5 ms·

Show HN: Nextprev.it: Share PDFs & control what page the viewer sees in realtime

40 points by cooop 14y ago

We just launched Nextprev.it — A project we put together over a couple of days.<p>The project stemmed from a frustration with PDF file transfers and screen-sharing when giving design presentations to clients through Skype.<p>Please give it a go and let us know what you think - @nextprev<p>Any feedback is greatly appreciated!

jongold 14y ago
I've been testing this for the past week or so - used it for a couple of client presentations and it's absolutely fantastic.
sync 14y ago
Neat idea. It'd be nice if you could see how many other people were viewing the presentation and perhaps even chat with them.
- cooop 14y ago
  Definitely a feature we have planned for the near future as well as some handy pro features. Thanks for the feedback.
gawker 14y ago
Very nice. I did something similar as well a couple of weeks ago but didn't publish it. Good job!
gklitt 14y ago
Love it. Great use of websockets to create a simple solution to a common problem.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
tehwebguy 14y ago
This is very cool! It's not really the same purpose but a cool feature to me would be a sponsorship / deck feature so you can send it out to see who views it individually. So you can see which potential sponsors actually look at the info you send, and which pages.
lewisflude 14y ago
Pretty awesome, does it come in black?
dfamorato 14y ago
Very very nice, congratulations ! Could you share a little bit of the technologies used ? How to you make every browser go to the same page ? Do you think this would be possible with video as well, like making sure everybody is at the same point on a video ?
- heeton 14y ago
  We host the PDFs on AmazonS3, and use PDJ.js to render them on the page. To keep everyone on the same page, we use websocket events via Pusher. Video would be quite different, so we don't have any plans for that now.
- roh26it 14y ago
  framebench.com does this for video, PDF and images.. syncs pan and zoom position as well. In private beta, collecting some great feedback for now :) Great to see people building apps which leverage the power of sockets and enable real time interactions on the web. A trend which is much likely to catch fire soon. (yes, I work with Framebench!)
hammock 14y ago
I will start using this immediately. Question- do the links expire after a certain amount of time, or can I control how long the PDF is available at that link? That would be an important feature to me (as a way to protect confidentiality etc)
- heeton 14y ago
  Yes, we'll delete files and links after 24 hours. That's not implemented yet, but will be happening by the end of the weekend. We're also planning some pro features like account-level permissions, and we could serve the PDF file dynamically from our servers instead of storing it on S3. I'd love to know if you have any precise security requirements, feel free to email me: alex@heeton.me
genwin 14y ago
Great demo! I'd make the "You see this" "They see this" images larger. And add a favicon, if only so it's more clear that the "<>" at top left is a logo (and when the user clicks on the logo, go home).
diebuche2 14y ago
Doesn't seem to work in Chrome. This is what I get: http://i.imgur.com/ps7LT.png http://i.imgur.com/ps7LT.png
- cooop 14y ago
  Ah, that sucks. Sorry about that. We haven't run into this. This may be due to your PDF export settings or the library we're using to render the PDFs. We'll look into it.
  - diebuche2 14y ago
    It's the example pdf, so it's probably the renderer. I'm using v22.0.1229.94 on 10.8
  - amalag 14y ago
    I am getting the same thing on Mac OSX, I have a stock chrome, and only 2-3 extensions. Version 22.0.1229.94 on Max OSX 10.6.8
  - phlyingpenguin 14y ago
    Are things broken right now? No matter the browser, when I try to upload one of my small PowerDot created presentations (90k), it just pops a banner up that says "Thanks for signing up" and nothing happens.
    - cooop 14y ago
      Yea, that's totally our fault. We added an email signup form, but screwed something up. It should be working now!
      - phlyingpenguin 14y ago
        Thanks, it looks like it works now. This will be great for my research group!
  - roh26it 14y ago
francov88 14y ago
Great work Alex! This looks very useful and promising.

40 points by cooop 14y ago

jongold 14y ago

I've been testing this for the past week or so - used it for a couple of client presentations and it's absolutely fantastic.

sync 14y ago

Neat idea. It'd be nice if you could see how many other people were viewing the presentation and perhaps even chat with them.

cooop 14y ago
Definitely a feature we have planned for the near future as well as some handy pro features. Thanks for the feedback.

gawker 14y ago

Very nice. I did something similar as well a couple of weeks ago but didn't publish it. Good job!

gklitt 14y ago

Love it. Great use of websockets to create a simple solution to a common problem.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

tehwebguy 14y ago

This is very cool! It's not really the same purpose but a cool feature to me would be a sponsorship / deck feature so you can send it out to see who views it individually. So you can see which potential sponsors actually look at the info you send, and which pages.

lewisflude 14y ago

Pretty awesome, does it come in black?

dfamorato 14y ago

Very very nice, congratulations ! Could you share a little bit of the technologies used ? How to you make every browser go to the same page ? Do you think this would be possible with video as well, like making sure everybody is at the same point on a video ?

heeton 14y ago
We host the PDFs on AmazonS3, and use PDJ.js to render them on the page. To keep everyone on the same page, we use websocket events via Pusher. Video would be quite different, so we don't have any plans for that now.
roh26it 14y ago
framebench.com does this for video, PDF and images.. syncs pan and zoom position as well. In private beta, collecting some great feedback for now :) Great to see people building apps which leverage the power of sockets and enable real time interactions on the web. A trend which is much likely to catch fire soon. (yes, I work with Framebench!)

hammock 14y ago

I will start using this immediately. Question- do the links expire after a certain amount of time, or can I control how long the PDF is available at that link? That would be an important feature to me (as a way to protect confidentiality etc)

heeton 14y ago
Yes, we'll delete files and links after 24 hours. That's not implemented yet, but will be happening by the end of the weekend. We're also planning some pro features like account-level permissions, and we could serve the PDF file dynamically from our servers instead of storing it on S3. I'd love to know if you have any precise security requirements, feel free to email me: alex@heeton.me

genwin 14y ago

Great demo! I'd make the "You see this" "They see this" images larger. And add a favicon, if only so it's more clear that the "<>" at top left is a logo (and when the user clicks on the logo, go home).

diebuche2 14y ago

Doesn't seem to work in Chrome. This is what I get: http://i.imgur.com/ps7LT.png http://i.imgur.com/ps7LT.png

cooop 14y ago
Ah, that sucks. Sorry about that. We haven't run into this. This may be due to your PDF export settings or the library we're using to render the PDFs. We'll look into it.
- diebuche2 14y ago
  It's the example pdf, so it's probably the renderer. I'm using v22.0.1229.94 on 10.8
- amalag 14y ago
  I am getting the same thing on Mac OSX, I have a stock chrome, and only 2-3 extensions. Version 22.0.1229.94 on Max OSX 10.6.8
- phlyingpenguin 14y ago
  Are things broken right now? No matter the browser, when I try to upload one of my small PowerDot created presentations (90k), it just pops a banner up that says "Thanks for signing up" and nothing happens.
  - cooop 14y ago
    Yea, that's totally our fault. We added an email signup form, but screwed something up. It should be working now!
    - phlyingpenguin 14y ago
      Thanks, it looks like it works now. This will be great for my research group!
- roh26it 14y ago

francov88 14y ago

Great work Alex! This looks very useful and promising.