5 ms·

Show HN: We built an easy way to create online guides and tutorials

83 points by shlomib 13y ago

p8952 13y ago
Can guides be viewed offline? Perhaps allowing users to export them as PDFs? I'd hate to put in weeks of work only to find my work lost when I need it due to network issues, the site closing, ect.
- ozkatz 13y ago
  not at the moment, but it's a great idea. We oppose vendor lock-in of any kind - so we'll definitely look into adding offline access and export features. Thanks!
  - p8952 13y ago
    Nice! A couple more things I noticed after a short play around: * It's not obvious how to (or maybe even not possible) to find a list of your published guides. * It's not obvious how to (or maybe even not possible) to delete your published guides. * You have to publish your guides right away, I doubt anyone wants to read my first draft. * Your source code editor does not accept tabs which means everything has to be copied and pasted in. Have you though about using something like ace? https://github.com/blog/905-edit-like-an-ace https://github.com/blog/905-edit-like-an-ace / https://github.com/ajaxorg/ace https://github.com/ajaxorg/ace
    - ozkatz 13y ago
      For now deleting and browsing through guides is not yet possible. Obviously both will be added very soon. We thought about Ace, actually, but we weren't sure yet if people will end up using stps for source code. We will probably look further into this in the future though. Thanks!
- 1337biz 13y ago
  Incredibly important! There are certain forums where I need to write every post first in the offline editor just because the timeout is way too short. This conditioned me to do anything offline that takes me longer than 10 minutes to recreate and just copy and paste it when ready. Same with blog posts, etc. It might be illogical, but when my machine crashes it is my fault and I get over it quite quickly. But if it feels like it is your site's fault that caused the trouble I am most likely not giving it a second chance.
danmaz74 13y ago
Is the not-vertically-aligned design by choice? It's very disturbing IMHO
schrodingersCat 13y ago
I agree with p8952, pdf export would be great. Having integration with services like pocket or readability might make sharing easier also. Alternatively, you could add ifttt support and let the user choose their own service. Great job! I will be using you service.
xpose2000 13y ago
These just look like blog posts to me with numbers. Am I missing something?
- ozkatz 13y ago
  Yea, we wanted to keep the display simple. The biggest difference would probably be the ease of creating these guides (along with media such as inline videos, images, maps and more) and publishing them.
gesman 13y ago
Can i see samples of beautiful guides to get excited to build one myself?
- ozkatz 13y ago
  There are a few guides featured on our home page, scroll down a bit.
k33n 13y ago
The landing page is great. A few really nice little details that are well-executed. Signup process is easy, and the app is easy to use. I love that you can embed videos and other stuff in it. Would make it easy to create and publish a step by step guide on how to change the oil in a car, for example. Great work!
- ozkatz 13y ago
  Thanks! glad you found it useful.
frankcaron 13y ago
The tech writer in me is losing his shit over how cool this is.
Trufa 13y ago
The idea if freaking great, and beautifully executed, I will try to use it myself and share it as much as possible, that said, I have two problems before I start using it. I don't think I will be able to do so for my work without the ability to export... (Just as an idea, when exporting to a pdf, for example, the embedded youtube videos should be turned into links instead). Finally, I would need an option for the guides to be private/shareable, otherwise we would be limited in the things we could use it for, maybe that could be a premium paid service, that could be a reasonable monetizing strategy (github like). But again, I'm excited about this tool and think it has great potential. Thanks for this!
- ozkatz 13y ago
  Hey, thanks for the input! As I've said before, export and offline access are both on our TODO. Your comments on private vs public guides are great. It's something we discussed and we will put a lot of thought into getting this part right.
  - Trufa 13y ago
    Awesome, congrats on the app again, I hope you make the most out of it! I'm interested in knowing what kind of technologies is this built on, do you have a technical blog or some technical data anywhere?
    - ozkatz 13y ago
      You can check out my personal blog at ozkatz.github.io - I'll be writing about it soon, probably.
  - pdenya 13y ago
    Most people can print to PDF at this point, you could delay working on something more complicated for exporting by investing a few minutes in fixing your print stylesheet. It already looks almost correct, just a few overlaps.
cinbun8 13y ago
