IdeaWell

Project ideas from Hacker News discussions.

Show HN: Minimalist editor that lives in browser, stores everything in the URL

Original Article

Hacker News Discussion

📝 Discussion Summary (Click to expand)

1. Enthusiasm and Similar Projects

Users praised the tool and shared numerous similar URL-persistent or localStorage-based editors.
"samcollins: Nice! I made a similar thing but the html for the text editor fits in a data uri..."
"ctenb: I made something similar once, specifically targetted for guitar tablature https://tabviewer.app/"
"gnyman: Funny how I made almost exactly the same but for maps."

2. Browser Crashes from Long URLs

The "Crime and Punishment" example (546k chars) crashed mobile browsers like Chrome and Firefox.
"wwarren: Amazing. The crime and punishment example crashed my iPhone’s Google Chrome..."
"hallole: LOL Tapping the address bar crashed my Chrome on mobile."
"caminanteblanco: This unfortunately immediately crashed my android firefox nightly browser."

3. Privacy and No-Backend Appeal

Appreciated for hash-only storage (not sent to server) and simplicity, though some noted Cloudflare tracking.
"levmiseri: I really like this from a privacy point of view."
"sublinear: I like these kinds of projects... I'd never trust the claim about 'no tracking'."
"denisinvader: hash part of url only available in the browser, as far as I know, server doesn’t have access to # value"

🚀 Project Ideas

Enhanced URL Textarea with Export and Markdown

Summary

  • A self-hostable single-page app extending textarea.my with file export/import, Markdown preview, themes, and monospace default for code.
  • Core value: Makes quick notes/code shareable via URL while adding practicality for longer sessions without backend.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Developers, musicians, quick-notetakers sharing via chat (e.g., band tabs, code snippets)
Core Feature URL hash storage + Ctrl+S export to .txt/.md, Markdown live preview, theme selector, import from file
Tech Stack Vanilla JS, CodeMirror for editing/preview, Brotli compression for longer URLs
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • Addresses "file export/import is inevitable" (sublinear), "markdown and few themes" (desireco42), "monospace by default, so that this can be used as a code snippet bin" (xeonmc), "ctrl+s offered to download the textarea to a .txt file" (LordDragonfang).
  • HN would love self-hosting for privacy/trust; high utility for vibe-coded domain tools like guitar tabs.

Mobile-Safe URL Compressor Tool

Summary

  • Bookmarklet/extension that compresses textarea.my-style URL data more efficiently (Brotli + base64url) and falls back to localStorage on mobile for ultra-long content.
  • Core value: Prevents crashes on iOS/Android Chrome/Brave, enables sharing full books/snippets without truncation.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Mobile users, sharers of long content (e.g., books, tabs) frustrated by crashes
Core Feature Paste URL → recompress/shorten → new shareable URL; auto-detect/load with localStorage backup
Tech Stack JS bookmarklet, CompressionStream API, Uint8Array base64url
Difficulty Low
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • Fixes "crashed my iPhone’s Google Chrome" (wwarren), "Tapping the address bar crashed my Chrome on mobile" (hallole), "crashes Brave mobile" (nickweb).
  • Practical utility for testing browser limits; HN discussion on URL specs (maxloh) would spark threads on compression benchmarks.

Ephemeral Shortlink Service for Hash Apps

Summary

  • Privacy-focused shortener for URL-hash tools: Maps long hashes to tiny IDs (ephemeral, 24h TTL, no logs), optional WhatsApp preview image from R2/S3.
  • Core value: Easy sharing of thousand-char URLs in chats without pasting walls of text.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Chat users (WhatsApp groups, Discord) sharing tabs/lists/notes
Core Feature Submit full URL → get short link/QR; redirects preserve hash; self-hostable with SQLite
Tech Stack Node.js/Cloudflare Workers, shortid lib, optional image gen (html2canvas)
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Revenue-ready: Freemium (free shortlinks, paid persistent/custom domains)

Notes

  • Solves "Pasting URLs of thousands of characters long can be problematic" (ctenb), "couldn't get the url that short... cumbersome sharing over Whatsapp" (pglevy).
  • HN loves no-backend hacks but appreciates cheap backend for UX; quotes like planb/gisho plugs would fuel "build in public" forks.

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