Nice work - seems like more and more people are using Notion to publish their own little websites. There are a few custom solutions that attempt to fix the problems that the author outlined, such as custom URLs and styling:
I also built my own solution which takes a different approach: https://github.com/leoncvlt/loconotion - it caches the Notion page as a static site - admittedly you lose the capability of "syncing" sites instantly but is also makes the site snappier and more responsive as it removes a lot of bloat.
> I also built my own solution which takes a different approach: https://github.com/leoncvlt/loconotion - it caches the Notion page as a static site - admittedly you lose the capability of "syncing" sites instantly but is also makes the site snappier and more responsive as it removes a lot of bloat.
Nice work! Another benefit you didn't mention is that it also makes it a lot more secure - there's no injecting anything into static pages!
This looks fantastic! Thanks for sharing. In a quick test on Mobile Safari with the demo site, it doesn’t seem to render a “mobile friendly” version... and worse I can’t scroll left/right. I’ll check a different device to make sure and can an open an issue with more details.
In addition to the already highlighted security vulnerabilities (you have to stop any js injection capabilities), instant publish from your domain means you are about to be swarmed with spammers. From SEO back-link builders, to “download links” for viruses or illegal content, etc. If you enable that kind of spam, your domain’s signal to noise ratio goes down substantially for sharing legitimate content.
Author here — me and a friend have been working on Brick for the past several months.
It works like Notion as in "all your edits are instantly visible" — from experience, this feels very different from blogging on Wordpress or making a static site in a git repo.
I love static sites but I'm not going back to them. I can experiment much more easily with Brick.
You can do something similar with Notion, but Notion is aimed at management or personal knowledge-bases, and it shows. We have a different focus. E.g. Notion is unlikely to ever have email subscriptions or ways to let people pay for your writing, while we very well might in the future. Notion also doesn't support custom domains out of the box, or custom CSS.
Try it out! Brick is free and has no ads. The only thing is that you need a premium plan (less than $2/mo) for custom domains.
I use Notion to maintain a personal knowledge-base (which it works great for). I also maintain a newsletter, embedded into the knowledge-base, that links directly into a lot of the knowledge-base pages for when I need to reference things (which it works not so great for).
Are there plans to introduce some sort of Notion-Brick interop/synchronisation system? I'd love to use the Brick styling and custom domain features, but would like to keep Notion as my source of truth.
I can't seem to read anything at all about pricing without signing up. I don't want to share my Google/Github account with you before seeing pricing information.
The "see Brick in action" video also doesn't play for me on Firefox.
Just logged in to have a look.
Pricing plans are: free up to 2 domains and “for the first 1000 users” $20/year for 20 domains or using your custom domain.
It wouldn't be much of a security risk if the authors had correctly isolated user content into its own origin, which would have made this a self-xss only. As it stands the app itself runs on the same origin, so this is a real XSS.
We want to have a classic sign-up option as well, sure — if only because it's one less third-party point of vulnerability for users (will be relevant when encrypted pages are there).
Unfortunately it's harder than Google/GitHub login, so we focused on other bits for the MVP.
Is there any third-party service you /would/ use for auth? Perhaps it can be enabled quickly.
I thought "freemium" nowadays referred more to practices like "we'll actively make your experience worse and annoy you unless you pay", but now I think I mistook that for "free-to-play" in the game industry. Alright then! It's freemium.
Yes, all pages are indexable once Google gets ahold of the links (so if you never share the link with anyone, it's /not/ going to end up in Google — that's important).
I can find my Brick sites when I search for my name, though they are low-rank at the moment.
The website doesn't work here, which is pretty unusual. win 10 with latest version of firefox. first time it wouldn't completely load (kept loading...), CTRL+R and it loads completely, but video won't play. I'm curious and will be back in a few days to check it out.
Nice site. With all the "focus" on micro-blogging and dislike for sites like Medium.com (I agree by the way). It might be a good show of faith, to let the users "export" their sites to MD or static HTML, if they want to host and have a copy of their website.
I still want to see some example pages that are done in Brick. Also want to see the pricing details before I sign up. Currently "Sign In" is the only option available there.
neongreen, you should really test how it works on Firefox. For example sing in with Github bricked (pun intended ;) ) my tab with your site, even refresh button and address bar stopped working. I had to close it and open again to see the dashboard.
Steps:
- click on "get started"
- I choose option to sing in with google.
- it opens google api in separate modal window and this does not work if you have Firefox extension to keep google in container
- so I clicked github option, and authorized your app
- after that, brick.do page has been frozen completely
[+] [-] leoncvlt|5 years ago|reply
- https://super.so/
- https://fruitionsite.com/
- https://www.notion.so/Hosting-Potion-Fast-custom-domains-for...
