8 ms·

Show HN: A Github for writers?

181 points by petervandijck 13y ago

petervandijck 13y ago
Not my project, but I'm using it. One guy working on it. I think it's a wonderful, wonderful concept.
Blahah 13y ago
It looks a lot like the prose.io interface. I like prose.io, but the huge problem with the browser editor is that there's no on-going autosave, so for example, accidental backspaces can wipe out all the work you've done since the last commit. Haven't checked out penflip yet, but I hope it doesn't make the same mistake.
- hadem 13y ago
  Couldn't developers use the browser's local database for auto-saving? Or save drafts back to the server every so often via Ajax calls?
  - saraid216 13y ago
    The issue isn't "is it technically possible" but rather "did the app developer realize it's sort of important and actually implement it".
feronull 13y ago
It's so slow for me, hn effect ?
kmfrk 13y ago
The interface is incredibly well-done. Great job on that. I would ask to see more information before providing my sign-up information, though. Speaking of which, it seems obvious to just let users sign in with their GitHub information.
co_pl_te 13y ago
Love this. Actually working on something similar ('GitHub for storytellers') as my first Rails project. I have to learn a lot more to get mine even presentable, though.
oneeyedpigeon 13y ago
There's a footer, but with 'infinite scroll', it's impossible to access. (Other than that, looks great so far - just a quick bit of constructive criticism!)
ghosttie 13y ago
How is this different from Google Docs?
- Heliosmaster 13y ago
  Markdown, for example
  - jfromaniello 13y ago
    I've a pet project http://mdocs.io http://mdocs.io aims to be closer to gdocs for markdown. We use operational transformations for realtime editing and we allow connecting Google Apps domains so you can share to everyone in company and so on. The Interface needs more work . it is open source.
- praveer13 13y ago
  better interface, a good community, more featured aimed at writing etc.
- vinitool76 13y ago
  Versioning might be one feature.
eoinmurray92 13y ago
Anyone know what they are using for document conversion, turning the document into a PDF for example?
- guynamedloren 13y ago
  Pandoc with custom templates.
adrianh 13y ago
Reminds me of Draft, which seems much more fully featured (and is made by frequent YC contributor Nate Kontny): https://draftin.com/ https://draftin.com/
- visakanv 13y ago
  Who are the most significant users? Tobi says it's cool, but does he use it? Not doubting, just curious. Who are the best writers we've got who say "yes, this is good for me" ?
- davidw 13y ago
  For that matter, it's not too different from LeanPub.com
- wusatiuk 13y ago
  from my perspective, from the usability perspective it is much better than draftin.com
bedspax 13y ago
http://20lin.es/ http://20lin.es/
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
rpedela 13y ago
Do writers (non-techies) use and/or want to use Markdown?
- co_pl_te 13y ago
  It depends. I like using Markdown for writing. Being a 'writer' does not preclude one from being a 'techie'.
  - Dewie 13y ago
    I think he only meant to ask about writers who are not techies.
    - rpedela 13y ago
      yes
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- anseljh 13y ago
  No.
- csense 13y ago
  What's wrong with Markdown? How could it be improved so less technical people will be more comfortable with it? I always thought that Markdown was about as user-friendly as such a thing could get, since it was based on the ad-hoc conventions people have developed over the years for email.
jasonkolb 13y ago
Why not just keep your files in git? Use a git GUI if the command line is intimidating to writers. That way you don't have to create a brand new writing tool. I keep scrivener files in git, it works great.
- co_pl_te 13y ago
  Git is certainly capable of this, but I don't think that makes a service like Penflip that focuses specifically on collaborative writing superfluous. I like to code and I like to write, but I'd be much more likely to put a Rails app on Github than, say, a short story on which I'd like to collaborate. It's not that Github can't be used as an effective tool for collaborative writing, but rather, that it isn't really the place for it. I have a lot better chance of social interaction around code on Github versus writing because the primary social object on Github is code. There is no question that good writing exists on Github and that it shines for particular forms of writing, but the dearth of writers to coders there seems to signify that a service like Penflip has a market that could be better served.
  - jasonkolb 13y ago
    That's a good point, I hadn't considered the collaboration aspect. Out of curiosity, what kind of projects require this? I suppose a book with multiple authors is one good example, are there others?
    - aaren 13y ago
      A research paper with multiple authors - possibly in very different locations. Research often involves code as well, which would make github more suitable.
- arb99 13y ago
  Most writers won't want to use git.
  - interstitial 13y ago
cpr 13y ago
Looks good at first blush, but please fix the embedded hyphens in the top screen shot. (Must have been a quick copy'n'paste from public domain text.)
- guynamedloren 13y ago
  Good catch :) You are correct!
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
spindritf 13y ago
Very cool. Is there something like this for collaboration on reST (reStructuredText) documents?
iancarroll 13y ago
This seems to be based on Gitlab. I'm sorry if it's not bit something tells me it is.
