Anecdote from a frustrated typer. There are no good word processors. MS office and Libre/open-whatever-they-call-it-now-office are bloated mess. I did a deep dive on this a few months ago, and there are 0 light/good options. There are a few that show up in google searches, but they are all disappointing in one way or another.
So, thoughts on a non-AI lightweight word processor.
Pages.app on Apple platforms is free-as-in-beer, native & instantly responsive UI, launches in a handful of milliseconds, collaborative. Unsure if you would consider it a bloated mess or not; the UI is pretty minimal but still competent for most work.
I recently left a large law firm where Word took upwards of 30 seconds to launch. To be fair, I think the issue was the many large and buggy plugins that came preinstalled on everyone's machines. But it still left me glowering at the Microsoft Word logo multiple times a day.
What features would you expect from a good word processor? What features should it leave out, i.e. features make MS Office / OpenOffice / LibreOffice a bloated mess?
It is absolutely crazy to me that this is criteria. Office 2003 checked those boxes in that era. This was a solved thing that somehow warrants further deliberation now. I believe it is The Great Moore's Law Compensator.
Speaking of zed, if the team at zed is reading this, then I genuinely believe with my full heart that you guys can actually solve this issue given the impressive work you have done at trying to make the editor fast.
If you work towards something like google docs etc., this product feels right within your category and can work with the team features at zed to a far greater degree.
Zed also natively has AI functionality so it can work for some people and the best part about Zed is that AI functionality can be toggled off too :-)
This might as well be a billion dollar unsolved problem which the team at zed could use their expertise on perhaps. Although I suggest that maybe instead of bolting these functionalities into zed itself, maybe a zed-fork can be created for a more Microsoft word alternative?
Has someone tried at making a zed extension which can somehow be a word editor or anything similar, perhaps it might be possible within the frameworks of zed now itself but I am not sure.
I hope someone at zed team reads this and solves this problem. Zed is fantastic piece of software, thanks for making it zed team :-)
Revise is that, actually. It's a free, lightweight, fast word processor at its core. It also has real-time collaboration, also free. You don't need to use the AI features.
It even supports code blocks, LaTeX, and Mermaid diagrams.
Also, the passive spelling/grammar checking in the editor is powered by LLMs and completely free. It will catch mistakes that other word processors won't, such as malapropisms.
Ty; will check it out. That wasn't one of the one I looked at.
Edit: Ah I see, from the OP. Unfortunately, I think Subscription-based, web-app, and vibe-coded would individually be deal breakers. Combined indicates it's not the sort of tool I seek.
Friend, this is NOT how you talk within public for a product which mind you, might handle sensitive information.
Some people (myself included) will not like subscription-based, web app.
You worked 7 months on this project full time on your savings as you mention and you might've squandered any reputational gains from that with just three words and a comma.
Might as well go down in the history of hackernews but a bit negatively. I hope that you take a deeper look at how you respond online.
I have a suggestion but if you feel like you are not sure how to respond to a comment, then don't at the moment rather than typing this for example.
perhaps treat it as a learning exercise on how to answer such questions because if you ever market to anyone, customer or business. It is natural that they will ask such questions and so in a way, it might be beneficial.
Just my 2 cents.
Anecdotally, it takes a lot of patience to answer criticism in a good manner and definitely takes a lot of time to craft a good answer if you do go through that route but in the long term/even in the short term, those are some of the best messages that I have written personally which genuinely make me appreciate myself.
I wish that you can take a deeper reflection into such question as you are most likely going to be asked it quite often and having an good answer early on might be beneficial for your product.
I gave a good faith response initially, and got back a reply about how it's disqualified for being for "web based" and "a subscription". Even after I explained that the core product is completely free and even includes free LLM spellchecking. Web-based and subscription payments describes the majority of software out there today. If this is his criteria for dismissing a project outright then I'm not sure what to say other than "ok bro".
I would introspect on why you felt attacked (Correct me if that's not accurate) by my preference. Or why "free and even includes free LLM spellchecking." is a mitigating factor for those specific concerns. Some people will want a web/sub-based word processors; others won't.
I will clarify: I did not make any comments intended to be helpful to you. I don't know who you are beyond a person on the internet who is acting with poor manners.
I would argue that walking into a thread on someone sharing a word processor they've created, saying there's no good word processor, and dismissing it for being web-based and trying to make money, is worse manners than me saying "ok bro"
> then I'm not sure what to say other than "ok bro".
