Curating my corner of the Internet with a freehand web editor

https://rafichaudhury.com/site/blog/Freehand-Web

by rchaud • 2 years ago

113 38 2 years ago

musicale2• 2 years ago

Too much knowledge of code is required to create a hand-made website. Building one shouldn't be any more difficult than making a PowerPoint [presentation]

I like this. I also wish designMode were more of a discoverable, easy-to-use feature in popular browsers.

Hosting (and DNS etc.) are still a pain though, and usually cost money.

an abandonware WYSIWYG web editor called Hotglue
Hotglue is a fascinating open-source "anything goes, WYSIWYG" website making tool

But it's open source (GPL), so anyone could revive (or un-abandon) it!

Dalewyn• 2 years ago

Building one shouldn't be any more difficult than making a PowerPoint

Once upon a time there was Microsoft Frontpage and Frontpage Express which brought becoming a webmaster to the masses.

For all the rightful criticism they got, they were also what started me down the path of learning how websites are made.

rchaud6• 2 years ago

Even in 2024, the <table> element remains an easier, HTML-native way to build multi-column layouts than flexbox or grid. Is it responsive? No. Does it work acceptably in the absence of the above? Yes!

Terr_• 2 years ago

Later but also noteworthy: [Macromedia|Adobe] Dreamweaver.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Dreamweaver

lukan5• 2 years ago

"But it's open source (GPL), so anyone could revive (or un-abandon) it!"

Not everyone has the skill, or time and energy, to pick up a dead project. Most projects are dead, because the codebase became no more fun to work with. So it likely won't be well documented, nor clean code and original creators might be not around for questions. Really challenging start conditions, that is why most abandoned projects stay abandoned and people motivated rather start a fresh one.

(no idea about the state of hotglue, but it would surprise me, if it would be different here)

smaudet2• 2 years ago

Not everyone has the skill, or time and energy, to pick up a dead project.

To expound on that, usually when I encounter a "dead" project, the biggest hurdle(s) are the build assumptions that weren't addressed - large complex build systems that have many presumptions (usually dynamic run-times with macro libraries, that require specific versions of things to exist on your system, that themselves are also quite difficult to build/require specific starting conditions)...

A good example, I see (quite often actually) build systems with nested build systems that are then bootstrapping other builds - quite a technical marvel but unsurprising when a tweak to the "underlying build tools" causes strange errors and requires massive build-system surgeries...

The lesson? Be as verbose as possible about exactly everything you know you depend on, in as clear (human readable) format as possible, and always strive to pick the simplest build tool possible - if you are compiling a language, use that compiler, not a system that has support for systems that can compile your language.

Technical "shortcuts" are the bane of longevity of a software artifact.

mattlondon• 2 years ago

I don't think it is the software that is the blocker for people doing this. It's not like it was easy in the old days - if anything it is easier today to create a personal-if-bland site on one of the many free WYSIWYG editors that use templates (I know the article mentions this) yet they don't. And let's face it search engines were utter trash until early-google arrived so it's not like you could count on your site being easily found (...and some may argue the current utility of search engines - or lack of! - puts us back where we were pre-google era anyway...)

I think there are some other reasons - I don't know which one(s) (if any) are most true or not:

- maybe people still are doing it but we just don't see it now the net is so much larger? Look at Gemini protocol et al - people are doing things but not in a necessarily eye-catching way

- maybe video is the kids' new HTML? There is some weird/creative stuff on tiktok etc al. Even getting photos let alone 4k video into a computer was hard in the early/mid 90s.

- it just went out of fashion

- the novelty wore off

- people see the internet as a utility these days, and take it for granted

- everyone is spending all their time trying to bootstrap a Like-OpenAi-But-For-Ride-Hailing start-up instead

Tl;dr - motivated individuals will build something if they want to, but I think the motivation has gone. I don't think it is because they feel constrained by templates

smaudet2• 2 years ago

puts us back where we were pre-google era anyway...

Google (search) is becoming increasingly less relevant. I know of DuckDuckGo / Kagi, a quick search (on DuckDuckGo) shows a lot of other search engines such as Mojeek, Ecosia, Qwant, Brave:

https://proton.me/blog/alternative-search-engines

As well as a lot of what I'd call "domain specific" search engines like Wolfram Alpha, various targeted social media engines, etc:

https://neilpatel.com/blog/alternative-search-engines/

However I wonder if it would be technically feasible to distribute the search problem instead - Mastodon for search. Technically a node only needs to spend time spidering results with a simple variation on something like PageRank, then some trust/value mechanism needs worked out among the nodes.

The problem with the rise of new competing engines is just that, their competition. Lets say one, e.g. Kagi, becomes the de-facto quality non-AI search engine in 5 years, there's nothing to stop them being bought/sold/bankrupted (financially/morally/infested with secret AI).

rchaud6• 2 years ago

Tl;dr - motivated individuals will build something if they want to, but I think the motivation has gone.

Author here: you are right, but it's a shame that those who are motivated skew towards building a "product" of some sort, like a Substack, or a "personal brand". This means they will be well-served by the existing business-focused options out there.

