Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve?

I'm tackling this problem, too! My focus is on data-longevity so everything is based on simple files and folders.

The idea is that the app "understands" the structure of the content. A bit like a combination of a notebook, Xcode, a calendar, and Wolfram Alpha :)

Bi-directional links and timestamps are working already so implementing a "Zettelkasten" should be possible with the current version.

If you're interested, there's a signup for the beta here:

http://kitestack.com/lnotes/

You asked for "weird", yes?

I've got a problem that's driving me crazy: find a way to present a huge amount of written (and some visual) content, through a website[1], in an interesting and accessible way.

One of my hobbies is constructing worlds. One world. I've been working on it for over 40 years now. 20 years ago I decided to share my work with the world, and built a website for it. The approach I took them was to divide the site into a homepage, with links to more-or-less self-contained subsections. The solution works, but I want something better. I just don't know how to achieve it.

A wiki-based approach[2] would seem to be the obvious choice. But my experience of wikis is that they feel too, well, fragmented. There's ways of overcoming this (portals, wikibooks, etc) but I tried building a wiki ... it didn't work for what I wanted to achieve.

Another approach could be to give up on building my own site and instead rely on a cloud provider to do all the hard work for me[3]. But I dislike this idea on every level I can think of. For a start, what happens to all my work when the host company collapses, or pivots to a more profitable idea? What happens when I want to introduce a feature - "teach yourself language X" lessons that the site architecture doesn't support?

Of course, if I had all the money in the world then I could employ many very clever people to design, build and develop content for a truly wonderful user experience[4][5][6] ... yeah. That's not gonna happen. So the solution needs to be "doable".

Any ideas on how to solve the my problem will be very gratefully received!

[1] - http://www.rikweb.co.uk/kalieda/index.php - My constructed world's current website. I used to be very proud of the site's structure and design. But I know in my hearth it can be much better!

[2] - Encyclopaedia Ardenica - https://www.otherworldproject.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page - is a really nice example of what can be achieved with a well-thought-through wiki.

[3] - WorldAnvil - https://www.worldanvil.com - seem to be the leading example of this approach.

[4] - The Potterverse - now at https://www.wizardingworld.com/ - seemed for a while to be a Gold Standard for wonderful fantasy world websites. The Pandoran Research Foundation [5] (https://www.avatar.com/) is another excellent example. But even here, their Pandorapedia [6] (https://www.pandorapedia.com/pandora_url/dictionary.html) ... it feels like it could be so much better - but how?

Write GUI for FFmpeg... or not exactly. I'm building an API + component library so other developers (and hopefully everyone down the road) can quickly assemble a UI that does a particular FFmpeg job. Want batch transcode? Add the files selector, destination selector and render button. Want to mux audio and video? make that two file selectors.

Except doesn't the book not actually address its title and describe how to invent none of those things?

I believe OP is trying to actually write the book that one is supposed to be.