tehwalrus 13y ago
Just in time for Novel Writing Month![1] I will be penning my 50,000 words in this (both on the web interface, and locally in Mou[2].) [1] http://nanowrimo.org http://nanowrimo.org [2] http://mouapp.com/ http://mouapp.com/
cheez 13y ago
Don't use developer language.
- csense 13y ago
  This is very vague. What specific instances of "developer language" do you see? Better yet, what are the alternative ways of explaining?
dylandrop 13y ago
When I hear "writer", I think of a screenwriter, novelist, or poet of some sort. "Github for writers" is misleading, since I think the people who would use this wouldn't be writers, but rather technical people who collaboratively write things. This is cool, given its audience is people who write blogs or possibly research papers. I think you showed this (or the premise of this idea) on HN a month ago or so. It still has the same problems as it does then... IF your core audience is still writers as defined above. 1) Writers write in revisions, and don't like to have every word they change critiqued by their editors/producers/etc. 2) Writers don't like markdown -- they want WYSIWYG. This feature alone makes me feel like your goal was to make this tool for technical people. 3) I think a lot of meaningless changes would get jumbled up in the mix if you're writing something long. If you're writing a novel, it would be nice to go between different versions of the novel, but perhaps a bit too much if you had a commit for every punctuation mark. This being said, I'm sort of interested what you think your audience should be. I think it could be a good tool given the right circumstances.
- why-el 13y ago
  Number 1 can be easily dealt with if both parties categorize changes. We do this with git all the time no? No one reviews my "Fix some typos" commit.
  - dylandrop 13y ago
    Agreed. At the same time though, it's annoying to have to categorize every change. I think it would be better to maybe split the service between blog writers / screen writers / novel writers, since each would have their own preference. I think novelists would prefer having a versioning system for broad changes rather than tiny ones.. And not have to categorize them.
- antjanus 13y ago
  Novel writer here (unpublished but I've written several books, writing my next one in a month). The site looks intriguing but yeah, I agree with your points: 1. I do write in revisions. Smaller changes don't matter as much when it comes to the end product. However, what I WOULD love to see is a previous copy on the right of the screen and a text editor on the left. I tend to do my revisions that way so that I can look at what I wrote, copy/paste what's fine, and rewrite what needs to be rewritten while still looking at the original. 2. After trying out a million "distraction free" writers, I am still on MS Office. It's really worth it for me. I can't stand writing in Libre, or OO, or Ohm, or Monkey (whatever it's called). Scrivener may be the only exception but I usually just port my stuff there. 3. Exactly Here are the things I do like: 1. chapter by chapter separation of concerns. I like that. Even if it's in the form of text files, it's great. 2. one-click publishing. I really appreciate that. It's a pain to go from Word to a properly formatted PUB file. Having a tool that does this for you from the get-go is awesome. I've spent way too much time reformatting Word to be accepted by Smashwords in the past. 3. Comments. I enjoy this as well. If I had someone to help me out with my book, this would be a great feature. If I was to hire someone to help me out with editing and critiquing my work, I'd use this tool. Definitely would. With that said, I would abuse the hell out of this for blog writing.
Brajeshwar 13y ago
My humble suggestions to any service/product you introduce, even to beta testers, is to quote a price or an inkling of the upcoming pricing slabs. If there will be a free version with limited features, do mention that. For instance, I know Trello and Evernote will always have a free version which is good enough to a large extend and they promised that. I'm on Evernote Premium out of love though I still do not need the premium features. So is the same with Trello (few people were generous enough to sign-up through my links). Without a price that I can calculate for continued future usage, I'm very reluctant to "get used-to" a particular app/service/product. These days, if I like a product/service/site, and cannot find a price tag, I email the founders asking for an idea. Many do reply but it gets irritating that I have to do this quite often. I do understand the marketing temptations and tricks of getting more users with "free trials". However, if your price in future is not affordable, then I'm going to be sad, irritated and may even hate you. Please don't let your customers hate you. It should be pretty OK to avoid customers from the beginning, who may not be ready to pay the price you quote than to promise them something and charge them another in future.
- guynamedloren 13y ago
  Thanks for bringing this up. I completely agree. Penflip is actually still in alpha, and wasn't quite ready to be shared with a larger audience. I was planning on posting HN with beta, which would include pricing. Anyway, just so you know: the pricing model will be similar to github: free for open source / public projects, small monthly fee for private projects ($5+ a month depending on number of projects).
  - reissbaker 13y ago
