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Web apps in a single, portable, self-updating, vanilla HTML file

hyperclay.com

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Re: Web apps in a single, portable, self-updating, vanilla HTML file

#81

Post by theelous3 »

panphora wrote: post #53
fowlie wrote: post #46

This is just awesome! But seems like a closed source project, and the pricing page returns HTTP 404. Are there any open source alternatives like this? First time I hear about this idea. However, I can imagine it wouldn't take much effort to implement the basics. Chromium even has a design mode you can activate by typing `document.designMode='on'` in the console. Then you would just need to write a little javascript t…

There is an open source, local app version by the same author (me) here: https://hyperclay.com/hyperclay-local

fwiw, for this kind of tech - personal level projects - there is not a snowball's first summer outing in hell's chance I'm going to pay for someone else to host my thing remotely. I would like to just self host, and if it was good I would buy a license for it so I can self host - but I think you have a customer in mind that doesn't exist.

Your ideal customer a) is extremely technically proficient, such that they are even capable of finding this in the first place, and their brain doesn't glaze over at "jQuery is Your Starting Point" - the opening line of your docs. b) They for some reason would rather pay for someone else to do the world's easiest hosting job and deal with whatever baggage and limitations come with this.

Or am I misunderstanding? Like it's a nodejs server on some aws box. Charging people for this is fine, but not allowing them to do it themselves seems... ridiculous?

You gotta eat, I know, but I'm wondering who it is that is ok paying for someone else to do the easiest part what they do for a living.

Re: Web apps in a single, portable, self-updating, vanilla HTML file

#82

Post by gr4vityWall »

BoppreH wrote: post #35

For people who are confused: Hyperclay is a NodeJS server and frontend JS library that allows HTML pages to update their DOM and then replace their own .html source with the updated version. Imagine clicking a checkbox, which adds the `checked` attribute to its element, then using Hyperclay to globally persist this version of `document.body.outerHTML`, so that it's there next time someone visits the page. There's aut…

Thanks for the description, I kept reading the webpage and didn't understand what the project was or how it worked. Yours is really succinct and clear.

Re: Web apps in a single, portable, self-updating, vanilla HTML file

#83

Post by Ezhik »

I really want to see more HyperCard-style data persistence, where both the code and the data are one one document, so this is cool to see.

I was actually just playing with a similar concept, except as an Obsidian plugin: https://bsky.app/profile/ezhik.jp/post/3lwoazfypx22j

Re: Web apps in a single, portable, self-updating, vanilla HTML file

#84

Post by zahlman »

bflesch wrote: post #21

I appreciate the storytelling and the nice graphics, but after reading 10 screen lengths of this story I still don't understand what technology they are using to achieve this. Is it a lot of words to talk about localstorage? How exactly are the changes persisted to the HTML file? Is it using FileSystemAPI to overwrite the previous HTML file? How can they implement it seamless for the user without them having to choos…

I have to say, it feels rather strange to read

> It would be a great to ignore all the noise of modern web dev and just build the experience I want

sandwiched in between meme images that intersperse short bursts of text as if the reader needs constant distraction from the act of reading.

The experience I want is a short prose description up front, backstory that flows, and diagrams only where they actually illustrate a concept that needs it.

Re: Web apps in a single, portable, self-updating, vanilla HTML file

#85

Post by zahlman »

theelous3 wrote: post #81
panphora wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an open source, local app version by the same author (me) here: https://hyperclay.com/hyperclay-local

fwiw, for this kind of tech - personal level projects - there is not a snowball's first summer outing in hell's chance I'm going to pay for someone else to host my thing remotely. I would like to just self host, and if it was good I would buy a license for it so I can self host - but I think you have a customer in mind that doesn't exist. Your ideal customer a) is extremely technically proficient, such that they are…

> You gotta eat, I know, but I'm wondering who it is that is ok paying for someone else to do the easiest part what they do for a living.

I don't think that hosting is necessarily "part of what they do for a living" for people who write the code.

Re: Web apps in a single, portable, self-updating, vanilla HTML file

#86

Post by zbentley »

TiddlyWiki is another (20+ year old and still being updated!) took in this space. It looks like hyperclay is a bit more oriented towards multitenancy and database-backed persistence than TiddlyWiki (very much trying to be a single-writing-user tool) after a quick read?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TiddlyWiki

Re: Web apps in a single, portable, self-updating, vanilla HTML file

#87

Post by pavlov »

esperent wrote: post #60
jauntywundrkind wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making a more read/annotate/write web is near and dear to my heart. There's a lot I find admirable - noble about pages like Hyperclay! But also, it's a distinctly different answer for each page to build its own toolkit for the user (Hyperclay) vs TBL's read-write web. The user-agent ought, imo, afford standard tools that are going to work across web pages, that extend the user agency whatever site they are visiting.

> Making a more read/annotate/write web is near and dear to my heart Isn't that basically Wikipedia? I can't imagine a much simpler system that could work at modern web scale.

I think the scale difference is the whole point. Wikipedia has billions of active users, while these Hyperclay-style persistent documents have only a few.

Saying "we don't need this because Wikipedia already solved it" is kind of like saying in 1976: "Nobody needs the Apple II, we already have IBM mainframes that have solved every useful problem in computing much better."

Re: Web apps in a single, portable, self-updating, vanilla HTML file

#88

Post by zahlman »

panphora wrote: post #67
phantomathkg wrote: post #4

At first I thought it is tiddlywiki but it is not.

The author (me) was strongly inspired by TiddlyWiki -- I love that software and wish it was allowed to proliferate more. If only browser vendors allowed their users to persist HTML files back to their own machines, we'd have a whole new ecosystem of personal applications! I wish I could change the name from Hyperclay to TiddlyApp :)

> If only browser vendors allowed their users to persist HTML files back to their own machines, we'd have a whole new ecosystem of personal applications!

The trick TiddlyWiki does with data URLs (IIRC?) (https://tiddlywiki.com/#Saving%20with%20the%20HTML5%20saver) seems pretty close to me.

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