Show HN: Quabel, a distraction-free online writer with writing goals, fireworks

by bflesch • 14 years ago

12 14 14 years ago

bflesch4• 14 years ago

Quabel is a pet project of two friends of mine and myself, and we are proud to finally present it to HN after a long time of working on it.

Basically, we want to make focussed writing more easy. Quabel is an online editor which uses writing goals very prominently. This allows the writer to stay on track and measure performance with all the benefits of using a web service.

Full list of features:

- Automatically save your texts so you don't lose anything

- Create goals and measure your writing performance

- Nightmode for when it gets dark outside

- Markdown formatting

- Drag and Drop your .docx files onto Quabel to import and edit them in Markdown instantly

- Export to PDF/ODT/Latex/Markdown

- Easily publish your writings and share them with others

- (optional) typewriter sound when you hit a key

- (optional) fireworks when you reach your goal

Please tell us your feedback, we value your opinion very much! Thanks!

Our future roadmap includes offline editing, revisioning (hard topic!) and collaboration between multiple writers.

unwind• 14 years ago

I love the self-irony of being "distraction-free", but having fscking fireworks!

(Note: I do "get it", gamification/rewards work, but it still strikes me as funny.)

bflesch4• 14 years ago

Nice that you noticed. To be honest, it seemed a bit weird for me as well as I was typing out the text above :-)

The funny thing is, my cofounders hated the fireworks idea, but then some blog post said very positive things about it and so we kept it.

aplh3• 14 years ago

Hi, I'm Aaron and the designer of Quabel. If you have any feedback regarding design I will very appreciate it. Cheers!

illicium• 14 years ago

Looks very... inspired by iA Writer. Not that it's a bad thing.

draq• 14 years ago

except for it's free and not Apple-only.

philip_roberts• 14 years ago

...free for up to 5 documents.

bflesch4• 14 years ago

I know the space of writing tools is very crowded. But I must say that I did not know most of the more "popular" alternatives before mid-way in development, with which I'm trying to say we did not seek their inspiration directly.

We just got caught in this idea of an text editor we both would love to use, and given the restraints of our respective platforms (Aaron: Mac, Martin: Win7, Me: Ubuntu) we chose to make a web application. Although I love many aspects of open source software, I didn't find a tool such as Quabel for Ubuntu yet - thats why I was very eager to create this.

josteink• 14 years ago

I tried this once and really liked it to the point where I considered replacing Google Docs with it.

Only to find the freemium usage-terms way too limited. You want me to pay to have more than 5 free-text documents stored each, probably occupying in total less than 10kb?

Seriously?

Edit: Seemingly the limit is 15 documents now. That's still a no-go.

aplh3• 14 years ago

Thanks for your comment.

How to limit the free user was a though decision for us. You can increase your document space without buying premium: for every user you invite both you and your referral get 5 additional docs. Also, a free user can download and store his docs locally and enjoy Quabel for free for an infinite time.

dsplittgerber2• 14 years ago

https://quabel.com/subscribe/hobbyist/ doesn't work for me. "You cannot access this page"

aplh3• 14 years ago

You're probably using Quabel as a dummy user. Please sign up for a regular account first and then try again. We'll work on that error message ;-).

dsplittgerber2• 14 years ago

You have a smart marketing ploy with the "Privacy made in Germany" slogan. Similar to "German engineering", instantly recognizable. Also, great looking product.

I wonder though, I am a German lawyer myself and under the impression that German data privacy laws (which I am not specialised in) are not that different from US/UK/generic EU country laws. Do you have any research or comparisons on that?

Because I see two ways how my data might get misappropriated anyway: either by your hosting provider, over which you have no control whatsoever if you don't own the physical servers, or by a police investigation, with which you have to comply anyway. So what exactly does German privacy protection buy me here?

bflesch4• 14 years ago

Hi Daniel, thanks for your thoughtful considerations. Due to my experiences, I think privacy laws in Germany differ in one main point frome those in the UK or other EU countries, which is enforcement. As you probably know, we have had some data scandals which created a sense for data privacy in large parts of the population. On top of this, big internet corporations such as Google and Facebook are often portrayed as "data hungry" molochs by German media outlets.

Coupled with our own "bad feeling" when replacing the local OpenOffice or Word installation with Quabel.com for writing documents, we've decided to clearly state data privacy as a feature on our homepage. We hope this emphasizes the user-oriented aspect we have had in mind when creating this application.

Show HN: Quabel, a distraction-free online writer with writing goals, fireworks

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