And on the other side of the spectrum, there are creatives making cool things on itch.io, Blender, and elsewhere. It would be great if there was a "middle ground" option for the average weirdo that could use a pure drag-and-drop anywhere web canvas to express ideas, without being hamstrung by the steep learning curve of running anything beyond Medium.com.

darrinm• 2 years ago

Shameless plug for my startup’s freehand web editor https://hatch.one. You don’t have to throw back to hotglue if you want to create your own site visually with tremendous creative freedom.

ravetcofx• 2 years ago

And no affiliation, but I've been enjoying https://mmm.page which isn't open or self hostable, but also a long the same lines. (I think I found it here on HN)

adolph• 2 years ago

While I’m sympathetic to the aims of this manifesto, I can’t help but see the paradox of “free hand” being antithetical to html, a format that chose semantic over aesthetic, and legibility over expressiveness.

rchaud6• 2 years ago

Author here: Very true!

I didn't go into it in the article itself, but you are correct. HTML has a pretty strict hierarchy of elements to maintain a semantic style. While this is helpful for those using screen readers, or running search crawlers or AI scrapers, it is unfortunate that this decision mostly excludes the ability to build freeform layouts without incurring SEO and potentially WCAG penalties.

parpfish2• 2 years ago

When I hear someone talk about their “corner” of the internet, I always think about what that means geometrically or topologically.

Is the internet a shape made up of ALL corners?

_xivi• 2 years ago

Is the internet a shape made up of ALL corners?

Sounds like a Geodesic Sphere.

Personally I see it more as an international city rich of intersections, and as such, full of different corners

in-tension3• 2 years ago

I love that interpretation. The Internet is made up of corners and corners are created by intersections.

(Although I think I may have just reinvented the grid)

masswerk• 2 years ago

Think of Antiquity, when the world was empirically a globe, but conceptionally a circle (orbs), and still had corners for the 4 winds. :-)

thih9• 2 years ago

I opened this website on a laptop and it was a very satisfying read.

I immediately noticed that the page uses full width of the screen; that there are no distractions in the form of ads, newsletter popups, unintuitive scrolling, or the like; and that the increase in information density was without compromising readability. Embedding social media content as screenshots is a nice touch too.

An efficient way to prove your point.

our collective web experience frustrates more than it excites. It is a whiplash feed of ephemeral 'content' interspersed with ads and walled within 3 or 4 platforms with web-accessible front-ends (social media, newsletters, Discord channels). They'd all love for you to switch to the mobile app, though.

rchaud6• 2 years ago

Thank you, I intentionally went for this full-width format as I too don't like reading long articles in a skinny single column template that Medium and Substack default to.

As this is a personal website that isn't selling anything, I have no need for email sign up popups and the like.

gandalfian• 2 years ago

Automatically changing from three coloumns to one as the screen narrows is quite nifty.

rikroots• 2 years ago

We can't expect to turn back the clock and have everyone writing HTML by hand again, not when we're all accustomed to typing text and uploading media via carefully manicured, intentionally minimal user interfaces.

There are days when I feel like I'm the last person left who hand-codes personal websites for pleasure. Though I refuse to believe this is true!

Then again, I doubt there's a freehand web editor that's ever been built that can cope with the sort of crazy I was building back in the day (and, against all probability, still works!)

⇉ A brief Ákat lexicon - http://rikweb.co.uk/kalieda/wakat/index.php?page=lexicon

⇉ Vreski wards system - https://vreskiwards.rikweb.org.uk/index.html

⇉ Ewlah maps - https://rikweb.org.uk/map/

in-tension3• 2 years ago

I don't think people have actually stopped we just don't know how to find them, at least I don't.

How did people find them in the old days?

Does anyone else want a "search engine" that is just a database of websites crawled and you can query any combination of fields and filters you want?

Also for me the issue in starting a personal website has always been the server and public IP adress (I'm into the diy).

mglz• 2 years ago

There is!

https://blog.kagi.com/small-web

https://search.marginalia.nu/

in-tension3• 2 years ago

Great links, will definitely be exploring these

However I meant something slightly different

A search engine presumably has 2 things, a database and a search algorithm

The user doesn't have direct access to the underlying database

Sometimes when I'm searching something, I want to do some very specific and unusual filtering and the built in filters/settings just aren't enough. It would be impossible (or at least crazy) to include all the different possible settings that I might want, you'd practically be writing a new scripting language.

However databases are important and common enough that they already have specific languages for querying them, like SQL. Where filters and settings wouldn't be enough, SQL probably would.

So what I really want is direct access to Google's databases (because it presumably has the biggest and this comes up when I'm looking for something really obscure). But I'm guessing that's not gonna happen.

AlexDragusin• 2 years ago

I hand code my business website by hand, fun and it's actually fast once you know what are you doing. Best thing is you can actually optimize everything properly by building things to be exactly as needed and make fine refinements. Even with animations and stuff, it's total weight is below 1MB (854Kb).

But this is not for everyone, not only the lack of knowledge (which is fine, not everyone has to write their websites manually) but also lack of interest. Great for tinkerers to deal with the challenges and make it do.

oopsallmagic• 2 years ago

We can't expect to turn back the clock and have everyone writing HTML by hand again, not when we're all accustomed to typing text and uploading media via carefully manicured, intentionally minimal user interfaces.

I mean, I do it. That was always allowed! You've been able to write as much or as little HTML as you want since the Web was invented.

Curating my corner of the Internet with a freehand web editor

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