No offline editing is a deal-breaker, even for a free tool.
Agreed.
Show HN: Lunette – A word processor designed around writing, not formatting
31–40 of 108 posts
Re: Show HN: Lunette – A word processor designed around writing, not formatting
#32Yes, a word processing app like MS Word is technically more suitable for typesetting than it is for writing. No, that's not a major problem. I tried building a similar project some 10 years ago, when "Zen writing tools" were all the rage. Nobody wanted to pay for it. It wasn't general purpose enough to be usable by the general public. And novelists (who I was targeting) are poor and cheap. 90% of people who say they…
There are successful products who are in this space - scrivener, for example. None of the things you talk about what authors needs are in the realm of app space, they're business problems.
The question is what did your app offer that scrivener didn't? What does this app offer that scrivener doesn't? I can't even tell if this Lunette is a web app or has an installable version, subscription, etc.
The problems you're talking about - marketing, front cover, typesetting - those don't really matter until you have at least a draft written, and probably not even then. A writing focused word processor isn't supposed to solve those problems, and once you have a manuscript the issues are solved by hiring an experienced editor (except the marketing which not everyone can do).
The writing part of the app is where people will spend the overwhelming majority of their time, and intruding on it trying to convert them to buying your other services is likely to chase them to scrivener or some other competitor. You're just trying to solve writing unrelated problems with an app that is marketed towards new writers that dont have those problems in front of them, and everyone with money can solve it without you.
Re: Show HN: Lunette – A word processor designed around writing, not formatting
#33No offline editing is a deal-breaker, even for a free tool.
The upside is that you can use the "Cloud ate my homework" excuse when you don't finish your work in time.
Would be nice though if somebody finally created an application that let you write plain text files locally on your computer. It could be called Text Manipulator or Text Arranger or something like that.
Re: Show HN: Lunette – A word processor designed around writing, not formatting
#34I'm curious but that's not much of an intro/demo.
Apologies, I've sort of been struggling with how to present the concept clearly and concisely. Here's an overview of where the idea came from: https://lunette.app/about Basically, my wife and I both write, and we found ourselves bouncing around from app to app looking for something that felt good and like a place we could really be productive and creative but never found anything that felt quite right, both in terms…
You would need to better underline why this is a webapp. You say you needed a better word processor, but mention products like Medium (blogging platform) and Google Docs (an online word processor). Why not Typora, Obsidian, Zettlr? These are complex word processor apps that also focus minimalism. I don't know if you considered these when starting to develop, but if so, some comparison would be apt to why your app is an alternative (eg. "it's one click away").
Re: Show HN: Lunette – A word processor designed around writing, not formatting
#35No offline editing is a deal-breaker, even for a free tool.
The upside is that you can use the "Cloud ate my homework" excuse when you don't finish your work in time. Would be nice though if somebody finally created an application that let you write plain text files locally on your computer. It could be called Text Manipulator or Text Arranger or something like that.
I think Writing Editor sounds about right.
Re: Show HN: Lunette – A word processor designed around writing, not formatting
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apologies, I've sort of been struggling with how to present the concept clearly and concisely. Here's an overview of where the idea came from: https://lunette.app/about Basically, my wife and I both write, and we found ourselves bouncing around from app to app looking for something that felt good and like a place we could really be productive and creative but never found anything that felt quite right, both in terms…
You should update the About page. Your comment here is a much, much better explanation of what you are trying to do and why. Tossing out some suggestions: Instead of: Traditional word processors are for formatting text. Lunette organizes your ideas and supports the writing process. Try something more like: Lunette: A Word Processor for writers. A space for ideation and composition, not just text formatting. Write a b…
Wow. This was great advice. Remind me to look you up when I present my next project. Thank you for modeling what a great critique looks like.
Re: Show HN: Lunette – A word processor designed around writing, not formatting
#37Feature suggestion: it would be good to have the option to have a note "stick" to a point in the document. I know that that's not always what people would want, but I could really see it being useful in certain circumstances.
Re: Show HN: Lunette – A word processor designed around writing, not formatting
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apologies, I've sort of been struggling with how to present the concept clearly and concisely. Here's an overview of where the idea came from: https://lunette.app/about Basically, my wife and I both write, and we found ourselves bouncing around from app to app looking for something that felt good and like a place we could really be productive and creative but never found anything that felt quite right, both in terms…
> And what do we do with our ideas when they arise? Well, we scroll to the bottom of the document and jot them down, copy and paste them, rearrange them, and hope we'll remember to come back to them. I write erotic novels as a hobby. I legit thought no one else does this (putting random unorganized ideas at the bottom of the document). I am genuinely pleased to know I am not the only one.
I do that too! It’s nice to have some “scratch space” at the end, like an artists’ palette to dab colors from.
Ideas naturally flow from scratch to outline to fleshed-out paragraphs this way.
Re: Show HN: Lunette – A word processor designed around writing, not formatting
#39Dark mode is missing. Here's a guide to implement it properly : https://ryanfeigenbaum.com/dark-mode/
Re: Show HN: Lunette – A word processor designed around writing, not formatting
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apologies, I've sort of been struggling with how to present the concept clearly and concisely. Here's an overview of where the idea came from: https://lunette.app/about Basically, my wife and I both write, and we found ourselves bouncing around from app to app looking for something that felt good and like a place we could really be productive and creative but never found anything that felt quite right, both in terms…
> And what do we do with our ideas when they arise? Well, we scroll to the bottom of the document and jot them down, copy and paste them, rearrange them, and hope we'll remember to come back to them. I write erotic novels as a hobby. I legit thought no one else does this (putting random unorganized ideas at the bottom of the document). I am genuinely pleased to know I am not the only one.
I used to do that a lot, then I started using a second window of markdown for notes and save both documents next to each other.