The marketing on the homepage needs an overhaul. Took me a really long time to understand the product! The automatic code changing at the top was super confusing. Clicking on the demos didn't work. A lot of the demos had locks on them (???), which is weird -- the demos help me understand the product, why would they be locked? More confusing, a lot of the locked demos had been unlocked by sponsors, so clicking on them worked! So why was the lock still there?
Also the tag "more than syntax highlighting" is what threw me off. I thought this would be an IDE extension or something that extended syntax highlighting in some cool way. I thought you were just using markdown as an example. Maybe "supercharged markdown code blocks" might be a better tag line.
That's probably the biggest thing I see as a production-ready blocker. The feature itself looks cool based on the few demos I saw.
> Everyone can see all the demos, but only sponsors can see the code for demos marked with . Locked demos are unlocked for everyone after being sponsored by five sponsors.
i think the demos are visible to everyone, but the _source_ is only viewable by sponsors.
that said, still seems weird to lock away code that could make people use your product.
I think the idea of having to sponsor to see the demos which should make people decide to sponsor/invest in the project because they find it useful for them is weird enough.
Quite impressive, I didn't get it at first because I thought it was just MDX. Then I saw that there were changes in the video such as "```js focus=2,4[9:30],6", ans I saw that the code in the video was highlighted differently, then I understood the product. It's a way to annotate code more deeply than just with MDX. You need to make that much more explicit IMO, it needs to be quite clear when people read the site. I recommend a site that is more long form and describes the features well.
Also get rid of the weird "sponsorship for unlocking documentation" model. Make the library sponsorware if you need to, as in you can't see the code until you sponsor, but why would you make the docs sponsored? They're what might entice people to actually pay to use your software. As someone else said, you're actually crippling your own sponsorships by hiding marketing material behind a paywall. Marketing should be free so that as many people see it as possible, and some subset will buy. If you cut off the top of that funnel, you just get fewer people buying.
I could eventually figure out what it was doing but the speed of the videos flipping between examples looks like it was set by people who already knew what the message was, rather than for people who don't know it (yet)
Just a small heads-up that the first 9 code examples has double scrollbars (see "Scrollbar Blindness" [0]). It's often better with `overflow-x: auto` than `overflow-x: scroll` :)
If you want to try it, beware that current docs are minimal. If you have questions or feedback GitHub Discussions is the best place to post them. Thanks!
Why are certain examples "locked"? Nothing discourages me from using a tool more than an arbitrary popup telling me that I need to spend more money to get an idea of what your product is...
I think it's a fantastic idea. Like a few posted, get to the point with the marketing. It's only later that I understood what it does.
I'd take one of the more advanced gif, that showed highlights, code coming in, file changing, and I'd make that prominent at the top of the page, next to the tagline or marketing spiel.
Remember the What is it, Why do I need it (and is it for me), as people come in and have no idea what it is!
The product looks interesting, I'm bookmarking the site to go checkout on desktop.
On mobile (Chrome on Android) the site is super confusing and has a "hotel California"-vibe: "you can enter but never leave". Pressing the back button multiple times didn't work - I had to close the site.
On the Lorem Ipsum code blocks: in typesetting Lorem Ipsum exists to provide the shape of text without the content. This seems directly contrary to the goals of your examples. Nobody likes looking at Lorem Ipsum and nobody ever reads Lorem Ipsum.
Ok, so, real talk (and this isn't meant to be a shallow dismissal -- I'm truly interested in the answer): what can I do with Code Hike that I can't do with Pandoc (possibly with a custom filter or 2)?
As a daily user of Markdown, I was never aware of MDX. Your post helped me understand what it is :)
I also like your idea of monetizing by "minimum" sponsors. How do you deal with people not wanting to sponsor because they don't want a monthly commitment but are willing to spend a fixed one-time sponsorship?
Also, what tooling do you use to take care of the sponsorships?
Is MDX going to be the only way to use it? I prefer authoring content with WYSIWYG tools (block editors and so on), so would love to be able to use this kind of thing with those.
[+] [-] cdrini|4 years ago|reply
Also the tag "more than syntax highlighting" is what threw me off. I thought this would be an IDE extension or something that extended syntax highlighting in some cool way. I thought you were just using markdown as an example. Maybe "supercharged markdown code blocks" might be a better tag line.
That's probably the biggest thing I see as a production-ready blocker. The feature itself looks cool based on the few demos I saw.
[+] [-] deecewan|4 years ago|reply
i think the demos are visible to everyone, but the _source_ is only viewable by sponsors.
that said, still seems weird to lock away code that could make people use your product.
[+] [-] NmAmDa|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pomber|4 years ago|reply
> More confusing, a lot of the locked demos had been unlocked by sponsors, so clicking on them worked! So why was the lock still there?
I didn't understand this part. Are you seeing locks on the first three demos?
[+] [-] cercatrova|4 years ago|reply
Also get rid of the weird "sponsorship for unlocking documentation" model. Make the library sponsorware if you need to, as in you can't see the code until you sponsor, but why would you make the docs sponsored? They're what might entice people to actually pay to use your software. As someone else said, you're actually crippling your own sponsorships by hiding marketing material behind a paywall. Marketing should be free so that as many people see it as possible, and some subset will buy. If you cut off the top of that funnel, you just get fewer people buying.
[+] [-] nmstoker|4 years ago|reply
I could eventually figure out what it was doing but the speed of the videos flipping between examples looks like it was set by people who already knew what the message was, rather than for people who don't know it (yet)
[+] [-] aarondf|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aarondf|4 years ago|reply
I've got a handful of paying users and a few hundred free. I'm happy to see syntax highlighting being pushed forward!
I'll definitely be following along, it's beautiful stuff.
[+] [-] danielskogly|4 years ago|reply
[0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20210226184710/https://svenkadak...
[+] [-] ushakov|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pomber|4 years ago|reply
You can see an early ancestor of this project on this post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21536789 from two years ago (which had great feedback!).
If you want to try it, beware that current docs are minimal. If you have questions or feedback GitHub Discussions is the best place to post them. Thanks!
[+] [-] smoldesu|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] keyle|4 years ago|reply
I'd take one of the more advanced gif, that showed highlights, code coming in, file changing, and I'd make that prominent at the top of the page, next to the tagline or marketing spiel.
Remember the What is it, Why do I need it (and is it for me), as people come in and have no idea what it is!
[+] [-] philipswood|4 years ago|reply
On mobile (Chrome on Android) the site is super confusing and has a "hotel California"-vibe: "you can enter but never leave". Pressing the back button multiple times didn't work - I had to close the site.
[+] [-] pieix|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] actually_a_dog|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chishaku|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vivganes|4 years ago|reply
I also like your idea of monetizing by "minimum" sponsors. How do you deal with people not wanting to sponsor because they don't want a monthly commitment but are willing to spend a fixed one-time sponsorship?
Also, what tooling do you use to take care of the sponsorships?
[+] [-] pomber|4 years ago|reply
Some of the sponsors are fixed one-time (or two-times) sponsorships. I add them manually if the contribution is considerable.
[+] [-] andrewingram|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pomber|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aphroz|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pomber|4 years ago|reply
This page: https://code-hike-sample.vercel.app/ is created entirely from this mdx file: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pomber/code-hike-sample/ma...
[+] [-] joenr|4 years ago|reply