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Show HN: Typeform alternative, turns Markdown to forms

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Re: Show HN: Typeform alternative, turns Markdown to forms

#21

Post by diggan »

bthallplz wrote: post #11
rafram wrote: post #6

This is more like a DSL with Markdown embedded for the textual parts, but still cool. An actual Markdown syntax extension for forms would be interesting. [_____] for text fields?

Yeah, is anyone familiar with other DSLs for form/survey building and logic? For my work, where we produce lots of surveys and reuse parts of them/run near duplicates monthly, I've been curious to see if there's any dual code and GUI options out there to allow for survey programming to be version controlled and forked, etc.

> Yeah, is anyone familiar with other DSLs for form/survey building and logic?

This would be one: https://github.com/leemeichin/ask_awesomely

That's a client library for interacting with now defunct Typeform I/O, so it won't work anymore. But maybe the DSL itself could be an inspiration, or you could wrangle a fork of the library to create the forms locally.

Re: Show HN: Typeform alternative, turns Markdown to forms

#23

Post by Esras »

goforbg wrote: post #22

The telephone input takes text input?

If you read the parent comment here as I did originally, about it being text as opposed to a number field, see points 18, 19, 23, and 25 on https://github.com/google/libphonenumber/blob/master/FALSEHO...

The field on the form is indeed of `type=tel`, which Mozilla helpfully points out has no validation (see the above document): https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/in...

Re: Show HN: Typeform alternative, turns Markdown to forms

#24

Post by aimazon »

Very good work, especially for a solo developer. Feedback:

1. Design language of the forms feels too much like Typeform, you're a talented designer: differentiate the design to establish your own identity. If the forms look like Typeform, form-fillers are not going to investigate what form software it is and use it -- which was a big part of why Typeform grew.

2. The name is terrible. Blocks? The name sounds like you decided on it for a different project (some sort of component framework using Markdown?) and then reused it for this. The domain forms.md is available to register. Anything that include "form" in the name would be a significant improvement.

Re: Show HN: Typeform alternative, turns Markdown to forms

#25

Post by Jonovono »

Looks nice! I was using typeform to collect surveys but found the UX weird so I switched to Google Forms. Found we got more conversions too, it's just simpler to use. The one thing missing was I wanted a way to redirect someone after they completed the form. That wasn't supported so if there is anyone else in a similar boat, I made this (free) service: https://www.gfrdr.com.

Re: Show HN: Typeform alternative, turns Markdown to forms

#26

Post by mx20 »

bthallplz wrote: post #10
bberenberg wrote: post #2

I feel like this falls into an uncanny valley between requiring the skill to cognitively model forms in your mind as text, which is fairly close to coding and using a form builder UI.

Yeah, it'd be great if over time they/a community provided a system for visualizing the form logic and a form builder GUI so you can go full-circle with this (building via code and GUI and saving/versioning/forking forms via source).

SurveyJS already has all that and uses JSON. It's also MIT licensed, instead of this non commercial license.

Re: Show HN: Typeform alternative, turns Markdown to forms

#27

Post by breadwinner »

codersfocus wrote: post #17

Why are you using Paddle? Using a MoR for a product like this is really dumb. MoRs are common in very shady areas (gambling, adult, etc.) where getting credit card processing approval is difficult. Yet some marketing genius has decided he can hoodwink indiehackers into giving him 12% of his revenue, while also hurting the indiehacker's sales.

What are you talking about? Paddle charges 5% + $0.50, see https://www.paddle.com/pricing They handle chargeback, taxes in various states, etc., etc.

Re: Show HN: Typeform alternative, turns Markdown to forms

#28

Post by verdverm »

rafram wrote: post #6

This is more like a DSL with Markdown embedded for the textual parts, but still cool. An actual Markdown syntax extension for forms would be interesting. [_____] for text fields?

MDX is great for this, you can intermix JS/TS, JSX, and Markdown

https://mdxjs.com/

You can write any components normally and pass them in to be available in MDX. You can make forms and much more

Re: Show HN: Typeform alternative, turns Markdown to forms

#29

Post by Terretta »

aimazon wrote: post #24

Very good work, especially for a solo developer. Feedback: 1. Design language of the forms feels too much like Typeform, you're a talented designer: differentiate the design to establish your own identity. If the forms look like Typeform, form-fillers are not going to investigate what form software it is and use it -- which was a big part of why Typeform grew. 2. The name is terrible. Blocks? The name sounds like you…

> The name is terrible. Blocks? The name sounds like you decided on it for a different project (some sort of component framework using Markdown?)

`forms.md` says what it is on the label.

And `filldown` has a lot of extensions available:

https://www.namecheap.com/domains/registration/results/?doma...

Re: Show HN: Typeform alternative, turns Markdown to forms

#30

Post by Terretta »

mmastrac wrote: post #5

This style of form is aggravating to fill out, but kudos on making it beautiful. If you want to be kind to your users, allow them to scroll through the entire form, see it on one screen and ideally skip ahead without filling out required options but block submission.

It's been studied that fewer people start the big form than a multi-stage form of uncertain size but more people finish it.
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