I also built my own solution which takes a different approach: https://github.com/leoncvlt/loconotion - it caches the Notion page as a static site - admittedly you lose the capability of "syncing" sites instantly but is also makes the site snappier and more responsive as it removes a lot of bloat.
[+] [-] GekkePrutser|5 years ago|reply
Nice work! Another benefit you didn't mention is that it also makes it a lot more secure - there's no injecting anything into static pages!
[+] [-] eddyg|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phemartin|5 years ago|reply
[0] https://magicdocs.co
[+] [-] Jibranio|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dzink|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neongreen|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neongreen|5 years ago|reply
It works like Notion as in "all your edits are instantly visible" — from experience, this feels very different from blogging on Wordpress or making a static site in a git repo.
I love static sites but I'm not going back to them. I can experiment much more easily with Brick.
You can do something similar with Notion, but Notion is aimed at management or personal knowledge-bases, and it shows. We have a different focus. E.g. Notion is unlikely to ever have email subscriptions or ways to let people pay for your writing, while we very well might in the future. Notion also doesn't support custom domains out of the box, or custom CSS.
Try it out! Brick is free and has no ads. The only thing is that you need a premium plan (less than $2/mo) for custom domains.
[+] [-] adiM|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mbo|5 years ago|reply
I use Notion to maintain a personal knowledge-base (which it works great for). I also maintain a newsletter, embedded into the knowledge-base, that links directly into a lot of the knowledge-base pages for when I need to reference things (which it works not so great for).
Are there plans to introduce some sort of Notion-Brick interop/synchronisation system? I'd love to use the Brick styling and custom domain features, but would like to keep Notion as my source of truth.
[+] [-] glial|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ellsthrow|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sreekotay|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mamurphy|5 years ago|reply
The "see Brick in action" video also doesn't play for me on Firefox.
[+] [-] whois_anon|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jentist_retol|5 years ago|reply
sign in with google/github doesnt expose any info that you wouldnt through a traditional signup.
however, it's extremely frustrating that the pricing isn't up front or even indicated that'll be an issue
[+] [-] haberdasher|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arkadiyt|5 years ago|reply
It wouldn't be much of a security risk if the authors had correctly isolated user content into its own origin, which would have made this a self-xss only. As it stands the app itself runs on the same origin, so this is a real XSS.
[+] [-] firloop|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neongreen|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tiffanyh|5 years ago|reply
I want to signup for this service, but I can’t - because I use a non-gmail email service and use a non-github Git service.
What happened to thr “good old days” of just using my email address to signup for a service?
[+] [-] neongreen|5 years ago|reply
Unfortunately it's harder than Google/GitHub login, so we focused on other bits for the MVP.
Is there any third-party service you /would/ use for auth? Perhaps it can be enabled quickly.
[+] [-] xxdesmus|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dancek|5 years ago|reply
EDIT: NOTE: I mean nothing negative by freemium: I just mean there are both free and paid tiers. Not sure what the definition of freemium is.
[+] [-] neongreen|5 years ago|reply
I thought "freemium" nowadays referred more to practices like "we'll actively make your experience worse and annoy you unless you pay", but now I think I mistook that for "free-to-play" in the game industry. Alright then! It's freemium.
[+] [-] qwerty456127|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] isaacimagine|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] isaacimagine|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alphagrep12345|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neongreen|5 years ago|reply
I can find my Brick sites when I search for my name, though they are low-rank at the moment.
[+] [-] edwinyzh|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwawaysea|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brikwerk|5 years ago|reply
[1] https://i.imgur.com/pDgXeJJ.png
[+] [-] sub7|5 years ago|reply
Add payment/subscription support for writers. Take on substack directly.
[+] [-] gverrilla|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rawoke083600|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neongreen|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dafman|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neongreen|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vhbit|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fareesh|5 years ago|reply
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ITZQHyGMdlK2DJ6KyDYMf8rfU67...
[+] [-] neongreen|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vishnuharidas|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neongreen|5 years ago|reply
Sample pages:
* https://brick.do/55357459-86b9-4274-8ae4-85721987d73d — a friend wrote a post about webs of meaning
* https://brick.do/7c494481-f2e5-4a05-9a4d-19b22c76c729 — my own post detailing all my projects so far
* https://brick.do/ca51f14c-e600-4afe-b99d-71e46fbd150b — a technical post (Haskell-y) that I wrote
* https://nathanabram.com/ — this is how the default style looks like.
[+] [-] kkarpkkarp|5 years ago|reply
Steps:
- click on "get started"
- I choose option to sing in with google.
- it opens google api in separate modal window and this does not work if you have Firefox extension to keep google in container
- so I clicked github option, and authorized your app
- after that, brick.do page has been frozen completely
[+] [-] neongreen|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] samblr|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chdaniel|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neongreen|5 years ago|reply
The only open-source block editor I know of is https://codex.so/editor.