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

withcapsule.app

131–140 of 178 posts

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

#133
post #127

I really like the idea. It's so easy to create small tools with AI now, but hard to install them as local apps or share them. But I'm missing a few relevant features: 1. syncing data and apps (capsules) between my devices. not necessarily over a single SaaS, but maybe p2p or some existing service 2. I think data and apps should be separated, I might want to share an app with someone else without sharing the data 3. A…

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

#136
post #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.

*In browsers that have implemented it

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

#137
I feel like this is close to a good idea.

What I would want to see is a version of this that lets me write an app that can write to the DB through an API, and then have a google drive-esque "host this for me" thing.

A focus on local-first really misses the point IMO. Like sure it's good it can be run locally, but really most people have a distribution problem. Be a distribution solution!

The thing I would do involves having the hosting just be available by dropping the capsule into the google drive/dropbox-y thing, and then having it be that you can just copy/paste the file to someone _and it carries over the data and everything by default_.

For a lot of people the "thing" is the app + the data. Sometimes you want to decouple them but a lot of times you don't want to.

I think it would be very rare for someone to want to share the single-file bundle just without data.

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

#140
post #26

My take: If your app needs to update and preserve state (using SQLite or any other DB), it is probably not something you want to pass around as a bundled file. Or at least, it's extremely limiting, compared with hosting it somewhere on the web, which is not that hard to do these days. Think of the workflow: Any time the state changes, you need to email a new Capsule file to whoever else is using the app. And one woul…

theres still lots of programs where local is the main user. but as time goes on the user may want to portably move it just by emailing the file itself. i made like a very light clone of notepad++ using it for my macbook. as a side note: i think they missed an opportunity to call it .pdfv rather than .capsule
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