7 ms·

Show HN: Aquietplace, a small writing tool

24 points by _joev 11y ago

fishnchips 11y ago
I swear by plaintext text editors for pretty much any kind of (non-coding) writing work but nothing beats TextEdit (OS X built-in) in plaintext mode with a good fixed-size font.
gbersac 11y ago
I don't mean to be rude, but what is the utility for this ? There is plenty of text editor out there, many of them are very good. What is the added value of this tool ?
- zapu 11y ago
  It's not the first one I've seen, but the general idea is that it lets you write in a completely distraction free environment (when you full-screen it).
  - wanda 11y ago
    WriteRoom (http://www.hogbaysoftware.com/products/writeroom http://www.hogbaysoftware.com/products/writeroom) DarkRoom (http://jjafuller.com/dark-room http://jjafuller.com/dark-room) iA Writer Write! (http://wri.tt http://wri.tt) To name but a few of these distraction-free writers. Write! is cool but Windows only. iA Writer isn't free but Dropbox integration and mobile version justify the price for me.
- marvel_boy 11y ago
  I think the idea is to have the simplest writing tool (no menus, no gadgets, no distracting items). Nice idea.
benrmatthews 11y ago
Nice. I was unable to type in full screen mode, using Chrome.
- _joev 11y ago
  Silly bug. Should be fixed now, with a .focus() call.
- trumpete 11y ago
  You will have to click the middle again (the textbox) to refocus
gprasanth 11y ago
I love the black background in full screen feature a lot. I have actually wanted to write this (trivial)tool myself. I do not like others (around me) to read my blog posts or emails before I finish writing them. And this is perfect for getting the initial draft to work with. I usually am distracted by what I'd already written before I finish writing what I wanted to write. This tool helps me not do the root of all evil. Now the black background in full screen thing seems like a bug to some of you. I think it was unintended too (given the name - aquietplace). But it's definitely a useful feature.
- ytjohn 11y ago
  How do you change the background?
  - _joev 11y ago
    You can't, there was a bug in my code when run on firefox fullscreen. Formatting options would be nice, for now you can copy some text from an external HTML document and it will preserve the formatting. You can then edit this text.
foolinaround 11y ago
If it could save automatically to a note in evernote/dropbox/whatever with a name automatically created from date of creation, it would be great.
nunull 11y ago
I generally like distraction free writing environments, but i doubt that it's really a good idea to have such without the ability to open / manage multiple "files". If you have to type everything into one textbox, without the possibility to switch context, you are IMO likely to be distracted by what you wrote earlier. Nonetheless, nice tool!
- _joev 11y ago
  wakes up 10 hours later to find this on HN homepage Sorry, originally I had some functionality so that changing URL hash gives you a new file. At some point I switched this to using location.pathname and broke it. Let me add it back :)
  - _joev 11y ago
    Okay, feature implemented :) To work on a new file just change the URL hash http://joevennix.com/aquietplace#newfile http://joevennix.com/aquietplace#newfile
    - nunull 11y ago
      Nice, i really like the idea of just using URLs for that but not having any specific GUI. Great!
alkimie2 11y ago
It was not obvious to me how to save my work, other than as a webpage.
- _joev 11y ago
  Yeah right now there is only saving as the browser allows (print to PDF is another way). I'll add support for saving as a .txt on cmd-S through HTML5 download API in a bit.
  - _joev 11y ago
    Added a cmd-S to save to txt.
falcolas 11y ago
In full screen mode, the entire screen goes black. It still accepts input, but I can't actually see what is being typed. This is on Mac OSX 10.10.3, using Firefox 37.0.2.
- _joev 11y ago
  I cannot for the life of me figure out how to fix this. Maybe someone here knows. I define the fullscreen bg color: bg:fullscreen, bg:-webkit-full-screen, bg:-moz-full-screen { background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0); } But it does not get respected
  - _joev 11y ago
    Fixed it with *{background: white;}, strangely enough.
herghost 11y ago
Nice, but full screen mode won't accept input on OS X 10.10.3 using Safari 8.0.5. I can input in the browser and it shows fine. If I full screen it the text remains but it ignores input.
- _joev 11y ago
  It's a Safari bug unfortunately. https://medium.com/adventures-in-consumer-technology/allow-keyboard-input-968a142b5b9b https://medium.com/adventures-in-consumer-technology/allow-k... Seems like the best recourse is to disable the feature in Safari. Bummer.
_joev 11y ago
Thanks for the votes :) The code is here if anyone wants to modify it (this site is hosted on github pages): https://github.com/joevennix/aquietplace https://github.com/joevennix/aquietplace
pmontra 11y ago
I tried it with Opera Android and I get a cursor in a white page. I can type but nothing else. Is this a desktop only editor? I sometimes use this tablet to type or annotate Google docs files so there is definitely some space for mobile editors.
ricardobeat 11y ago
Doesn't do anything in Safari, it's just a textarea. Is it supposed to give you a unique URL per document?