    Unsolicited advice, but: I'm not sure that's the best business model for a tool aimed at writers. Github's model succeeded because there was already a thriving community of people contributing open-source work; with writing, most FOSS licenses don't make sense for the way that the content is consumed, and there isn't much of a pre-existing community built up around it that you can lean on. Most importantly, though, and unlike OSS, even people who publish in the public domain generally don't write drafts in it: they release articles and stories when they're finished. I'd try to structure your business model more along the lines of behavior that people already have. Some ideas off the top of my head: 1. Notebooks. All writers are intimately familiar with the concept, and having separate notebooks is a useful organizational tool. First notebook's free, and you can pay for the rest. 2. Blogging. You can have one private working document at a time, and unlimited number of public blog posts. The private document is important — no one wants to publish half-finished. Want more working documents? Pay up. 3. Collaborators. You can collaborate with one person for free; if you want multiple collaborators, you have to pay. I'm sure you can come up with others. My point just is: structure your company around your customers.
GotNothing 13y ago
Been watching something very similar now geared to social writing, but less technical. https://editorially.com/ https://editorially.com/
vinitool76 13y ago
Really like it, great work. Would love if it follows a pricing models similar to github.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- anseljh 13y ago
  There's also no privacy policy. Oops.
the1 13y ago
As a writer for digital media, I use MS Word. Need to write without being online. And I send my file to editorial team to merge (with images and other writers work) and convert to web page format.
philip1209 13y ago
I write in LaTeX and version control with Github. Pretty efficient, considering that losing one's work is always the biggest fear. My commit messages are my word count.
possibilistic 13y ago
Whoa guys, you send way too many emails! In the last hour I've received about 15 emails, and they're still coming in. Please don't subscribe me to every event by default!
- guynamedloren 13y ago
  Sorry about this. Still in alpha, explained here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6619284 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6619284
franklovecchio 13y ago
I want to see http://fountain.io/ http://fountain.io/ built into these editing tools. Screenplays in markdown!
may 13y ago
I'm a writer and I'm not sure why I need this. If I'm doing something collaboratively, I'll either use a DVCS or meet with people in person. Or hack something together via Google Docs. (OK, I'm starting to see how this could be useful). That said, I use Draft on a daily basis and it's awesome.
booruguru 13y ago
How am I supposed to create new pages for a "book" project? Also, when I created a new document, it took me a while to understand that I was supposed to edit/delete the text in the current document to begin writing. (In that instance, I was also looking for a "new document" button.) I don't want to do writing using a web interface. I think a desktop client would make a service like this far more attractive. However, I think it would be a bit of a hard sell because of the slight learning curve. I think you need to demonstrate Penflip's value proposition by providing actual use cases for such an app. Otherwise, your app looks very slick and quite promising.
- guynamedloren 13y ago
  There will be a desktop app eventually! If you're comfortable with git, you can clone the project and work on your own computer, like you would with any git repository. If you have the GitHub app on your computer, you can use that for Penflip projects as well: http://www.penflip.com/Penflip/help/blob/master/WorkingOffline.txt/preview http://www.penflip.com/Penflip/help/blob/master/WorkingOffli...
vincentperes 13y ago
interesting! any idea on where I could find writers that would help on my story?
thatthatis 13y ago
Im not sure you've necessarily cracked the code, but I applaud the effort to get sane version control and collaboration into other aspects of work. Compared to the elegant and bullet proof code versioning with git, adding v_2013_1026_1300 to the end of file names in powerpoint, word, and excel just feels barbaric.
btbuildem 13y ago
Can't try it out without signing up, what gives? At least have a short video that showcases the MVP..
cphoover 13y ago
If you use wordpress my friend is working on a very cool plugin called post-forking: http://wordpress.org/plugins/post-forking/ http://wordpress.org/plugins/post-forking/ This post brought it to mind.
brm 13y ago
Yeah, I might be late to the party here, but... I signed up for penflip two and a half hours ago and have received eight emails from you guys since then. This is not cool. I don't care if they're notifications. Auto-on is a terrible default from a user experience stand point in this case. Edit: Also, I can't easily find where to turn them on or off, and if its available I'm having difficulty figuring out how to delete my account. Edit 2: Done being blinded email rage, I located the notifications control panel which is relatively obvious (so facepalm for me there), however, having searched the site it does not appear as easy to delete my account altogether.
- guynamedloren 13y ago
  Hey there, sorry about this. I'm the guy building Penflip. It's still in alpha and was not ready to be shared with a larger audience. The email notifications for discussions were helpful for the smaller alpha group that I was/am currently testing with.
