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Show HN: Capsule – Single-file web apps that save their data into SQLite

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71–80 of 175 posts

Re: Show HN: Capsule – Single-file web apps that save their data into SQLite

#71
post #60

> but trying to save data required hosting it somewhere With the File System Access API, webpages nowadays can read and write local files just like desktop applications: https://developer.chrome.com/docs/capabilities/web-apis/file... Try this text editor for example: https://googlechromelabs.github.io/text-editor/ It works nicely on Desktop and Mobile.

My dream is that you could write to Google Drive or iCloud Drive transparently too if the browser allows you to

Re: Show HN: Capsule – Single-file web apps that save their data into SQLite

#72
post #60

> but trying to save data required hosting it somewhere With the File System Access API, webpages nowadays can read and write local files just like desktop applications: https://developer.chrome.com/docs/capabilities/web-apis/file... Try this text editor for example: https://googlechromelabs.github.io/text-editor/ It works nicely on Desktop and Mobile.

*In Chrome.

Re: Show HN: Capsule – Single-file web apps that save their data into SQLite

#73
Looks neat. Shuffling artifacts around is more important than ever with all the agentic web sites and apps we are making.

Im finding a lot of success embedding metadata and data in SQLite files for music management.

Having a spec for a single file with a schema, version, metadata and binary blobs is super easy to shuffle around.

Agents crush reading and writing the data and writing tools around the spec.

All of a sudden things like backup, sharing and dedupe are snapping into place for my music library.

More thoughts here: https://deadca7.com/blog/deadca7-open-music-database-specifi...

Re: Show HN: Capsule – Single-file web apps that save their data into SQLite

#75
post #20

is the idea this would be hosted or run locally (like Electron)?

This is for local document like apps. Tauri is actually using the OS webview instead of bundling Chromium like Electron. That's why the download is only 10MB for Mac.

i like that idea. Anything that improves native OS UI, responsiveness (120hz) and reduces resources is a good idea.

Re: Show HN: Capsule – Single-file web apps that save their data into SQLite

#76
post #60

> but trying to save data required hosting it somewhere With the File System Access API, webpages nowadays can read and write local files just like desktop applications: https://developer.chrome.com/docs/capabilities/web-apis/file... Try this text editor for example: https://googlechromelabs.github.io/text-editor/ It works nicely on Desktop and Mobile.

Even better how about a fully functional VSCode: https://vscode.dev

The File System Access API makes it possible.

Re: Show HN: Capsule – Single-file web apps that save their data into SQLite

#77

I don't know, this seems like an idea that maybe works in a specific context being generalized past the point of the original idea making sense. If the user needs to download a specific application to run this these web apps, then why not just send them that initial application in the first place? Why jump through the hoops of using Capsule when the same hoops can be jumped through to get to the same endpoint? If thi…

Seems pretty useful in an enterprise context to me. I see it as an alternative to 10 million vibe coded apps to dockerize and manage. You can put the runtime on everyone’s machine and provide a web version for really collaborative stuff.

Bonus points for an intelligent way to manage these stored in OneDrive and other cloud folders. Easy to get corruption on SQLite files stored there.

Re: Show HN: Capsule – Single-file web apps that save their data into SQLite

#78
I'm surprised to not see Pocketbase mentioned in this thread at all.

https://pocketbase.io/docs/

"PocketBase is an open source backend consisting of embedded database (SQLite) with realtime subscriptions, builtin auth management, convenient dashboard UI and simple REST-ish API. It can be used both as Go framework and as standalone application.

The easiest way to get started is to download the prebuilt minimal PocketBase executable"

Re: Show HN: Capsule – Single-file web apps that save their data into SQLite

#79

Seems very "packable into a standalone binary" but doesn't seem like that is a planned use case.

The problem would be cross-platform support. In the end the capsule file is the standalone binary similar to a PDF or a Word document, you only need the viewer app to open any capsule file.

you can trivially bake X binaries if you have the viewer app for each platform. This is the normal way to distribute software for cross-platform support.

I might just be hyper-defensive to any sort of vendor lock-in like a "viewer app".

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