At that point, don't respond then :/
here's how I would've responded:
"Hey my project targets the niche similar to notion and others who are also web based for the most part and subscription model, reading your comments, you might be better of using non-web products and some of the suggestions in that include Qownnotes and zim. Here is a video in detail which talks about Simple, Non-Commercial, Open Source Notes for example which might help you find a solution for your needs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRpHIa-2XCE"
(Not saying that you needed to refer them to alternatives but as I knew of this video, if I were you, it might've made sense)
Another comment which doesn't talk about any other software but might've worked as well if you wished to respond:
"Hey, at some point, I do understand your take of everything turning into electron and browser-ified and software is taking 1 gigabyte of ram etc. and I understand this sentiment as well but I feel like that there is still an opportunity to make browser based subscription models towards the people who still wish for something convenient within their browser and for example, these can work absolutely great for students with their chromebooks which can have browser apps with genuine ease and targeting a large group of people to gain feedback from to hopefully improve my product even further in the future."
> Web-based and subscription payments describes the majority of software out there today
Yes and people are fed up of that too. I am sure that the alchemist isn't saying no to your product but saying yes to, for example notion. They are saying no to both and they are making their stance clear (as to why) and you are bound to have some people who are on the fence about the same thing (especially if you are launching within something like hackernews)
Edit: These are all thoughts that I can think of not even having launched anything from this product but I have sure tried my bunch of editors. I am definitely certain within your ability to write such messages as well and if you aren't, then that's completely fine too and I recommend in that case to not reply back for example.
complaining to a show HN post about software being web based or having a subscription pricing model is like walking up to a stand at a farmer’s market and complaining that you don’t like produce. it doesn’t deserve a thoughtful response because it’s not a thoughtful criticism.
I am sus. Optimistic but sus. I am hoping for some combo of:
- MS doing what they say here. (Uphill battle given the perverse incentives others have mentioned) My gut says Windows is going to be *worse* vs better, and I am willing to settle for stagnating...
- Linux desktop makers taking UX, ABI/linking compatibility, and "just works" seriously.
It's like you could take the good from both and discard the bad, but it hasn't happened yet.
It sure looks like a PR campaign to take the attention away from how bad the things are, and I need to see it to believe it.
Also, why couldn't they make this announcement as they release the taskbar change. Taking away the most basic features and bringing a few back doesn't mean things are improving, it means things are getting petty.
There is no reason for the start menu to take 2 seconds to show up on a computer with 8 CPUs running at 4GHz. We all know that they're completely half-assing everything now.
> Linux desktop makers taking UX, ABI/linking compatibility, and "just works" seriously.
Would you settle for 2 out of 3? UX is improving, and things get more polished every year, but we've mostly settled on shoving things into some sort of package (container, flatpak, snap) alongside all its dependencies specifically so we don't have to actually stabilize any sort of ABI
Yep. Will take what I can get! Re the flatpacks, snaps, docker etc. Yea... I don't like those much more than the Apple/Google/MS app stores. They don't have the perverse incentives, but are still setting up friction points vs being able to just have an executable work, expect to work in 5-10 years, and work on diff distros. (This is something MS actually does right; possibly the best thing about Win)
I was coincidentally just updating old softare I wrote, and I just ripped out the snap, RPM and Debs because I can't be bothered to maintain all of them.
I don't know if it's still true, but ~7 years ago when I last looked at it, Poetry didn't have the kind of UX I have in mind (That Astral/UV do). I remember trying to make it work, and it would choose Python 2 for some reason, despite me never having used it, and it having been obsoleted years before. I remember hitting many problems/errors I can't recall the detail of, but bad UX.
This is cool! I ended up also inventing my own syntax to place at the top of one-off scripts to specify deps. (For single-file Python scripts, vs one with a full project dir that has pyproject.toml) I will adopt this instead.
Would there be any interest in me fixing the bugs in Pyflow and getting it updated to install newer python versions? It's almost identical to uv in concept, but I haven't touched it in 6 years.
Astral has demonstrated that there is desire for this sort of "just works" thing, which I struggled with, and led me to abandoning it. (I.e.: "pip/venv/conda are fine, why do I want this?", despite my personal experience with those as high-friction)
I can get pyflow back to a maintained state and iron out the bugs if that would help. It's the same concept as uv, just kind of buggy and I haven't touched it in 6 years.
I will be a negative yancy, and regurgitate things from the previous thread in combination with my pattern-matching brain and experience with making UAS firmware/hardware etc.
Cool project, but this is the 1% of the work that's required to get an initial platform in place. It cannot intercept an airborne target, and it will take the rest of the 99% of the work on testing, refining guidance/propulsion/sensors etc, finding and fixing errors, finding and fixing incorrect assumptions that will lead to re-building various subsystems etc.
Another way of phrasing it is that this is a cargo cult MANPADS.