- guynamedloren 13y ago
  Just a quick update - I've disabled all email notifications from the alpha project (the source of these notifications). No more emails should be sent out. Again, very sorry about that. Rough day.
  - baby 13y ago
    quick reply to feedback, that's what we appreciate, thank you for this! Just my 2 cents: * Why can't I use "," in my project name? My book is titled "Je sais ce que je fais, du moins je pense" but I had to replace the , by a . * Fiction? My book is not really a fiction book, more of an autobiography. * Edit to add/create files? I know you want to make it like git/svn but this is counter-intuitive (or maybe I missed something here?) also. I might not be the best writer, but this is how I work : I have one folder for each big "chapters" that has several chapter_x.txt. And each chapter has a chapter_x_notes.txt with notes about the chapter I'm writing. I wrote a small javascript/php client that reads my txt and display them like Emacs/Sublime Text 2 buffers and display my work on the left and the appropriate notes on the right. Because I really think that it's important to have a guideline at all moment when you're writing something. For example : + china - chapter 1 - first steps.txt - chapter 1 - notes.txt - chapter 2 - first meal.txt - chapter 2 - notes.txt + france - chapter 3 - paris.txt - chapter 3 - notes.txt etc... * my connection crashed during a save, when I got my connection back the save wouldn't finish. I guess there is a timeout but then it should cancel the save and let me continue it when the connection comes back. I hope I make sense. * for something as important as a book, I'm really scared doing that on an external website. I normally write on ST3 locally + dropbox for backup. I know I can download the thing on .epub,.pdf,.html etc... but I want to be able to download it in a way I can import it back to your application in case something goes wrong or I want to clone the project. * I can't delete a file I'm currently editing * When a filename is too long the bin icon when you hover it in the list of files on the left is overlaping with the name * in my resolution, which is quite small, it doesn't scale very well, especially when I display the file tree on the left. * Really need folders on this file tree. * When editing a project, the only way to go back to its index page is to click on its name in the file tree. Not very clear. A breadcrumbs system would be nicer to tell you at least what project you're editing. * Also I know this might be too much and too much of a fancy feature, but importing a folder (like the example three I gave you) would be very nice. I have to copy/paste all my .txt now
caiob 13y ago
another one?
guynamedloren 13y ago
Hi everyone, I'm the guy building Penflip. Apologies for the load of emails and rough edges - Penflip actually still in alpha, and is not quite ready for the primetime.
- coldarchon 13y ago
  What does your site have that Deviantart does not fulfill?
nav 13y ago
This is awesome.
benwerd 13y ago
Looks neat. My favorite app in this genre is Poetica, which is in private beta but a real joy to use: https://poetica.com/ https://poetica.com/
csense 13y ago
Other than the scrollbar, there's no indication on the front page that you can scroll down to see more. Requiring signup is a huge barrier to entry for me. I don't want to give a website my email until I have a clear sense of what their value proposition is. In other words, the more I can do without signing up, the more likely I am to see the value and eventually become a registered user, paying customer, and recommend the service to others. With Github, for example, I lurked for months before joining. Usually browsing and cloning public projets. Letting your users see real projects that people are working on (even ones that have voluntarily become public) is a plus. Also, I think that, since you're targeting a market that's not already familiar with Git, your marketing should focus specifically on the value that Git-enabled workflows can provide. Explain how a reader can send you a pull request with a grammar fix, how you can easily merge changes from multiple contributors, how you can attribute each line to a specific person.
- guynamedloren 13y ago
  I'll update the landing page to link to public projects, which, by the way, are indeed accessible without signup: http://www.penflip.com/discover http://www.penflip.com/discover > Also, I think that, since you're targeting a market that's not already familiar with Git, your marketing should focus specifically on the value that Git-enabled workflows can provide. This is a bit of a challenge, as there's a balance between tech and non-tech. It's possible that these explanations could be overwhelmingly confusing for a large number of (potential) users. I think a video would be the best way to explain concepts like this, which I intend to have eventually. Thanks for the feedback!
dyoder 13y ago
make sure your login and signup are via HTTPS before you go much further.
abhididdigi 13y ago
A suggestion to Author: I signed-up yesterday. The UI and the way it works is okay, with one exception. I get 8 mails from loren@penflip.com. 8 e-mails? Seriously? Reduce the count, and send emails if someone subscribed to them(explicitly)
jeremia 13y ago
Would you mind sharing what technologies (languages, frameworks, etc.) for this?
karteek 13y ago
Looks neat. I was casually checking html source and found that there is some HAML code visible as comments (http://i.imgur.com/TNDRHNy.png http://i.imgur.com/TNDRHNy.png).