24 points by _joev 11y ago

I swear by plaintext text editors for pretty much any kind of (non-coding) writing work but nothing beats TextEdit (OS X built-in) in plaintext mode with a good fixed-size font.

gbersac 11y ago

I don't mean to be rude, but what is the utility for this ? There is plenty of text editor out there, many of them are very good. What is the added value of this tool ?

zapu 11y ago
It's not the first one I've seen, but the general idea is that it lets you write in a completely distraction free environment (when you full-screen it).
- wanda 11y ago
  WriteRoom (http://www.hogbaysoftware.com/products/writeroom http://www.hogbaysoftware.com/products/writeroom) DarkRoom (http://jjafuller.com/dark-room http://jjafuller.com/dark-room) iA Writer Write! (http://wri.tt http://wri.tt) To name but a few of these distraction-free writers. Write! is cool but Windows only. iA Writer isn't free but Dropbox integration and mobile version justify the price for me.
marvel_boy 11y ago
I think the idea is to have the simplest writing tool (no menus, no gadgets, no distracting items). Nice idea.

benrmatthews 11y ago

Nice. I was unable to type in full screen mode, using Chrome.

_joev 11y ago
Silly bug. Should be fixed now, with a .focus() call.
trumpete 11y ago
You will have to click the middle again (the textbox) to refocus

gprasanth 11y ago

I love the black background in full screen feature a lot. I have actually wanted to write this (trivial)tool myself. I do not like others (around me) to read my blog posts or emails before I finish writing them. And this is perfect for getting the initial draft to work with. I usually am distracted by what I'd already written before I finish writing what I wanted to write. This tool helps me not do the root of all evil. Now the black background in full screen thing seems like a bug to some of you. I think it was unintended too (given the name - aquietplace). But it's definitely a useful feature.

ytjohn 11y ago
How do you change the background?
- _joev 11y ago
  You can't, there was a bug in my code when run on firefox fullscreen. Formatting options would be nice, for now you can copy some text from an external HTML document and it will preserve the formatting. You can then edit this text.

foolinaround 11y ago

If it could save automatically to a note in evernote/dropbox/whatever with a name automatically created from date of creation, it would be great.

nunull 11y ago

I generally like distraction free writing environments, but i doubt that it's really a good idea to have such without the ability to open / manage multiple "files". If you have to type everything into one textbox, without the possibility to switch context, you are IMO likely to be distracted by what you wrote earlier. Nonetheless, nice tool!

_joev 11y ago
wakes up 10 hours later to find this on HN homepage Sorry, originally I had some functionality so that changing URL hash gives you a new file. At some point I switched this to using location.pathname and broke it. Let me add it back :)
- _joev 11y ago
  Okay, feature implemented :) To work on a new file just change the URL hash http://joevennix.com/aquietplace#newfile http://joevennix.com/aquietplace#newfile
  - nunull 11y ago
    Nice, i really like the idea of just using URLs for that but not having any specific GUI. Great!

alkimie2 11y ago

It was not obvious to me how to save my work, other than as a webpage.

_joev 11y ago
Yeah right now there is only saving as the browser allows (print to PDF is another way). I'll add support for saving as a .txt on cmd-S through HTML5 download API in a bit.
- _joev 11y ago
  Added a cmd-S to save to txt.

falcolas 11y ago

In full screen mode, the entire screen goes black. It still accepts input, but I can't actually see what is being typed. This is on Mac OSX 10.10.3, using Firefox 37.0.2.

_joev 11y ago
I cannot for the life of me figure out how to fix this. Maybe someone here knows. I define the fullscreen bg color: bg:fullscreen, bg:-webkit-full-screen, bg:-moz-full-screen { background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0); } But it does not get respected
- _joev 11y ago
  Fixed it with *{background: white;}, strangely enough.

herghost 11y ago

Nice, but full screen mode won't accept input on OS X 10.10.3 using Safari 8.0.5. I can input in the browser and it shows fine. If I full screen it the text remains but it ignores input.

_joev 11y ago
It's a Safari bug unfortunately. https://medium.com/adventures-in-consumer-technology/allow-keyboard-input-968a142b5b9b https://medium.com/adventures-in-consumer-technology/allow-k... Seems like the best recourse is to disable the feature in Safari. Bummer.

_joev 11y ago

Thanks for the votes :) The code is here if anyone wants to modify it (this site is hosted on github pages): https://github.com/joevennix/aquietplace https://github.com/joevennix/aquietplace

pmontra 11y ago

I tried it with Opera Android and I get a cursor in a white page. I can type but nothing else. Is this a desktop only editor? I sometimes use this tablet to type or annotate Google docs files so there is definitely some space for mobile editors.

ricardobeat 11y ago

Doesn't do anything in Safari, it's just a textarea. Is it supposed to give you a unique URL per document?