Show HN: Nestable.dev – local whiteboard app with nestable canvases, deep links
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Re: Show HN: Nestable.dev – local whiteboard app with nestable canvases, deep links
#2I love this idea, but would want to self host it. There are many other canvas options out there I can use that offer it, and I can mimic the nesting via links in something like Obsidian.
Re: Show HN: Nestable.dev – local whiteboard app with nestable canvases, deep links
#3When I see words like nestable and infinite, I assumed this would be something where you can draw a diagram and then zoom in or out to see it at different detail levels. IE, draw a CPU diagram and zoom out and it becomes a simple box. Then you construct a motherboard around it. So I can see it as a simple block diagram at motherboard level, but as I zoom in the motherboard disappears and I am in the context of the CPU, seeing things like cache locations, cores, etc.
This is a product I REALLY want. Since I want to be able to diagram entire complex systems without always seeing 10,000 boxes on screen. You could start a presentation at 35,000 feet, showing the entire rough structure, then zoom into different regions where more detail will appear (infinitely)
Nestable feels more like excalidraw, with a folder/file structure?
Re: Show HN: Nestable.dev – local whiteboard app with nestable canvases, deep links
#4Ink & Switch did similar with Muse app [^1], but spun it off when they realized it wasn’t a sustainable business for them [^2].
Re: Show HN: Nestable.dev – local whiteboard app with nestable canvases, deep links
#5When I see words like nestable and infinite, I assumed this would be something where you can draw a diagram and then zoom in or out to see it at different detail levels. IE, draw a CPU diagram and zoom out and it becomes a simple box. Then you construct a motherboard around it. So I can see it as a simple block diagram at motherboard level, but as I zoom in the motherboard disappears and I am in the context of the CP…
Thanks for trying it out!
Zooming in to reveal things will only make it more ambiguous since the right depth at which we hide away content will vary based on the content.
We can more intuitively build this with nestable using deep links. Each layer/level can be shown in one canvas and a deeplink to another canvas that captures a more granular level of any of the components would be a much scalable and generic approach.
Re: Show HN: Nestable.dev – local whiteboard app with nestable canvases, deep links
#6Ink & Switch did similar with Muse app [^1], but spun it off when they realized it wasn’t a sustainable business for them [^2]. [^1]: https://www.inkandswitch.com/muse/ [^2]: https://museapp.com/end-and-beginning/
Haven't heard of muse before but it looks great!
Nestable approach with canvas management is more similar to notion than muse.
Nestable also has deep linking across the app so that you can leave hyperlinks to other pages or shapes from anywhere to enable better organisation and management.
Canvases aren't generally used as knowledge bases because more often than not, it gets really hard navigating them and nestable wishes to solve that.
In terms of making a business of out nestable, I have no plans for it. This is fully local and the only charge I incur would be for hosting which is very minimal.
Re: Show HN: Nestable.dev – local whiteboard app with nestable canvases, deep links
#7When I see words like nestable and infinite, I assumed this would be something where you can draw a diagram and then zoom in or out to see it at different detail levels. IE, draw a CPU diagram and zoom out and it becomes a simple box. Then you construct a motherboard around it. So I can see it as a simple block diagram at motherboard level, but as I zoom in the motherboard disappears and I am in the context of the CP…
I just had to go digging for this because your comment reminded me of something very similar; it's called Endless paper [1]. There may also be other similar ones on Infinite Canvas [2].
Re: Show HN: Nestable.dev – local whiteboard app with nestable canvases, deep links
#8When I see words like nestable and infinite, I assumed this would be something where you can draw a diagram and then zoom in or out to see it at different detail levels. IE, draw a CPU diagram and zoom out and it becomes a simple box. Then you construct a motherboard around it. So I can see it as a simple block diagram at motherboard level, but as I zoom in the motherboard disappears and I am in the context of the CP…
I've had a similar desire for a code modelling system for decades, so I've given it A LOT of thought, and there has been a lot of older research into Zoomable UIs and Semantic Zoom. Code Bubbles (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/shows/alm-summit-2011/code...) is the closest I've seen to the idea, but doesn't cover the scope I want.
Biggest challenge to me is the UX and navigating the relationships between entities (systems, components/modules, classes, functions, read/write memory, etc) requires a lot of design effort around how they work together consistently at all levels. Conceptually, your view is a set of boxes that are a filter/group-by over a lot of entities at some level, and you want to explode only some of those entities. eg. say you want to zoom into a micro-service's component level, but still see external APIs, which could be a single box per API or boxes for each endpoint. So the control you need over the way zooming works and the 'lens' over relationships filter/group-bys can easily become very complex; probably a good research project itself though!
I do think it's possible to build a good interface that would allow viewing from global cloud scale systems and right into the code through multiple paths, like design patterns/components or git repos with files/folders, but I'm not sure how nice it's going to be to use. There's a reason UML modelling didn't stick around. And I'm not sure there's enough of a business case to fund it, but I'll definitely keep hoping to see it some day.
Re: Show HN: Nestable.dev – local whiteboard app with nestable canvases, deep links
#9When I see words like nestable and infinite, I assumed this would be something where you can draw a diagram and then zoom in or out to see it at different detail levels. IE, draw a CPU diagram and zoom out and it becomes a simple box. Then you construct a motherboard around it. So I can see it as a simple block diagram at motherboard level, but as I zoom in the motherboard disappears and I am in the context of the CP…
I don't understand how a diagram tool like this doesn't exist yet. I've also had this on my Christmas list for so long, where it would apply for any kind of diagrams or mindmaps
Re: Show HN: Nestable.dev – local whiteboard app with nestable canvases, deep links
#10When I see words like nestable and infinite, I assumed this would be something where you can draw a diagram and then zoom in or out to see it at different detail levels. IE, draw a CPU diagram and zoom out and it becomes a simple box. Then you construct a motherboard around it. So I can see it as a simple block diagram at motherboard level, but as I zoom in the motherboard disappears and I am in the context of the CP…
This is something I've always thought would be useful as well, but after seeing some demos of it in action [1], I'm now not so sure. One of the issues I see is that because of the infinite zooming/scaling, there's no sense of place or spatial awareness that you get with a 2D map, or even a traditional outline. I think it would be easy to get lost if you had too much nesting and a lot of content.
Maybe on a smaller scale, it would be manageable though. I remember seeing some presentations that use Prezi and that has the ability to nest text at different zoom levels, and the transitions between slides worked pretty well and you did still have a sense of place, but the presenters didn't have tons of content all over like in the youtube link. I wish I had a link handy for the Prezi presentation I saw online because some of them were structured like your description about different zoom levels, like a fractal.