Nice work. Some ideas for features. * Ability to export to PDF / HTML / ZIP. * Offline mode - (Which can be actually be achieved through HTML export) * Public / Private guides * Send guide via email * Link to a step in another guide.
- reinhardt1053 13y ago
  I would add: make the website responsive
  - ozkatz 13y ago
    coming soon :)
spektom 13y ago
Great idea! It would be nice if one was able to start creating guides without registering with the service.
tonetheman 13y ago
Interesting. The site looks nice. I need a way to go back and edit or finish my guides. The ability to export to a PDF would be nice too. I started one and did not finish it, I ended up having to publish it anyway... Either way interesting idea.
josephagoss 13y ago
Any chance for adding mathematics? :)
- ozkatz 13y ago
  Maybe! We'll add it to our list of things to think about :)
antocv 13y ago
We need a guide and tutorial "How to leak safely, precautions and considerations" Im writing it here because I dont want to register for another web site. I want to write a guide ,not deal with registrations usernames, validations, logins, ugh. 0. Find and use a safe computer to investigate about leaking and whistleblowing, or make your computer safer by using a Live operating system such as Linux - it basically runs your computer from a USB-stick and is safer than using your normal devices. 1. Get familiar with information security by using duckduckgo.com and wikipedia to search and find about following keywords, Tor bundle, I2P, https, PGP. 2. Find or probe a journalist at the guardian if you want to put your face behind the leak/whistleblowing, which ads more trust. Or if you choose leave it to wikileaks to protect your identity but they will manage the contacting with journalists for you, contact any journalists or wikileaks regarding mundane issues to setup trust, so that you are certain you're talking to the right person, and then begin talking using Tor bundle and PGP. 3. Dump your data on wikileaks or mail a USB-stick with it to several journalists, trusted friends. Learn how to make an encrypted file and put it on thepiratebay or any other torrent tracker. Email encrypted to two persons/journalists each half of the pasword to the file. This is your life insurance. 4. Run for it.
- Trufa 13y ago
  http://stps.co/r/dg439zR http://stps.co/r/dg439zR
  - StacyC 13y ago
    Ha!
- simplify 13y ago
  With regard to the pain of creating yet another account, I really do believe Mozilla Persona is perfect for websites like this one. All they need is your email address, and Persona protects your privacy by only providing this information. I honestly can't wait to see a future where almost all non-social websites use Persona as their login system. We'll be able to create accounts with only a single click.
  - 13y ago
johndavi 13y ago
If you could help standardize the size of screenshots / images that would be a great value-add. Could be as simple as a cropping tool upon upload that offers an automatic crop selection matching dimensions of previously uploaded image sizes (or that of the first image). E.g., if my first image uploaded was 300x400, make that an automatic crop-zone for subsequent uploads.
bryanjos 13y ago
This looks great! Good job!
josephlord 13y ago
"Use of the Service shall be solely for your own, private, non-commercial purposes and for no other purpose whatsoever." Also the terms of service seem to indicate that you own everything created although I may have miss parsed that one.
eterm 13y ago
you hereby grant Summer a non-exclusive, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free license, including the right to sublicense, to use and disclose such comments and suggestions in any manner Summer chooses and to display, perform, copy, have copied, make, have made, use, sell, offer to sell, and otherwise dispose of Summer's and its sublicensees' products and content embodying such comments or suggestions in any manner and via any media Summer chooses, but without reference to the source of such comments or suggestions. No, no I don't. Any chance we could choose how to protect or not our own work? Flickr for instance has a very useful set of licenses to choose from including all rights reserved. I get that this isn't quite like Flickr, but giving up the above rights seems a little too much.
- bradleysmith 13y ago
  Thanks for pointing this out. Do you have a URL to where you found this?
  - eterm 13y ago
    http://stps.co/accounts/legal/terms/ http://stps.co/accounts/legal/terms/ Under the heading "Intellectual Property Ownership"
    - ozkatz 13y ago
      Thanks for the feedback guys. I see how this could be a problem. We'll look into relaxing the terms and allowing you more control over your data.
danecjensen 13y ago
This is great. What tech are you using?
- ozkatz 13y ago
  Hey, thanks for the interest - I'll be writing about it soon on my personal blog - http://ozkatz.github.io/ http://ozkatz.github.io/
dominotw 13y ago
This looks very clean. Is there an open-source self hosted equivalent to this.