181 points by petervandijck 13y ago

Not my project, but I'm using it. One guy working on it. I think it's a wonderful, wonderful concept.

It looks a lot like the prose.io interface. I like prose.io, but the huge problem with the browser editor is that there's no on-going autosave, so for example, accidental backspaces can wipe out all the work you've done since the last commit. Haven't checked out penflip yet, but I hope it doesn't make the same mistake.

hadem 13y ago
Couldn't developers use the browser's local database for auto-saving? Or save drafts back to the server every so often via Ajax calls?
- saraid216 13y ago
  The issue isn't "is it technically possible" but rather "did the app developer realize it's sort of important and actually implement it".

feronull 13y ago

It's so slow for me, hn effect ?

kmfrk 13y ago

The interface is incredibly well-done. Great job on that. I would ask to see more information before providing my sign-up information, though. Speaking of which, it seems obvious to just let users sign in with their GitHub information.

co_pl_te 13y ago

Love this. Actually working on something similar ('GitHub for storytellers') as my first Rails project. I have to learn a lot more to get mine even presentable, though.

oneeyedpigeon 13y ago

There's a footer, but with 'infinite scroll', it's impossible to access. (Other than that, looks great so far - just a quick bit of constructive criticism!)

ghosttie 13y ago

How is this different from Google Docs?

Heliosmaster 13y ago
Markdown, for example
- jfromaniello 13y ago
  I've a pet project http://mdocs.io http://mdocs.io aims to be closer to gdocs for markdown. We use operational transformations for realtime editing and we allow connecting Google Apps domains so you can share to everyone in company and so on. The Interface needs more work . it is open source.
praveer13 13y ago
better interface, a good community, more featured aimed at writing etc.
vinitool76 13y ago
Versioning might be one feature.

eoinmurray92 13y ago

Anyone know what they are using for document conversion, turning the document into a PDF for example?

guynamedloren 13y ago
Pandoc with custom templates.

adrianh 13y ago

Reminds me of Draft, which seems much more fully featured (and is made by frequent YC contributor Nate Kontny): https://draftin.com/ https://draftin.com/

visakanv 13y ago
Who are the most significant users? Tobi says it's cool, but does he use it? Not doubting, just curious. Who are the best writers we've got who say "yes, this is good for me" ?
davidw 13y ago
For that matter, it's not too different from LeanPub.com
wusatiuk 13y ago
from my perspective, from the usability perspective it is much better than draftin.com

bedspax 13y ago

http://20lin.es/ http://20lin.es/

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

rpedela 13y ago

Do writers (non-techies) use and/or want to use Markdown?

co_pl_te 13y ago
It depends. I like using Markdown for writing. Being a 'writer' does not preclude one from being a 'techie'.
- Dewie 13y ago
  I think he only meant to ask about writers who are not techies.
  - rpedela 13y ago
    yes
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
anseljh 13y ago
No.
csense 13y ago
What's wrong with Markdown? How could it be improved so less technical people will be more comfortable with it? I always thought that Markdown was about as user-friendly as such a thing could get, since it was based on the ad-hoc conventions people have developed over the years for email.

jasonkolb 13y ago

Why not just keep your files in git? Use a git GUI if the command line is intimidating to writers. That way you don't have to create a brand new writing tool. I keep scrivener files in git, it works great.

co_pl_te 13y ago
Git is certainly capable of this, but I don't think that makes a service like Penflip that focuses specifically on collaborative writing superfluous. I like to code and I like to write, but I'd be much more likely to put a Rails app on Github than, say, a short story on which I'd like to collaborate. It's not that Github can't be used as an effective tool for collaborative writing, but rather, that it isn't really the place for it. I have a lot better chance of social interaction around code on Github versus writing because the primary social object on Github is code. There is no question that good writing exists on Github and that it shines for particular forms of writing, but the dearth of writers to coders there seems to signify that a service like Penflip has a market that could be better served.
- jasonkolb 13y ago
  That's a good point, I hadn't considered the collaboration aspect. Out of curiosity, what kind of projects require this? I suppose a book with multiple authors is one good example, are there others?
  - aaren 13y ago
    A research paper with multiple authors - possibly in very different locations. Research often involves code as well, which would make github more suitable.
arb99 13y ago
Most writers won't want to use git.
- interstitial 13y ago

cpr 13y ago

Looks good at first blush, but please fix the embedded hyphens in the top screen shot. (Must have been a quick copy'n'paste from public domain text.)

guynamedloren 13y ago
Good catch :) You are correct!

