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Show HN: Nestable.dev – local whiteboard app with nestable canvases, deep links

nestable.dev

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Re: Show HN: Nestable.dev – local whiteboard app with nestable canvases, deep links

#11

Post by NRHuntoon »

whalesalad wrote: post #3

When 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…

Prezi used to work this way. (It still may, but I haven't used Prezi in almost 10 years, and it looks like they've gone head first into the AI generated Slide Business) https://prezi.com/

I used to make entire presentations, systems diagrams, story boards, etc all using scale as a meaningful piece of information. You could go way overboard with it but it was really great. (We used to have a saying "Your Prezi is making me dizzy" for folks that overdid the flying nature)

Re: Show HN: Nestable.dev – local whiteboard app with nestable canvases, deep links

#12

Post by refset »

anorak27 wrote: post #5
whalesalad wrote: post #3

When 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 approac…

An ability to add a custom thumbnail image to a deep link might be a good compromise.

Re: Show HN: Nestable.dev – local whiteboard app with nestable canvases, deep links

#13

Post by sesm »

whalesalad wrote: post #3

When 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 think the best way to achieve that would be grouping plus ability to expand/collapse groups.

Re: Show HN: Nestable.dev – local whiteboard app with nestable canvases, deep links

#14

Post by g4cg54g54 »

i find a "import pages" but no "export ALL pages"? (i did see the "one-by-one option", but how about two trees?)

"closing the sidebar" seems to grant access to another menu that is not accessible elsewhere? (appears to be of the actual canvas? has "export as svg" options like the context-menu, but also has "redo & revert" for example)

also appears there is a bit of an a "dynamic pen" (similar to excalidraw´s thickness?) - this could be a bit more pronounced i think or/and maybe needs some smoothing (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44915897 and some of the other demos linked in there)

a onbeforeunload (or whatever the current go to) to "warn before closing the tab" would be neat too (possibly gated behind Incognito-Mode detection - or only triggerd if the user himself did a import at the beginning or such?...)

very neat tho

Re: Show HN: Nestable.dev – local whiteboard app with nestable canvases, deep links

#16

Post by adfm »

anorak27 wrote: post #6
adfm wrote: post #4

Ink & 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 w…

What you've got is pretty slick, IMO.

Since you're using tldraw, are you considering using Perfect Freehand?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44955624

Re: Show HN: Nestable.dev – local whiteboard app with nestable canvases, deep links

#17

Post by huddo121 »

whalesalad wrote: post #3

When 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 been working on something that might be worth giving a try! [1] It's built more for specifically for software architecture rather than general whiteboarding, but we just recently added custom icon uploads so you could add whatever icons you want if you're more interested in hardware. The 'logical component' operates in two modes, one which is just a group, and one where it acts like a sub-board that scales its contents to fit the box.

[1] https://contexts.online

Re: Show HN: Nestable.dev – local whiteboard app with nestable canvases, deep links

#18

Post by jasonjmcghee »

Was this built with TLDraw SDK?

Maybe I'm missing implementation details, but TLDraw supports nested canvas too.

You can even nest and interact with the current canvas.

Here's the creator demonstrating this.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1C2TdPkj6aQ&t=150

Re: Show HN: Nestable.dev – local whiteboard app with nestable canvases, deep links

#19

Post by zoom6628 »

ZunarJ5 wrote: post #2

I 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.

My work is primarily market strategy and product ideation. I do this in obsidian. Generally have a top level canvas and linked documents.

All the usual obsidian goodies work as expected.

I do like this app though. Great tool for preparing presentations to explain things and probably also great whiteboarding tool (company uses figma for that and it is beyond annoying!).

Re: Show HN: Nestable.dev – local whiteboard app with nestable canvases, deep links

#20

Post by oftenwrong »

whalesalad wrote: post #3

When 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…

That is also something that I have always wanted... and it seems like we are in good company.
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