83 points by shlomib 13y ago

p8952 13y ago

Can guides be viewed offline? Perhaps allowing users to export them as PDFs? I'd hate to put in weeks of work only to find my work lost when I need it due to network issues, the site closing, ect.

ozkatz 13y ago
not at the moment, but it's a great idea. We oppose vendor lock-in of any kind - so we'll definitely look into adding offline access and export features. Thanks!
- p8952 13y ago
  Nice! A couple more things I noticed after a short play around: * It's not obvious how to (or maybe even not possible) to find a list of your published guides. * It's not obvious how to (or maybe even not possible) to delete your published guides. * You have to publish your guides right away, I doubt anyone wants to read my first draft. * Your source code editor does not accept tabs which means everything has to be copied and pasted in. Have you though about using something like ace? https://github.com/blog/905-edit-like-an-ace https://github.com/blog/905-edit-like-an-ace / https://github.com/ajaxorg/ace https://github.com/ajaxorg/ace
  - ozkatz 13y ago
    For now deleting and browsing through guides is not yet possible. Obviously both will be added very soon. We thought about Ace, actually, but we weren't sure yet if people will end up using stps for source code. We will probably look further into this in the future though. Thanks!
1337biz 13y ago
Incredibly important! There are certain forums where I need to write every post first in the offline editor just because the timeout is way too short. This conditioned me to do anything offline that takes me longer than 10 minutes to recreate and just copy and paste it when ready. Same with blog posts, etc. It might be illogical, but when my machine crashes it is my fault and I get over it quite quickly. But if it feels like it is your site's fault that caused the trouble I am most likely not giving it a second chance.

danmaz74 13y ago

Is the not-vertically-aligned design by choice? It's very disturbing IMHO

schrodingersCat 13y ago

I agree with p8952, pdf export would be great. Having integration with services like pocket or readability might make sharing easier also. Alternatively, you could add ifttt support and let the user choose their own service. Great job! I will be using you service.

xpose2000 13y ago

These just look like blog posts to me with numbers. Am I missing something?

ozkatz 13y ago
Yea, we wanted to keep the display simple. The biggest difference would probably be the ease of creating these guides (along with media such as inline videos, images, maps and more) and publishing them.

gesman 13y ago

Can i see samples of beautiful guides to get excited to build one myself?

ozkatz 13y ago
There are a few guides featured on our home page, scroll down a bit.

k33n 13y ago

The landing page is great. A few really nice little details that are well-executed. Signup process is easy, and the app is easy to use. I love that you can embed videos and other stuff in it. Would make it easy to create and publish a step by step guide on how to change the oil in a car, for example. Great work!

ozkatz 13y ago
Thanks! glad you found it useful.

frankcaron 13y ago

The tech writer in me is losing his shit over how cool this is.

Trufa 13y ago

The idea if freaking great, and beautifully executed, I will try to use it myself and share it as much as possible, that said, I have two problems before I start using it. I don't think I will be able to do so for my work without the ability to export... (Just as an idea, when exporting to a pdf, for example, the embedded youtube videos should be turned into links instead). Finally, I would need an option for the guides to be private/shareable, otherwise we would be limited in the things we could use it for, maybe that could be a premium paid service, that could be a reasonable monetizing strategy (github like). But again, I'm excited about this tool and think it has great potential. Thanks for this!

ozkatz 13y ago
Hey, thanks for the input! As I've said before, export and offline access are both on our TODO. Your comments on private vs public guides are great. It's something we discussed and we will put a lot of thought into getting this part right.
- Trufa 13y ago
  Awesome, congrats on the app again, I hope you make the most out of it! I'm interested in knowing what kind of technologies is this built on, do you have a technical blog or some technical data anywhere?
  - ozkatz 13y ago
    You can check out my personal blog at ozkatz.github.io - I'll be writing about it soon, probably.
- pdenya 13y ago
  Most people can print to PDF at this point, you could delay working on something more complicated for exporting by investing a few minutes in fixing your print stylesheet. It already looks almost correct, just a few overlaps.

cinbun8 13y ago

Nice work. Some ideas for features. * Ability to export to PDF / HTML / ZIP. * Offline mode - (Which can be actually be achieved through HTML export) * Public / Private guides * Send guide via email * Link to a step in another guide.

