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Show HN: Instant CMS as a Service on any element (with contenteditable)

113 points| mhurwi | 13 years ago |copybar.io | reply

58 comments

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[+] callmevlad|13 years ago|reply
Glad to see that contenteditable-type editors are becoming more viable. Looks like Copybar uses Redactor, but I'm hoping bergie's http://hallojs.org/ gets a lot more traction since it's the only one that's MIT licensed.
[+] bergie|13 years ago|reply
The good thing about Hallo is, besides licensing and easy plugin development, the fact that it uses plain, unstyled contentEditables, so the stuff you're editing looks exactly like it will look on the real page.

I integrated Redactor as another editor option in Create.js a while back, but it looks a bit strange because it changes the styling of the currently active content area. Other than that it is very simple and clean!

Another valid editor option is Aloha, http://aloha-editor.org

You can use any (or even all) of these with Create, or integrate your own. The next editor I'm looking to add is CKEditor 4, as it also has an inline editing mode: http://nightly-v4.ckeditor.com/3627/samples/inlineall.html

[+] lifeisstillgood|13 years ago|reply
I think this is the beginning of the end for Facebook.

Let me explain ...

Like AOL, Facebook is a walled garden reproducing what is standard and open on the web/internet as a whole. AOL had AOL email, Facebook has html homepages, and RSS/ATOM

But "people" cannot create their own content - they cannot write HTML, host web pages etc. But contenteditable fixes all that - and with the clever Dropbox tie in, anyone can start with a templated page, drag and drop images from their own desktop, (#) and publish themselves.

Add in RSS via Javascript and its all over.

(#) oh yes drag and drop images onto a web page - its soooo cool. Aloha supports it at least.

[+] therealarmen|13 years ago|reply
Let me get this straight -- my grandma has to get a Dropbox (what's that?), download a templated page, fill it her own images, and then figure out how to publish it?

Also, there are a lot easier ways out there to publish your own content online (Weebly, Tumblr, etc) but that doesn't seem to have stopped Facebook.

[+] marccantwell|13 years ago|reply
Copybar Cofounder here, we support drag and drop images upload as well.
[+] bergie|13 years ago|reply
Interesting. Though of course you can just use my http://createjs.org/ and get pretty much the same thing for free :-)
[+] railsjedi|13 years ago|reply
CreateJS is awesome. This service seems to be more about content hosting though. So still useful to some people I think.
[+] clone1018|13 years ago|reply
Your site fails to load almost completely past the homepage, when I try to use your demo I get quite of a bit of resources 504ing.
[+] navs|13 years ago|reply
Love it! Now a quick question, is there any way to allow for editable blocks to be re-arranged via some form of drag and drop interface?

Or is there anyone out there that knows of a library that could possibly do this?

[+] AhtiK|13 years ago|reply
Website looks really good!

Is copybar dynamically replacing the content and then next time when the page is loaded javascript replaces the content by fetching the value from copybar CDN?

At least it looks like copybar is not changing the actual CMS database content values. Please correct me if I misunderstood the mechanics.

The problem with dynamic replacing would be: 1) search engines get the old text 2) original CMS editing functionality becomes useless for that specific node.

[+] marccantwell|13 years ago|reply
Copybar cofounder here.

Thanks! Yeah, we're using the CDN to dynamically display your edited content.

When editing an element, we invalidate the cache on the CDN. It may take a minute or 2 to propagate.

Search engines these days execute Javascript so it can index this dynamic text. However we also have a backend integration solution (via a simple rest call) for people who would rather serve the content from their web servers directly.

[+] Ensorceled|13 years ago|reply
The pricing seems way out of wack. If, for instance, I wanted to use your product to create a squarespace competitor, I'd need a $99 licence per user per month?

I can't actually think of a practical use case for the Pro-xx accounts. A fairly simple blog would easily have a 100 assets or more. Even a simple corporate blog would have 100 assets after a few months.

In particular, I'm trying to figure out what your expected use case is for the Pro-20 account ... what kind of site would I have only 20 assets that I want multiple editors to be able to change?

Websites tend to be many asset/many editors or many assets/few editors. I can't think of too many few assets/many editor situations.