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

spindritf 13y ago

Very cool. Is there something like this for collaboration on reST (reStructuredText) documents?

iancarroll 13y ago

This seems to be based on Gitlab. I'm sorry if it's not bit something tells me it is.

tehwalrus 13y ago

Just in time for Novel Writing Month![1] I will be penning my 50,000 words in this (both on the web interface, and locally in Mou[2].) [1] http://nanowrimo.org http://nanowrimo.org [2] http://mouapp.com/ http://mouapp.com/

cheez 13y ago

Don't use developer language.

csense 13y ago
This is very vague. What specific instances of "developer language" do you see? Better yet, what are the alternative ways of explaining?

dylandrop 13y ago

When I hear "writer", I think of a screenwriter, novelist, or poet of some sort. "Github for writers" is misleading, since I think the people who would use this wouldn't be writers, but rather technical people who collaboratively write things. This is cool, given its audience is people who write blogs or possibly research papers. I think you showed this (or the premise of this idea) on HN a month ago or so. It still has the same problems as it does then... IF your core audience is still writers as defined above. 1) Writers write in revisions, and don't like to have every word they change critiqued by their editors/producers/etc. 2) Writers don't like markdown -- they want WYSIWYG. This feature alone makes me feel like your goal was to make this tool for technical people. 3) I think a lot of meaningless changes would get jumbled up in the mix if you're writing something long. If you're writing a novel, it would be nice to go between different versions of the novel, but perhaps a bit too much if you had a commit for every punctuation mark. This being said, I'm sort of interested what you think your audience should be. I think it could be a good tool given the right circumstances.

why-el 13y ago
Number 1 can be easily dealt with if both parties categorize changes. We do this with git all the time no? No one reviews my "Fix some typos" commit.
- dylandrop 13y ago
  Agreed. At the same time though, it's annoying to have to categorize every change. I think it would be better to maybe split the service between blog writers / screen writers / novel writers, since each would have their own preference. I think novelists would prefer having a versioning system for broad changes rather than tiny ones.. And not have to categorize them.
antjanus 13y ago
Novel writer here (unpublished but I've written several books, writing my next one in a month). The site looks intriguing but yeah, I agree with your points: 1. I do write in revisions. Smaller changes don't matter as much when it comes to the end product. However, what I WOULD love to see is a previous copy on the right of the screen and a text editor on the left. I tend to do my revisions that way so that I can look at what I wrote, copy/paste what's fine, and rewrite what needs to be rewritten while still looking at the original. 2. After trying out a million "distraction free" writers, I am still on MS Office. It's really worth it for me. I can't stand writing in Libre, or OO, or Ohm, or Monkey (whatever it's called). Scrivener may be the only exception but I usually just port my stuff there. 3. Exactly Here are the things I do like: 1. chapter by chapter separation of concerns. I like that. Even if it's in the form of text files, it's great. 2. one-click publishing. I really appreciate that. It's a pain to go from Word to a properly formatted PUB file. Having a tool that does this for you from the get-go is awesome. I've spent way too much time reformatting Word to be accepted by Smashwords in the past. 3. Comments. I enjoy this as well. If I had someone to help me out with my book, this would be a great feature. If I was to hire someone to help me out with editing and critiquing my work, I'd use this tool. Definitely would. With that said, I would abuse the hell out of this for blog writing.

Brajeshwar 13y ago

My humble suggestions to any service/product you introduce, even to beta testers, is to quote a price or an inkling of the upcoming pricing slabs. If there will be a free version with limited features, do mention that. For instance, I know Trello and Evernote will always have a free version which is good enough to a large extend and they promised that. I'm on Evernote Premium out of love though I still do not need the premium features. So is the same with Trello (few people were generous enough to sign-up through my links). Without a price that I can calculate for continued future usage, I'm very reluctant to "get used-to" a particular app/service/product. These days, if I like a product/service/site, and cannot find a price tag, I email the founders asking for an idea. Many do reply but it gets irritating that I have to do this quite often. I do understand the marketing temptations and tricks of getting more users with "free trials". However, if your price in future is not affordable, then I'm going to be sad, irritated and may even hate you. Please don't let your customers hate you. It should be pretty OK to avoid customers from the beginning, who may not be ready to pay the price you quote than to promise them something and charge them another in future.

