The app is called Fora. At first glance, an open source version of Medium. But it's really much more. I am struggling with how to describe it (which is extremely important), perhaps HN could help here.
Idea:
Most information (such as music, movies, blogs or products) is typically stored in database tables having various structures. Fora lets people define these tables, describe how it needs to be formatted on screen, and build communities around them. So for example, Medium.com will be a structure having Cover (image), Post Title(string), Content (html) and Comments (string).
Get yourself a package.json! Then you can simplify your long list of dependencies to just one "npm install".
Am I on the right track by saying this is medium for all different mediums?
As a musician and sometimes songwriter, I think it'd be really cool to be able to share songs in a user-friendly and visually appealing way, like medium does for stories. I imagine a lot of other artistic disciplines would be the same.
- If you don't find the type (or medium) you need, you could create a new type yourself. And if you made a new one for Songs (say with Title, Lyrics, Date and Band name), it becomes available to everyone on the site.
- You could customize a type further with Javascript, which the app executes inside a sandbox. That let's you do, for instance, downloading and attaching a band's picture when someone adds a new song.
package.json is on my todo list. I've been sitting on it for way too long. :)
> I am struggling with how to describe it (which is extremely important)
I think this is probably a critical thing for you to solve. When I read down through posts like these, rarely do I give anyone more than a few sentences. I respond most strongly when I have a general idea of the product, without analogy, by the end of the first short sentence.
Please avoid jargon, things that can be interpreted multiple ways, and analogies in that first sentence. They're all unnecessary and domain specific.
There is a lot of room for Steve Krug's "Don't Make Me Think" when describing product.
By example, this is what I would want to see for Hacker News:
"Hacker News is a group driven news site, oriented mostly but not exclusively towards technology and new business, which leans heavily on a community which shares viewpoints, opportunities, and critique, in the hopes of driving one another forwards towards mostly internet business success. There is a lot of discussion of startups, of market and business strategy, business models, advertising and site technique, and a very high ratio of personal requests for discussion on specific topics."
Hey thanks. That is certainly one of main ideas I want to capture while captioning the app.
On the downside, that is what all publishing platforms will claim to be. I might also prefer something a little less technical (omitting platform), yet not missing that aspect completely.
The app is called Fora. At first glance, an open source version of Medium. But it's really much more. I am struggling with how to describe it (which is extremely important), perhaps HN could help here.
Idea: Most information (such as music, movies, blogs or products) is typically stored in database tables having various structures. Fora lets people define these tables, describe how it needs to be formatted on screen, and build communities around them. So for example, Medium.com will be a structure having Cover (image), Post Title(string), Content (html) and Comments (string).
Code: https://github.com/jeswin/fora