With the help of AI & LLMs I restarted working on some of my older side projects. I updated the code and did a landing page for Printable Mockups (a free, open-source drag-and-drop tool for creating device accurate wireframes and sketchpads that you can export as PDFs, print, and sketch on by hand) https://github.com/alexadam/printable-mockups
I plan to add more features soon.
Yes, it's inspired by it but I didn't like the fact that all the available options are hidden and I had to search every time I wanted to add something.
With my app, you can organize you favorite gitignores as lists.
That's why I made https://reactivedoc.com/. You can use it to write interactive documentation in markdown and save it as a simple, self-contained, html+js file.
Now I'm working on v2, with cleaner syntax & more widgets (I want to add an embedded web base terminal to run shell commands), you can see an example here: https://reactivedoc.com/editor/
I'm working on https://reactivedoc.com/ - it's markdown + some custom widgets, and you can export it as a self-contained html file.
I made it to solve my own problems: document commands & scripts and replace parameters with user input values. Soon I will release a new version with simpler syntax.
I needed a way to document my shell scripts (or code snippets) and to quickly replace “parameters”. For example, if you want to download a YT video as mp3, you have to remember this command “youtube-dl --extract-audio --audio-format mp3 <video URL>” . You can use the autocomplete & history in the terminal but you still have to remember parts of the command and replace the old URL with the new one. You can also save it in a text file, and replace <video URL> … too many select/replace/copy/paste ops…
A few months ago I made a good enough solution for my problem https://github.com/alexadam/reactive-doc - it saves ~ 10 minutes/day when I have to run complex devops scripts. And I can quickly share the ‘docs’ because they are just plain html files / or markdown.
Now I just finished the next iteration - better ‘syntax’ for input widgets, runnable @shell commands and a web based terminal https://github.com/alexadam/shell-driver with custom filters and selection actions (useful for me)
Next steps: add more features to the web based terminal -> convert history to scripts, autocomplete with parameters, command palette & context aware menus, multiple terminals (with tabs or panels). I also want to add support for React components in the MD editor.
Time is money and https://reactivedoc.com/ saves me ~500 minutes/month and I also have a paying user. I made it because I needed a simple, self-hosted tool to create documentation with "parameters". The output is a self-contained html file. Coupled with an external runner, it's a great automation tool for simple tasks.
I'm not targeting printers and I don't want to depend on them. If a user wants to print on demand his notebook, there will be that option (if possible).
Also, I'm not targeting consumers. Since the engine is already opensource, I don't have a problem making the whole app open.
"I would personally pay for is the ability to have my custom designed notebook printed and shipped to me" -> I think the core feature is how easily you can design your custom notebook. There are already p-o-d services and you can just use Photoshop or Word for editing. But they are too complex.
What I was trying to say is that, maybe, some companies would pay for custom widgets that hook to a db and display nice graphs & tables to quickly create business reports. But I don't think those companies care about p-o-d because they already have their own providers.
So far, the business model is: free everything except for the cloud storage (if any) and premium widgets & layouts. I would not add a premium over the p-o-d price since I have no control over the quality and I would offer it as a 'bonus', like an option to link the app to a 3rd party printer of your choice.
Anyway, thanks for the input, it really helped me! If you want to keep in touch, let me know.
The printing quality & shipping will be a problem and I was thinking to offer the print on demand just as a 'secondary' option, not a feature.
Probably it would be more profitable to create custom widgets and designs for companies or exporting the layouts as standalone, mini-apps - something like an UI/app editor (what you see is what you get) - that are also printable :)
I'm working on an app to create custom notebook layouts by drag-and-drop graphical widgets with the option to print on demand the result: https://notebookeditor.com/
I have a lot of ideas on how to improve it and I think there are many use cases, especially for creating custom educational materials. But I haven't found the product market fit until now and I don't have a clear plan on how to monetise it.
The 'front-end' product is 80% done but there is no 'back-end' yet - I'm still thinking if I should do it as saas or a standalone desktop/mobile app.
If interested, contact me at: alex @ myhnusername .com
PS. some of the images I used on the website are copyrighted and I didn't ask for permission or give credit. Sorry! I'll fix it asap.
I made an extension to save web pages as eBooks: https://github.com/alexadam/save-as-ebook. You can easily modify it to remove the images (or scale them down) and invoke it automatically on each page visit or refresh.
I use Gandi for domains & DNS too. I've never had any problems so far but I don't want any surprises... Where do you want to migrate? What is a better alternative?
On r/listentothis - I made a browser extension that highlights my favorite genres https://github.com/alexadam/ListenToThis-Highlight, but I have to update it because it doesn't work with the new reddit changes
The blurriness is a problem… With the pdf library I’m using (jsPDF) I cannot export the SVG directly so I convert it to an image and then embed the image in the pdf.
To solve the problem, I can increase the converted image’s resolution but then the pdf becomes huge (~20 MB, for example). There is a ‘quality’ parameter in the code, maybe I’ll expose it in the UI and you can find an optimum value.
I’ll try to find a way to export or ‘write’ the svg data directly in the pdf, I think it’s the best way to do it.