reinhardt1053 13y ago
I would add: make the website responsive
- ozkatz 13y ago
  coming soon :)

spektom 13y ago

Great idea! It would be nice if one was able to start creating guides without registering with the service.

tonetheman 13y ago

Interesting. The site looks nice. I need a way to go back and edit or finish my guides. The ability to export to a PDF would be nice too. I started one and did not finish it, I ended up having to publish it anyway... Either way interesting idea.

josephagoss 13y ago

Any chance for adding mathematics? :)

ozkatz 13y ago
Maybe! We'll add it to our list of things to think about :)

antocv 13y ago

We need a guide and tutorial "How to leak safely, precautions and considerations" Im writing it here because I dont want to register for another web site. I want to write a guide ,not deal with registrations usernames, validations, logins, ugh. 0. Find and use a safe computer to investigate about leaking and whistleblowing, or make your computer safer by using a Live operating system such as Linux - it basically runs your computer from a USB-stick and is safer than using your normal devices. 1. Get familiar with information security by using duckduckgo.com and wikipedia to search and find about following keywords, Tor bundle, I2P, https, PGP. 2. Find or probe a journalist at the guardian if you want to put your face behind the leak/whistleblowing, which ads more trust. Or if you choose leave it to wikileaks to protect your identity but they will manage the contacting with journalists for you, contact any journalists or wikileaks regarding mundane issues to setup trust, so that you are certain you're talking to the right person, and then begin talking using Tor bundle and PGP. 3. Dump your data on wikileaks or mail a USB-stick with it to several journalists, trusted friends. Learn how to make an encrypted file and put it on thepiratebay or any other torrent tracker. Email encrypted to two persons/journalists each half of the pasword to the file. This is your life insurance. 4. Run for it.

Trufa 13y ago
http://stps.co/r/dg439zR http://stps.co/r/dg439zR
- StacyC 13y ago
  Ha!
simplify 13y ago
With regard to the pain of creating yet another account, I really do believe Mozilla Persona is perfect for websites like this one. All they need is your email address, and Persona protects your privacy by only providing this information. I honestly can't wait to see a future where almost all non-social websites use Persona as their login system. We'll be able to create accounts with only a single click.
- 13y ago

johndavi 13y ago

If you could help standardize the size of screenshots / images that would be a great value-add. Could be as simple as a cropping tool upon upload that offers an automatic crop selection matching dimensions of previously uploaded image sizes (or that of the first image). E.g., if my first image uploaded was 300x400, make that an automatic crop-zone for subsequent uploads.

bryanjos 13y ago

This looks great! Good job!

josephlord 13y ago

"Use of the Service shall be solely for your own, private, non-commercial purposes and for no other purpose whatsoever." Also the terms of service seem to indicate that you own everything created although I may have miss parsed that one.

eterm 13y ago

you hereby grant Summer a non-exclusive, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free license, including the right to sublicense, to use and disclose such comments and suggestions in any manner Summer chooses and to display, perform, copy, have copied, make, have made, use, sell, offer to sell, and otherwise dispose of Summer's and its sublicensees' products and content embodying such comments or suggestions in any manner and via any media Summer chooses, but without reference to the source of such comments or suggestions. No, no I don't. Any chance we could choose how to protect or not our own work? Flickr for instance has a very useful set of licenses to choose from including all rights reserved. I get that this isn't quite like Flickr, but giving up the above rights seems a little too much.

bradleysmith 13y ago
Thanks for pointing this out. Do you have a URL to where you found this?
- eterm 13y ago
  http://stps.co/accounts/legal/terms/ http://stps.co/accounts/legal/terms/ Under the heading "Intellectual Property Ownership"
  - ozkatz 13y ago
    Thanks for the feedback guys. I see how this could be a problem. We'll look into relaxing the terms and allowing you more control over your data.

danecjensen 13y ago

This is great. What tech are you using?

ozkatz 13y ago
Hey, thanks for the interest - I'll be writing about it soon on my personal blog - http://ozkatz.github.io/ http://ozkatz.github.io/

dominotw 13y ago

This looks very clean. Is there an open-source self hosted equivalent to this.