The best Hacker News stories from Show from the past week
Latest posts:
Show HN: Visualize your day as 144 rectangles
Show HN: A plain-text file format for todos and check lists
After having cycled through various CLI-based todo apps, I started to realise that I actually don’t need a tool at all for managing my todos. Most of the time, my use cases are quite simple, like viewing my todo items, checking them off, or adding a new one.<p>Rather than having to memorise CLI commands for these interactions (which I’m not super good at), I figured that it’s easier for me to use my text editor directly, and have an editor plugin help me with the visual structure and some convenience functionality. So, kind-of similar to Emacs Org Mode, but without having to use Emacs. I personally use Sublime Text, and even though I enjoy it a lot, I don’t like being bound to specific tools.<p>I think the best basis for staying independent is to have a data format that’s properly specified and meaningful on its own. This puts the data first, and it allows the tools to be built on top and shared (or interchanged) more easily.<p>This is what [x]it! is about, which is a plain-text file format for todos and check lists. I’m curious for thoughts and feedback. There is obviously not much tooling support (yet), but feel free to create something if the idea resonates with you.<p>Website with demo: <a href="https://xit.jotaen.net" rel="nofollow">https://xit.jotaen.net</a><p>File specification: <a href="https://github.com/jotaen/xit/blob/main/Specification.md" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/jotaen/xit/blob/main/Specification.md</a>
Show HN: A plain-text file format for todos and check lists
After having cycled through various CLI-based todo apps, I started to realise that I actually don’t need a tool at all for managing my todos. Most of the time, my use cases are quite simple, like viewing my todo items, checking them off, or adding a new one.<p>Rather than having to memorise CLI commands for these interactions (which I’m not super good at), I figured that it’s easier for me to use my text editor directly, and have an editor plugin help me with the visual structure and some convenience functionality. So, kind-of similar to Emacs Org Mode, but without having to use Emacs. I personally use Sublime Text, and even though I enjoy it a lot, I don’t like being bound to specific tools.<p>I think the best basis for staying independent is to have a data format that’s properly specified and meaningful on its own. This puts the data first, and it allows the tools to be built on top and shared (or interchanged) more easily.<p>This is what [x]it! is about, which is a plain-text file format for todos and check lists. I’m curious for thoughts and feedback. There is obviously not much tooling support (yet), but feel free to create something if the idea resonates with you.<p>Website with demo: <a href="https://xit.jotaen.net" rel="nofollow">https://xit.jotaen.net</a><p>File specification: <a href="https://github.com/jotaen/xit/blob/main/Specification.md" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/jotaen/xit/blob/main/Specification.md</a>
Show HN: I Made a Stupid Game
Show HN: I Made a Stupid Game
Show HN: EnvKey 2.0 – End-To-End Encrypted Environments (now open source)
Hey HN,<p>I'm so happy to finally show you all this release after years of hard work. I posted the first version of EnvKey to HN back in 2017 (<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15330757" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15330757</a>), then went through YC in W18 (<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16569534" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16569534</a>).<p>EnvKey is an end-to-end encrypted configuration and secrets manager. It protects your organization's API keys, encryption keys, credentials, and other secrets, and makes it easy to run servers, scripts, tests, and everything else with the latest config. It also helps you avoid duplication in your configuration, react to environment updates in real-time, resolve conflicts smoothly, and a lot more.<p>You get an intuitive, spreadsheet-like UI for managing environments, along with a developer-friendly CLI that does almost anything the UI can. Running any program in any language with the latest environment variables is as simple as:<p><pre><code> envkey-source -- any-shell-command
</code></pre>
You can use the `es` alias to type less:<p><pre><code> es -- any-shell-command
</code></pre>
You can automatically reload a process whenever there's a change using the -w flag:<p><pre><code> es -w -- ./start-server
</code></pre>
To avoid downtime on reloads, add the --rolling flag to reload gradually across all connected processes:<p><pre><code> es -w --rolling -- ./start-server
</code></pre>
You can run custom logic when there's a change instead of restarting:<p><pre><code> es -r ./reload-env.sh -- ./start-server
</code></pre>
Or run something <i>only</i> when there's a change:<p><pre><code> es -r ./env-change-hook.sh
</code></pre>
You can pass command line arguments from EnvKey variables (just wrap your command in single quotes):<p><pre><code> es 'curl https://$HOST_URL'
</code></pre>
You can export your environment to the current shell:<p><pre><code> eval "$(es)"
</code></pre>
Or auto-load the latest environment in any EnvKey-enabled directory (like direnv):<p><pre><code> echo $'\n\neval "$(es --hook bash)"\n' >> ~/.bash_profile
</code></pre>
EnvKey is now open source under the MIT license and can be self-hosted. Our Cloud and Enterprise Self-Hosted products also include commercially licensed server-side extensions for auto-scaling, highly available infrastructure and advanced user management. Cloud is free for up to 20 user devices and 40 server keys.<p>EnvKey's client-side end-to-end encryption is built with the NaCl crypto library. Whether you use EnvKey Cloud or host EnvKey yourself, no configuration or secrets are ever sent to the host running EnvKey in plaintext. Public keys are verified by a web of trust. Invitations are verified out-of-band. Secrets are never accessed through a web browser. More details on security and encryption can be found here: <a href="https://docs-v2.envkey.com/docs/security" rel="nofollow">https://docs-v2.envkey.com/docs/security</a><p>Let me know what you think! Thanks!
