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Launch HN: Slapdash (YC W19) – A uniform, low-latency interface for cloud apps

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Re: Launch HN: Slapdash (YC W19) – A uniform, low-latency interface for cloud apps

#31

Post by kanevski »

rimjongun wrote: post #28

One idea would be removing apps from the "Connect Apps" list after I've connected them. Also app requests: - Digital Ocean - Wordpress - Ghost - Basecamp(?) - Signal(?) Exciting stuff, web interfaces can suck.

The reason some apps are not removed after you connect them is that you can connect more than one account. For example, you can connect multiple G-Drive accounts.

That said, it's definitely confusing in its current form, so thanks for highlighting it.

The apps you suggested are definitely within reach (except for maybe Signal). We don't integrate any CMS's yet, but I think it would be quite helpful, especially for folks who tend to interface with them a lot.

Re: Launch HN: Slapdash (YC W19) – A uniform, low-latency interface for cloud apps

#32

Post by zestyping »

kanevski wrote: post #18
jesalg wrote: post #16

This is very cool. I just installed it. I was curious, can you speak to how this differentiates from https://getcommande.com/ ?

Both Slapdash and Command E can search apps, but Slapdash can do other things too: * You can also write to applications, it's not just read-only (create docs, file issues, close tasks, upload files, etc.) * You can browse the structure of applications in Slapdash (not just search them). * You can build sophisticated queries (show all tasks open tasks, that mention this customer, render it as a list) * We are client-a…

Thanks, this is helpful! Can you do a similar pros/cons comparison with Akiflow?

Re: Launch HN: Slapdash (YC W19) – A uniform, low-latency interface for cloud apps

#33

Post by WesleyJohnson »

This looks awesome. I recently upgraded from Spotlight to Alfred and the productivity went way up. Slapdash seems like it would do that, again, 10 fold.

Do you support local installations of the listed products, specifically Gitlab and Jira? If not, any plans to work that out?

Re: Launch HN: Slapdash (YC W19) – A uniform, low-latency interface for cloud apps

#34

Post by hv42 »

kanevski wrote: post #18
jesalg wrote: post #16

This is very cool. I just installed it. I was curious, can you speak to how this differentiates from https://getcommande.com/ ?

Both Slapdash and Command E can search apps, but Slapdash can do other things too: * You can also write to applications, it's not just read-only (create docs, file issues, close tasks, upload files, etc.) * You can browse the structure of applications in Slapdash (not just search them). * You can build sophisticated queries (show all tasks open tasks, that mention this customer, render it as a list) * We are client-a…

That's really cool!

What's the process around adding new apps? Would one be able to integrate easily?

I built Quest https://github.com/hverlin/Quest during the lockdown to search content across several apps (Gmail, Jira, Confluence...) as I could not find one that would allow me to do this.

Re: Launch HN: Slapdash (YC W19) – A uniform, low-latency interface for cloud apps

#35

Post by Gipetto »

So, does this mean that users hand over permissions to a 3rd party to index internal company systems? So you could read a Confluence instance, or some other kind of wiki, and be a vector for data/security leaks?

Seems like there should be a "talk to your security team" disclaimer... people get fired for granting access like that.

Re: Launch HN: Slapdash (YC W19) – A uniform, low-latency interface for cloud apps

#37

Post by e12e »

kanevski wrote: post #23
iudqnolq wrote: post #19

Any plans on a linux client?

Yes, it's almost ready. You can actually download a linux build from: https://download.slapdash.com/ The one thing we have left is fixing auth. We auth in the browser and then open the desktop app to pass the auth tokens to the desktop client. However, this hand off is more difficult to achieve with Linux (can't just open slapdash:// URLs as easily as you can on OS X and windows). There is a work around hack, where i…

> However, this hand off is more difficult to achieve with Linux (can't just open slapdash:// URLs as easily as you can on OS X and windows).

Isn't this exactly what xdg-open does?

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xdg-utils

https://askubuntu.com/questions/527166/how-to-set-subl-proto...

I suppose if you want to support text mode (ie use from mutt without running a gui) - you'd have to use mailcap - but that assumes the login flow works in a text mode browser like w3m...

Re: Launch HN: Slapdash (YC W19) – A uniform, low-latency interface for cloud apps

#38

Post by kanevski »

Gipetto wrote: post #35

So, does this mean that users hand over permissions to a 3rd party to index internal company systems? So you could read a Confluence instance, or some other kind of wiki, and be a vector for data/security leaks? Seems like there should be a "talk to your security team" disclaimer... people get fired for granting access like that.

We don't take security lightly, but we don't do a good job articulating how we safeguard things in the product. We'll fix this - thanks for pushing on it.

There are details throughout this post, but I will summarize our high-level approach.

* When we request permissions, we request a minimal set. For example, you can connect Drive with just meta-data access and our access will be scoped accordingly.

* Everything is encrypted. Importantly, it's also encrypted in the data store itself. If our DB was compromised, the entries would not be readable (ECIES, Secp256k1, AES256+CTR). Only exception is the reverse index.

* The operations that involve encryption / decryption of encrypted content live in an isolated layer.

* Token storage follows similar methodology

* We get a pentest and security reviews quarterly

* We also have strict company policies around IT and infrastructure access

That said, we aren't ever at a terminal point in our security story.

Our experience has been that security conscious companies simply turn off ability to connect third party applications.

Re: Launch HN: Slapdash (YC W19) – A uniform, low-latency interface for cloud apps

#39

Post by ablekh »

Congratulations on your launch and best wishes! Interesting stuff. Having said that, I think that I have seen another startup offering something along the same lines. I don't remember the name, but should I recall or find it in the ocean of my bookmarks, I will return here and add a comment.

Re: Launch HN: Slapdash (YC W19) – A uniform, low-latency interface for cloud apps

#40

Post by kanevski »

WesleyJohnson wrote: post #33

This looks awesome. I recently upgraded from Spotlight to Alfred and the productivity went way up. Slapdash seems like it would do that, again, 10 fold. Do you support local installations of the listed products, specifically Gitlab and Jira? If not, any plans to work that out?

What do you mean by local installation?

Certain products have a desktop app counterpart. For example, Notion, Trello, Figma, etc.

Slapdash is aware of those applications and when possible will opt to open things inside the desktop app vs a browser tab.

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