guynamedloren 13y ago
Thanks for bringing this up. I completely agree. Penflip is actually still in alpha, and wasn't quite ready to be shared with a larger audience. I was planning on posting HN with beta, which would include pricing. Anyway, just so you know: the pricing model will be similar to github: free for open source / public projects, small monthly fee for private projects ($5+ a month depending on number of projects).
- reissbaker 13y ago
  Unsolicited advice, but: I'm not sure that's the best business model for a tool aimed at writers. Github's model succeeded because there was already a thriving community of people contributing open-source work; with writing, most FOSS licenses don't make sense for the way that the content is consumed, and there isn't much of a pre-existing community built up around it that you can lean on. Most importantly, though, and unlike OSS, even people who publish in the public domain generally don't write drafts in it: they release articles and stories when they're finished. I'd try to structure your business model more along the lines of behavior that people already have. Some ideas off the top of my head: 1. Notebooks. All writers are intimately familiar with the concept, and having separate notebooks is a useful organizational tool. First notebook's free, and you can pay for the rest. 2. Blogging. You can have one private working document at a time, and unlimited number of public blog posts. The private document is important — no one wants to publish half-finished. Want more working documents? Pay up. 3. Collaborators. You can collaborate with one person for free; if you want multiple collaborators, you have to pay. I'm sure you can come up with others. My point just is: structure your company around your customers.

GotNothing 13y ago

Been watching something very similar now geared to social writing, but less technical. https://editorially.com/ https://editorially.com/

vinitool76 13y ago

Really like it, great work. Would love if it follows a pricing models similar to github.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

anseljh 13y ago
There's also no privacy policy. Oops.

the1 13y ago

As a writer for digital media, I use MS Word. Need to write without being online. And I send my file to editorial team to merge (with images and other writers work) and convert to web page format.

philip1209 13y ago

I write in LaTeX and version control with Github. Pretty efficient, considering that losing one's work is always the biggest fear. My commit messages are my word count.

possibilistic 13y ago

Whoa guys, you send way too many emails! In the last hour I've received about 15 emails, and they're still coming in. Please don't subscribe me to every event by default!

guynamedloren 13y ago
Sorry about this. Still in alpha, explained here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6619284 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6619284

franklovecchio 13y ago

I want to see http://fountain.io/ http://fountain.io/ built into these editing tools. Screenplays in markdown!

may 13y ago

I'm a writer and I'm not sure why I need this. If I'm doing something collaboratively, I'll either use a DVCS or meet with people in person. Or hack something together via Google Docs. (OK, I'm starting to see how this could be useful). That said, I use Draft on a daily basis and it's awesome.

booruguru 13y ago

How am I supposed to create new pages for a "book" project? Also, when I created a new document, it took me a while to understand that I was supposed to edit/delete the text in the current document to begin writing. (In that instance, I was also looking for a "new document" button.) I don't want to do writing using a web interface. I think a desktop client would make a service like this far more attractive. However, I think it would be a bit of a hard sell because of the slight learning curve. I think you need to demonstrate Penflip's value proposition by providing actual use cases for such an app. Otherwise, your app looks very slick and quite promising.

guynamedloren 13y ago
There will be a desktop app eventually! If you're comfortable with git, you can clone the project and work on your own computer, like you would with any git repository. If you have the GitHub app on your computer, you can use that for Penflip projects as well: http://www.penflip.com/Penflip/help/blob/master/WorkingOffline.txt/preview http://www.penflip.com/Penflip/help/blob/master/WorkingOffli...

vincentperes 13y ago

interesting! any idea on where I could find writers that would help on my story?

thatthatis 13y ago

Im not sure you've necessarily cracked the code, but I applaud the effort to get sane version control and collaboration into other aspects of work. Compared to the elegant and bullet proof code versioning with git, adding v_2013_1026_1300 to the end of file names in powerpoint, word, and excel just feels barbaric.

btbuildem 13y ago

Can't try it out without signing up, what gives? At least have a short video that showcases the MVP..

cphoover 13y ago

If you use wordpress my friend is working on a very cool plugin called post-forking: http://wordpress.org/plugins/post-forking/ http://wordpress.org/plugins/post-forking/ This post brought it to mind.

brm 13y ago

Yeah, I might be late to the party here, but... I signed up for penflip two and a half hours ago and have received eight emails from you guys since then. This is not cool. I don't care if they're notifications. Auto-on is a terrible default from a user experience stand point in this case. Edit: Also, I can't easily find where to turn them on or off, and if its available I'm having difficulty figuring out how to delete my account. Edit 2: Done being blinded email rage, I located the notifications control panel which is relatively obvious (so facepalm for me there), however, having searched the site it does not appear as easy to delete my account altogether.

