a bit sketchy <random digits> Canada Inc.

volted 1y ago
Thanks for the bug report yuppiepuppie! Will roll out a fix for that one asap. By the way the app is available on Windows, MacOS and Linux, so all feedback across platforms is very welcome! About the developer name, we tried to get Apple to use our "doing business as" name, but no dice. But thanks, it's very important to know what the first impressions are, to remove friction as much possible.

todotask2 1y ago

This seemed like something I came across in r/WordPress discussion on Reddit. The problem here is that it's only for Mac, while we have a cross-platform solution.

volted 1y ago
PRSS indeed is available on Windows, MacOS and Linux! However I spend most of the time on Windows, so bugs on the other platforms sometimes are caught later on. Will keep a closer eye on all versions, any startup bugs are a no-no. Hope you get to try it and share your feedback!
- todotask2 1y ago
  Typo, I mean Mac and Windows, didn't realise Linux is hidden in the drop down list.

8mobile 1y ago

Kudos to PRSS Site Creator, I like the idea and I installed it on my mac. As soon as the app starts I get this error, Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, scandir '/Applications/PRSS Site Creator.app/Contents/Resources/static_themes' how can I fix it? thanks

8mobile 1y ago
If I go ahead and create a post I get "Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, open '/Applications/PRSS Site Creator.app/Contents/Resources/static_themes/slate/manifest.json'"
- volted 1y ago
  Oh man, that's embarrassing. Is this with the Mac App Store (MAS) version, or the standalone MacOS "Universal" (dmg) one? Looking into it, I will push a new build soon. Update: I pushed a new UX build, hopefully that addresses it, but otherwise let me know! I added the support email in my profile. I actually cannot see the issue in my Mac Mini with the App Store build. So any more details would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!
  - JimDabell 1y ago
    I saw the same problem in the Mac App Store build. I don’t have any `static_themes` directory in the app bundle at all. There’s also something really weird going on with the window. When I have your application open and I hit ⌘Q to quit, it minimises. Bringing it back to the foreground doesn’t have a menu bar; the Finder menu bar is visible. Then after a while, the window goes away but I see it’s in the menubar. Don’t play silly games like this please. When I chose to download the Mac universal build from your website using Safari, a new blank tab opened and nothing happened. I closed the tab, returned to the original page, and saw a permission prompt asking to download from your website. The manual download version does have the `static_themes` directory. For what it’s worth, I don’t like downloading DMGs manually. In order of preference: Mac App Store Homebrew manual download.
    - 1y ago

jarofgreen 1y ago

So, reading between the lines, it's a desktop app that makes a static website and it then checks the build output (not the source with a build command) into a GitHub repository for hosting? Is it your own static website builder or did you consider using an existing one? What type of model are you going for here? I can't see anything about pricing, but I see text encouraging users to "reach out to support".

volted 1y ago
You got it right! It's a Static Site Generator with Github Pages integration. I was previously using WordPress and thought something that runs on my desktop with a pleasant UI could be better. I had some thoughts on how the interface should be and the features that would be cool to have. Regarding the model, there are addons for purchase within the app (for example, different editors, scheduled AI-assisted blogging, etc). But all are fully optional and will remain that way. There's also a new "book-style" theme that folks can purchase, but the free ones are very professional also. I encourage users to reach out to Support because it's the early feedback phase and the key is to understand what are folks impressions with the product and any features they would really like to have. So overall, the goal is UX and Developer Experience first, and further on there will be improvements and new offerings based on people's needs. Thank you for your feedback!
- jarofgreen 1y ago
  Ah ok. So kinda in competition with something like https://cloudcannon.com/ https://cloudcannon.com/ I'll be honest if you want feedback - as a developer I'd prefer a solution that builds on top of an existing open source static site builder. That way us devs can carry on using the tools and deploy options we know but our less technical colleagues who just want to put up a new blog post can use the nice CMS experience. A tool that requires we switch the entire site building process over to it is a harder sell. Sorry to be negative!
  - volted 1y ago
    These are interesting options! Thanks for sharing your feedback. Dealing with an existing stack is an interesting problem. But frankly, to think of setting up an SSG and then plug it into a Cloud CMS frontend in my view sounds complicated. But I see the appeal for existing projects. I think the question to figure out is: What would be a way to keep PRSS simple for the average person, but powerful enough for Devs? Currently the approach is to have the preset build system (to reduce third party dependencies and bugs), but provide the ability for devs to fork themes locally and use them in PRSS (this is supported). Ideally folks should only need to download PRSS, and have the Wizard to automatically setup Git and the GitHub CLI, and then PRSS would take care of the rest. But as I hear of folks use cases, it brings some good perspective. I will definitely think about these further! Thanks!

JimDabell 1y ago

“PRSS” is a bit of an impenetrable name. I assumed it was some kind of variant of RSS at first, and I was looking to see what a PRSS site was. But it’s just a brand name, right? It’s “the site creator called PRSS”, not “a creator for PRSS sites”?

volted 1y ago
Naming things is truly hard! It's indeed the site creator called PRSS. Before PRSS, I used WordPress and thought the concept of creating sites could be simplified and improved. "Press" was vague, so PRSS Site Creator was the alternative that came to mind, and for which shorter domains were available! But I do agree that "PRSS" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. I hope that the "Site Creator" part of the name combined with good user recommendations can help with visibility on search engines.
- JimDabell 1y ago
  I think having it in all caps is what is making it confusable with RSS. Maybe Prss would work better?

pidgeon_lover 1y ago

An alternative, if you already use your own static site generator (SSG) like Hugo, is Frontmatter (https://frontmatter.codes/ https://frontmatter.codes/), a VSCode(ium) plugin that gives you a CMS/Content Management System over your SSG. Similar use case to PRSS.

indigodaddy 1y ago
Interesting, how does it “deploy”, assuming it just pushes to git? And looks like I can put this on any web-based vscode-alike as well?

egberts1 1y ago

Does this static site generator require JavaScript?