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Simple text editor has over 15k monthly users

137 points| ent101 | 6 years ago |mytextarea.com | reply

90 comments

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[+] keyle|6 years ago|reply
You know it's fairly trivial to do this in html with a few lines of code... HTML Editable, save to local storage; pretty handy stuff.

Has anyone built a substantial one like this for their own use?

[+] taneq|6 years ago|reply
> You know it's fairly trivial to do this in html with a few lines of code

If it wasn't then it wouldn't be a very good "world's simplest text editor", would it now? :P

Edit: It looks small enough that you could probably turn it into a bookmarklet so it wouldn't even need a server. Now that would be awesome.

[+] brntn|6 years ago|reply
I build a little scratchpad for personal use: https://sesh.github.io/scratchpad/

I guess for the most part these sort of things start off solving a personal problem. Getting 15k monthly users is very impressive!

[+] ent101|6 years ago|reply
I wonder what people use this for as it is too simple -- in my opinion at least.
[+] goodside|6 years ago|reply
That’s not the world’s simplest text editor.

This is:

  data:text/html, <html contenteditable>
That’s a working URL. Paste it into your browser. Bookmark it for later.

No distracting GUI. No superfluous features like “save” or “open”. Does not track active user statistics. Works offline.

[+] t0astbread|6 years ago|reply
If it's so good, how many monthly active users does it have?
[+] MrGilbert|6 years ago|reply
Expanded a bit for a fancy title:

  data:text/html, <html contenteditable><head><title>InstaEdit
The corresponding .app-tld is available. Should help with VC.

For better obfuscation (competitors!), here is a base64 version:

  data:text/html;charset=utf-8;base64,PGh0bWwgY29udGVudGVkaXRhYmxlPjxoZWFkPjx0aXRsZT5JbnN0YUVkaXQ=
P.S.: Doesn't work on IE.
[+] usrme|6 years ago|reply
To those who want an automatic focus to the editable area after opening the bookmark:

    data:text/html, <html contenteditable><script>document.querySelector('html').focus()</script></html>
[+] avip|6 years ago|reply
Should I feel dumb about not quite understanding why this url works?
[+] boblivion|6 years ago|reply
Nah, my browser tells me it's insecure.
[+] tenant|6 years ago|reply
It needs a browser which is a lot more hungry than notepad.exe
[+] Riccardo_G|6 years ago|reply
That is actually very cool!

I personally use my own chat in Slack to take random notes, and of course it saves them, but I also cannot open it as easily.

[+] buzzerbetrayed|6 years ago|reply
Just added this to my bookmarks bar. Super handy as a quick scratch pad.
[+] bigbong|6 years ago|reply
I bookmarked this.. Can I open the URI in a new tab?
[+] ent101|6 years ago|reply
That's actually pretty awesome!
[+] sandoooo|6 years ago|reply
I don't think it counts if it can't actually edit text, i.e. open and save at minimum.
[+] hopia|6 years ago|reply
What a lifehack!
[+] hyperpallium|6 years ago|reply
All it needs is a browser!

BTW didn't work in android FF.

[+] jankotek|6 years ago|reply
Does it run on DOS?
[+] kraigie|6 years ago|reply
What about cat example.txt?

No browser needed. No GUI. Works offline.

Surely that's simpler?

[+] Galaco|6 years ago|reply
Interesting idea, but realised that I can't use undo/redo after pressing Tab (at least on FireFox); it immediately made the experience awkward and more complicated.
[+] torgian|6 years ago|reply
As I'm sitting here with my pencil, paper, and eraser ( some pencils come with erasers! ), I wonder what could be easier than this kind of text editor.
[+] scrame|6 years ago|reply
Huh. Pretty cool. I can't set a filename on firefox, but I like that the style is bigger than the actual markup.
[+] rhabarba|6 years ago|reply
"World's simplest text editor" sends 13 requests to a web server, including one to world's leading spyware company. No, thank you.
[+] vijucat|6 years ago|reply
Exactly. I can't imagine why anyone would use a web site for drafting text, especially "temporary" drafts, which are probably more in need of privacy than the subsequent text that we publish / send out! What I do is have OneNote open all the time. It's blocked by the firewall from contacting the web and all notebooks are local. As an upside: if the temporary text turns into something substantial, you can use OneNote's organizing features to organize it, too. AKOO: Always Keep OneNote Open :-)
[+] classified|6 years ago|reply
World's simplest text editor is:

  $ cat > edited.txt
Enter text, hit ^D when you're done.

If you pray hard enough, Google will find a way to let you do that in a browser, so someone can count MAUs.

[+] raverbashing|6 years ago|reply
Yeah but can you edit text? You can only input it.

Readline and shell edit commands are a better text editor than simply cat.

   echo "Your text here edited as you want" > edited.txt
[+] tiborsaas|6 years ago|reply
I use this site for utilising the browsers spell checker :)
[+] hajimemash|6 years ago|reply
Wow! How do you know it has over 15k monthly users?
[+] ent101|6 years ago|reply
It says so in the "Show info" section. Alexa stats check out too.
[+] starpilot|6 years ago|reply
Now... is it ramen profitable?
[+] classified|6 years ago|reply
Good question. It will only be a matter of time until you need a browser and an internet connection to blink your eye or take a breath. Google will be up your every orifice. I bet they'll find a way to make a profit from that.
[+] purplezooey|6 years ago|reply
How does the author make any money... I see no ads
[+] qwerty456127|6 years ago|reply
Given the amount of unused space in the toolbar I believe you can safely add some handy features without making it worse in any sense so even more people would appreciate it. I'd add regex search&replace (with support to add/replace newline and tab symbols) and codepage conversion (including support for decrypting wrong codepage text and encoding/decoding the selected text as a URL replacing non-latin symbols with their codes and vice versa).
[+] mkoryak|6 years ago|reply
Right now it does this one thing pretty well. Adding more features is not always the answer.