guynamedloren 13y ago
Hey there, sorry about this. I'm the guy building Penflip. It's still in alpha and was not ready to be shared with a larger audience. The email notifications for discussions were helpful for the smaller alpha group that I was/am currently testing with.
guynamedloren 13y ago
Just a quick update - I've disabled all email notifications from the alpha project (the source of these notifications). No more emails should be sent out. Again, very sorry about that. Rough day.
- baby 13y ago
  quick reply to feedback, that's what we appreciate, thank you for this! Just my 2 cents: * Why can't I use "," in my project name? My book is titled "Je sais ce que je fais, du moins je pense" but I had to replace the , by a . * Fiction? My book is not really a fiction book, more of an autobiography. * Edit to add/create files? I know you want to make it like git/svn but this is counter-intuitive (or maybe I missed something here?) also. I might not be the best writer, but this is how I work : I have one folder for each big "chapters" that has several chapter_x.txt. And each chapter has a chapter_x_notes.txt with notes about the chapter I'm writing. I wrote a small javascript/php client that reads my txt and display them like Emacs/Sublime Text 2 buffers and display my work on the left and the appropriate notes on the right. Because I really think that it's important to have a guideline at all moment when you're writing something. For example : + china - chapter 1 - first steps.txt - chapter 1 - notes.txt - chapter 2 - first meal.txt - chapter 2 - notes.txt + france - chapter 3 - paris.txt - chapter 3 - notes.txt etc... * my connection crashed during a save, when I got my connection back the save wouldn't finish. I guess there is a timeout but then it should cancel the save and let me continue it when the connection comes back. I hope I make sense. * for something as important as a book, I'm really scared doing that on an external website. I normally write on ST3 locally + dropbox for backup. I know I can download the thing on .epub,.pdf,.html etc... but I want to be able to download it in a way I can import it back to your application in case something goes wrong or I want to clone the project. * I can't delete a file I'm currently editing * When a filename is too long the bin icon when you hover it in the list of files on the left is overlaping with the name * in my resolution, which is quite small, it doesn't scale very well, especially when I display the file tree on the left. * Really need folders on this file tree. * When editing a project, the only way to go back to its index page is to click on its name in the file tree. Not very clear. A breadcrumbs system would be nicer to tell you at least what project you're editing. * Also I know this might be too much and too much of a fancy feature, but importing a folder (like the example three I gave you) would be very nice. I have to copy/paste all my .txt now

caiob 13y ago

another one?

guynamedloren 13y ago

Hi everyone, I'm the guy building Penflip. Apologies for the load of emails and rough edges - Penflip actually still in alpha, and is not quite ready for the primetime.

coldarchon 13y ago
What does your site have that Deviantart does not fulfill?

nav 13y ago

This is awesome.

benwerd 13y ago

Looks neat. My favorite app in this genre is Poetica, which is in private beta but a real joy to use: https://poetica.com/ https://poetica.com/

csense 13y ago

Other than the scrollbar, there's no indication on the front page that you can scroll down to see more. Requiring signup is a huge barrier to entry for me. I don't want to give a website my email until I have a clear sense of what their value proposition is. In other words, the more I can do without signing up, the more likely I am to see the value and eventually become a registered user, paying customer, and recommend the service to others. With Github, for example, I lurked for months before joining. Usually browsing and cloning public projets. Letting your users see real projects that people are working on (even ones that have voluntarily become public) is a plus. Also, I think that, since you're targeting a market that's not already familiar with Git, your marketing should focus specifically on the value that Git-enabled workflows can provide. Explain how a reader can send you a pull request with a grammar fix, how you can easily merge changes from multiple contributors, how you can attribute each line to a specific person.

guynamedloren 13y ago
I'll update the landing page to link to public projects, which, by the way, are indeed accessible without signup: http://www.penflip.com/discover http://www.penflip.com/discover > Also, I think that, since you're targeting a market that's not already familiar with Git, your marketing should focus specifically on the value that Git-enabled workflows can provide. This is a bit of a challenge, as there's a balance between tech and non-tech. It's possible that these explanations could be overwhelmingly confusing for a large number of (potential) users. I think a video would be the best way to explain concepts like this, which I intend to have eventually. Thanks for the feedback!

dyoder 13y ago

make sure your login and signup are via HTTPS before you go much further.

abhididdigi 13y ago

A suggestion to Author: I signed-up yesterday. The UI and the way it works is okay, with one exception. I get 8 mails from loren@penflip.com. 8 e-mails? Seriously? Reduce the count, and send emails if someone subscribed to them(explicitly)

jeremia 13y ago

Would you mind sharing what technologies (languages, frameworks, etc.) for this?

karteek 13y ago

Looks neat. I was casually checking html source and found that there is some HAML code visible as comments (http://i.imgur.com/TNDRHNy.png http://i.imgur.com/TNDRHNy.png).