[+] skyhook_mockups|13 years ago|reply
Interesting concept, well done for shipping. Just a couple of points:

- You id="mask" element has a higher z-order than your formatting popup making it impossible to select styles in the demo.

- The blink from the original to the edited content is kind of jarring. Not sure where your servers are, but here from AUS the lag was very noticable.

- This is a peeve I have with all editors: When you select a H1,2,3 etc style the entire block is styled. This is the opposite of what users expect. Instead you should break that fragment out and run your execCommand on it. This way only the selected text receives the style and your users aren't left scratching their heads :)

- Consider adding an in-line editor for in-line images. Popping over a modal editor onmouseup is not intuitive for your average Joe.

[+] marccantwell|13 years ago|reply
Copybar cofounder here, thanks for the great feedback. We'll take a look at the mask issue asap. Delivery will continue to be optimized and I dig your ideas on the styling and image editing, look for those enhancements soon.
[+] nnq|13 years ago|reply
...so my site would have and ADMINISTRATIVE/EDITORIAL feature that depends on a 3rd party service now?! Thanks but no thanks...

(Sometimes I wish people would go back to the golden days of "software as a product" instead of the current "everything as a service" way of selling things... I just wanna pay for it once, include it as a plugin for my CMS and MAYBE pay extra for some kind of support... and yes, I would be willing to pay for an upgrate to the next version too...)

[+] maxmcd|13 years ago|reply
Doesn't seem that anyone has mentioned this, but that watermark is the only thing stopping me from immediately putting this into production. Would be nicer from a consumer perspective if I could try this out in production with the full feature set, but just a limited element quantity.
[+] mhurwi|13 years ago|reply
The badge is meant for free accounts. But please, email me ([email protected]) and we'll get you setup ASAP.
[+] yakshaving|13 years ago|reply
Ohhhh, nice! This is sick, I could see using this as a way better CopyCopter replacement.
[+] marccantwell|13 years ago|reply
Cofounder here, we did find some inspiration in CopyCopter.
[+] neya|13 years ago|reply
Just one small feedback as a designer, if you want to see more conversions for sign-ups, convert that black sign-up button into green. Other than that, it's perfect!
[+] modarts|13 years ago|reply
Design impaired developer here; i'm interested to know how you picked green as being a trigger for more conversions, is there some data with A/B testing this color choice comes from?
[+] marccantwell|13 years ago|reply
Cofounder here, thanks for your feedback, great suggestion.
[+] michaelbuckbee|13 years ago|reply
Looks really cool, but I was wondering if you could address a point with the pricing. In that context what does an "asset" mean? An editable area on a webpage?
[+] mhurwi|13 years ago|reply
Yes, basically each asset (we're trying to say 'Copybar element') is one editable chunk. It could be one paragraph or picture, or it could be all custom HTML.

Also, something interesting: you can use the same element across many different pages. It will repeat the same content, but still count as only 1 element.

[+] mharty|13 years ago|reply
Pasting causes tab to crash in Windows Chrome 22.0.1229.94
[+] duiker101|13 years ago|reply
Does someone actually uses this tools for editing webpages? I find them really uncomfortable. Not trying to flame, just an honest question.
[+] freemans86|13 years ago|reply
I actually have been looking for something like this. Mainly so I can give some nontechnical people access to edit different parts of a page. This hasn't been easy to set up in drupal or wordpress (without a large learning curve on their parts). I might give Copybar a try and see if it works out for me.
[+] pajju|13 years ago|reply
Any pointers on how to integrate with Django?
[+] mhurwi|13 years ago|reply
Sure, we'd love to add a Django plugin. Can you email me at [email protected]? We'll get one set up for you.
[+] ams6110|13 years ago|reply
I don't get it. What is it supposed to do. I click on the big green "Try it now" button and nothing happens...
[+] marccantwell|13 years ago|reply
Copybar cofounder here, sorry to hear that you didn't see anything happen. What browser are you using?
[+] borplk|13 years ago|reply
Good stuff. FYI, tried on Android, didn't work (nothing happens).
[+] pioul|13 years ago|reply
The tool looks great, but as a developer I have to say I still really prefer having HTML and CSS in front of me.