A slingshot is a MANPADS. It's not a very good one, but it's portable, and an air defense system. The Fliegerfaust was a manpads, and it just yeeted a few tubes into the air.
IMO Linux system administration, KVM/Qemu, Docker, and virtual machines, and third-party tools in general are not something that should be involved in smart light bulb/sensor/pump etc management.
Task for an RTOS or no OS IMO. Or a single executable that runs on any OS without config. Should be simple, fast, "just work".
Home Assistant supports an absolutely massive number of both manufacturer and community maintained integrations that are necessary for a truly universal all-in-one home automation setup without vendor lock-in.
Plus, for the full HAOS experience (as a “server”) running add-ons that are convenient one-click installed Docker-based packages for popular 3rd party tools used for home automation (but not developed by Open Home Foundation themselves) like Zigbee2Mqtt, Frigate (DVR for IP cams), EspHome etc so you can manage everything in one central location.
You could definitely flip light switches and read sensors with a 20kb executable. But you’d sacrifice the core value-add of HA serving as the single lynchpin connecting every smart device you own today plus whatever you may add in the future.
I started with a 100% Philips Hue setup that forced me to use their app, and eventually wanted to add some unsupported Zigbee devices that Google Home didn’t do a good job exposing which pushed me to explore Home Assistant.
Since then I’ve added (and removed) countless different protocols, proprietary cloud integrations for robovacs or air purifiers, ESP32 boards I built myself, web cams, TVs, etc over the years with the only unchanging constant being Home Assistant at the center linking it all together.
> You could definitely flip light switches and read sensors with a 20kb executable. But you’d sacrifice the core value-add of HA serving as the single lynchpin connecting every smart device you own today plus whatever you may add in the future
Very unclear what is the rationale for this claim.
It's great that Home Assistant supports "n absolutely massive number of both manufacturer and community maintained integrations" but that is quite irrelevant. The point is that running what you need to (mostly) flick switches and measure temperatures should not pull huge infrastructure, software requirements, and hardware capabilities. If it does then it does mean massive bloat.
I have been thinking about this more and more the past few points, to the point where I feel like I have to run for office as a social duty. (USA) There are so few politicians who give more than lip service to stopping corruption.
Our districts are embarrassing. People tolerating the blatant corruption by the Trump administration is something I don't understand. They will get upset about Epstein, but don't care about the corruption. (See for example the recent Jared Kushner contracts for one of many examples) Congress campaigns funded by PACs.
Phrases of interest: "Conflict of interest". "Shame". It is wild how people still vote for corrupted politicians, which is almost all of them. My parents are the prototype. If you take money from corporate-funded interests, you still have a conflict of interest, even if you aren't caught acting in the favor of those corporations.
It's the idea that I heard somewhere or watched but the idea's basically "slowly at first, then all of a sudden"
My understanding of US/America/even-other-parts-of-world is that they weren't always like this but slowly turned into something where instead of voting for the better candidate, you are voting for a slightly less worse candidate and that opens up a can of worms because you just have to be or you have to somehow present yourself as a slightly lesser bad option to the masses (well the masses who vote anyway)
Another tactic I have seen is just proposing that we will do something that no-one thinks is possible or should be possible because they don't make sense and its a "joke" but you plant the seeds in terms of jokes which they later capitalize upon on.
Things happen slowly then all of a sudden and then they become norm. It's the silence that we have during it happening slowly that speaks the loudest.
Actually here in the US the "politically sophisticated" voter chooses a party first, votes for their party every single time and chooses policy positions to fit their party rather than other way around.
A few percent of people just kinda blow in the wind and might on a lark join in with a presidential candidate to "have a little fun" and those people are who make the difference in competitive elections.
Having been involved those choosing the party positions often are secretly voting third party. They are trying to change the party potition and when it works the vote for the party, but when it fails they vote for who they like.
people who only vote in the general election, and maybe the primaries have choosen their party and then potitions based on the party.
In New York many elections are so lopsided that I'm inclined to vote third party because voting either D or R if I don't like the candidate is "wasting my vote".
I was active in the Green Party (twisting people's arms to run for local office) in the early 2000s and think about voting Green in each presidential election but it's been a while because I don't particularly like Jill Stein and think if you're hard on CO2 you should be easy on Uranium.
Problem is a lot of people engage in textbook expressive responding when it comes to corruption. Everybody doesn’t like it allegedly, but a lot of people are willing to look the other way if they agree with the policy being carried out and, more importantly, if they are politically aligned with the person engaging in the corruption.
The bar they set is incredibly high unless it involves a politician they don’t support, then a rumor is enough for them to go “yeah I knew it.”
So, thoughts on a non-AI lightweight word processor.
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