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Show HN: Sandstorm-powered “Try a demo” on Etherpad front page

35 points by paulproteus 11y ago

swayvil 11y ago
It's like irc. Irc with more formatting. Can I insert pictures? woo, a time slider. nice.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
dang 11y ago
Did you make this? Show HN is for showing your own work. Edit: yup. See below.
- paulproteus 11y ago
  Thanks for taking an interest! I personally wrote the code behind Sandstorm's "appdemo" feature, which is what the "Try it now" button links to, from the Etherpad front page. Etherpad itself is not written by me; it's written by many other great people. See e.g. https://github.com/sandstorm-io/sandstorm/commits?author=paulproteus&page=2 https://github.com/sandstorm-io/sandstorm/commits?author=pau... I also wrote this blog post about the feature: https://blog.sandstorm.io/news/2015-02-06-app-demo.html https://blog.sandstorm.io/news/2015-02-06-app-demo.html Happy to answer other questions if you have them!
  - kentonv 11y ago
    You also wrote the pull request adding the button to etherpad.org.
    - paulproteus 11y ago
      True! https://github.com/ether/ether.github.com/pull/21 https://github.com/ether/ether.github.com/pull/21
  - paulproteus 11y ago
    One other possibly-cool thing is that any open source web app, when packaged for Sandstorm, can get a "Try it now" button of your own. That's what I explain at https://blog.sandstorm.io/news/2015-02-06-app-demo.html https://blog.sandstorm.io/news/2015-02-06-app-demo.html but I figure it's worth stating clearly here in a comment, to save people a click.
  - dang 11y ago
    Ok, great! We put "Show HN" back in the title. We also added "Sandstorm-powered" in an attempt to make it more explanatory.
    - paulproteus 11y ago
      Thanks so much, dang!
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
ScottWhigham 11y ago
I like Etherpad but unless you give us a reason for posting this here that is HN-related, it should be flagged.
- napoleond 11y ago
  My apologies, I downvoted before realizing that the title used to be different (as per dang's comment).
- paulproteus 11y ago
  Hi Scott! I think this is interesting for two reasons: 1. Open source web apps often struggle to maintain a "Try it" server. The interesting thing here is that Sandstorm (through our package ecosystem and demo server) makes that easy for any open source web app, and this is an example of that. 2. Since I wrote the code that powers that link, I thought it would be a great thing to "Show HN", per https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html "Show HN is a way to share something that you've made on Hacker News."
  - ScottWhigham 11y ago
    That's better - thank you. We (the community) just saw this as "Is it spam?" Sorry - I thought you were a new account. I'm using the chrome extension "Hacker News Enhancement Suite" and it highlights yours in a very-similar-color-to-newbie-color.
dwrensha 11y ago
Groove Basin also has one of these buttons! http://groovebasin.com/ http://groovebasin.com/

35 points by paulproteus 11y ago

swayvil 11y ago

It's like irc. Irc with more formatting. Can I insert pictures? woo, a time slider. nice.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

dang 11y ago

Did you make this? Show HN is for showing your own work. Edit: yup. See below.

paulproteus 11y ago
Thanks for taking an interest! I personally wrote the code behind Sandstorm's "appdemo" feature, which is what the "Try it now" button links to, from the Etherpad front page. Etherpad itself is not written by me; it's written by many other great people. See e.g. https://github.com/sandstorm-io/sandstorm/commits?author=paulproteus&page=2 https://github.com/sandstorm-io/sandstorm/commits?author=pau... I also wrote this blog post about the feature: https://blog.sandstorm.io/news/2015-02-06-app-demo.html https://blog.sandstorm.io/news/2015-02-06-app-demo.html Happy to answer other questions if you have them!
- kentonv 11y ago
  You also wrote the pull request adding the button to etherpad.org.
  - paulproteus 11y ago
    True! https://github.com/ether/ether.github.com/pull/21 https://github.com/ether/ether.github.com/pull/21
- paulproteus 11y ago
  One other possibly-cool thing is that any open source web app, when packaged for Sandstorm, can get a "Try it now" button of your own. That's what I explain at https://blog.sandstorm.io/news/2015-02-06-app-demo.html https://blog.sandstorm.io/news/2015-02-06-app-demo.html but I figure it's worth stating clearly here in a comment, to save people a click.
- dang 11y ago
  Ok, great! We put "Show HN" back in the title. We also added "Sandstorm-powered" in an attempt to make it more explanatory.
  - paulproteus 11y ago
    Thanks so much, dang!
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

ScottWhigham 11y ago

I like Etherpad but unless you give us a reason for posting this here that is HN-related, it should be flagged.

napoleond 11y ago
My apologies, I downvoted before realizing that the title used to be different (as per dang's comment).
paulproteus 11y ago
Hi Scott! I think this is interesting for two reasons: 1. Open source web apps often struggle to maintain a "Try it" server. The interesting thing here is that Sandstorm (through our package ecosystem and demo server) makes that easy for any open source web app, and this is an example of that. 2. Since I wrote the code that powers that link, I thought it would be a great thing to "Show HN", per https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html "Show HN is a way to share something that you've made on Hacker News."
- ScottWhigham 11y ago
  That's better - thank you. We (the community) just saw this as "Is it spam?" Sorry - I thought you were a new account. I'm using the chrome extension "Hacker News Enhancement Suite" and it highlights yours in a very-similar-color-to-newbie-color.

dwrensha 11y ago

Groove Basin also has one of these buttons! http://groovebasin.com/ http://groovebasin.com/