Show HN: EnvKey 2.0 – End-To-End Encrypted Environments (now open source)
Hey HN,<p>I'm so happy to finally show you all this release after years of hard work. I posted the first version of EnvKey to HN back in 2017 (<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15330757" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15330757</a>), then went through YC in W18 (<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16569534" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16569534</a>).<p>EnvKey is an end-to-end encrypted configuration and secrets manager. It protects your organization's API keys, encryption keys, credentials, and other secrets, and makes it easy to run servers, scripts, tests, and everything else with the latest config. It also helps you avoid duplication in your configuration, react to environment updates in real-time, resolve conflicts smoothly, and a lot more.<p>You get an intuitive, spreadsheet-like UI for managing environments, along with a developer-friendly CLI that does almost anything the UI can. Running any program in any language with the latest environment variables is as simple as:<p><pre><code> envkey-source -- any-shell-command
</code></pre>
You can use the `es` alias to type less:<p><pre><code> es -- any-shell-command
</code></pre>
You can automatically reload a process whenever there's a change using the -w flag:<p><pre><code> es -w -- ./start-server
</code></pre>
To avoid downtime on reloads, add the --rolling flag to reload gradually across all connected processes:<p><pre><code> es -w --rolling -- ./start-server
</code></pre>
You can run custom logic when there's a change instead of restarting:<p><pre><code> es -r ./reload-env.sh -- ./start-server
</code></pre>
Or run something <i>only</i> when there's a change:<p><pre><code> es -r ./env-change-hook.sh
</code></pre>
You can pass command line arguments from EnvKey variables (just wrap your command in single quotes):<p><pre><code> es 'curl https://$HOST_URL'
</code></pre>
You can export your environment to the current shell:<p><pre><code> eval "$(es)"
</code></pre>
Or auto-load the latest environment in any EnvKey-enabled directory (like direnv):<p><pre><code> echo $'\n\neval "$(es --hook bash)"\n' >> ~/.bash_profile
</code></pre>
EnvKey is now open source under the MIT license and can be self-hosted. Our Cloud and Enterprise Self-Hosted products also include commercially licensed server-side extensions for auto-scaling, highly available infrastructure and advanced user management. Cloud is free for up to 20 user devices and 40 server keys.<p>EnvKey's client-side end-to-end encryption is built with the NaCl crypto library. Whether you use EnvKey Cloud or host EnvKey yourself, no configuration or secrets are ever sent to the host running EnvKey in plaintext. Public keys are verified by a web of trust. Invitations are verified out-of-band. Secrets are never accessed through a web browser. More details on security and encryption can be found here: <a href="https://docs-v2.envkey.com/docs/security" rel="nofollow">https://docs-v2.envkey.com/docs/security</a><p>Let me know what you think! Thanks!
Show HN: Visualize SQL Queries
My co-worker and I were debugging a SQL issue; having not seen SQL in two years, I embarrassed myself by confusing union vs. join. After this episode, I tried refreshing my SQL memory, but there are few websites that animate SQL for you. Most of them just have a series of images to help you visualize. There are a few tools that are quite good and robust (especially for large/complex use cases) but require installation and are too complex for my simple purpose.<p>So, just created a small tool to help visualise SQL. Most of the animations are just my understanding of how SQL works. Would love to know what you think? Do you also visualise some of the queries like that in your head? Any feedback would be gold. Btw you can also edit queries and see different results (but its a bit limited).<p>Have fun ;)
Show HN: Visualize SQL Queries
My co-worker and I were debugging a SQL issue; having not seen SQL in two years, I embarrassed myself by confusing union vs. join. After this episode, I tried refreshing my SQL memory, but there are few websites that animate SQL for you. Most of them just have a series of images to help you visualize. There are a few tools that are quite good and robust (especially for large/complex use cases) but require installation and are too complex for my simple purpose.<p>So, just created a small tool to help visualise SQL. Most of the animations are just my understanding of how SQL works. Would love to know what you think? Do you also visualise some of the queries like that in your head? Any feedback would be gold. Btw you can also edit queries and see different results (but its a bit limited).<p>Have fun ;)
Show HN: Search Engine for Blogs
Hey HN,<p>Blog discovery is a problem [0] due to the decentralized nature of online writing. Everyone writes on their own site or platform, and there’s no central place that brings everything together. Google results prioritize large media publications over blogs, so we need something else.<p>Blog Surf is an attempt to organize all of the great online writing done by individuals. I launched this project last year as a directory of personal blogs [1], but have now rebuilt it from scratch into a full-text search engine for blog posts.<p>You can search for blog posts, and filter by publish date and reading time. Blogs are manually reviewed before being added.<p>Posts are sorted by MarketRank [2], which is a measure of popularity across various online communities. Most projects that have attempted to organize blogs lack any way to measure the quality of a post, reducing their utility. With MarketRank, you can expect the top results for any query to be something you’d want to read.<p>The mental model for searching Blog Surf is “I want to see the best essays on X”<p>There’s also a directory so you can browse blogs by category, if you want a throwback to the Yahoo days.<p>If you’re a blogger yourself, you can check out the rankings page to see how your blog compares to others.<p>If you want to play around with things, we have a search API, and the full post dataset is also available for download.<p>[0] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28591880" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28591880</a><p>[1] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26506126" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26506126</a><p>[2] <a href="https://dkb.io/post/market-rank" rel="nofollow">https://dkb.io/post/market-rank</a>
Show HN: Search Engine for Blogs
Hey HN,<p>Blog discovery is a problem [0] due to the decentralized nature of online writing. Everyone writes on their own site or platform, and there’s no central place that brings everything together. Google results prioritize large media publications over blogs, so we need something else.<p>Blog Surf is an attempt to organize all of the great online writing done by individuals. I launched this project last year as a directory of personal blogs [1], but have now rebuilt it from scratch into a full-text search engine for blog posts.<p>You can search for blog posts, and filter by publish date and reading time. Blogs are manually reviewed before being added.<p>Posts are sorted by MarketRank [2], which is a measure of popularity across various online communities. Most projects that have attempted to organize blogs lack any way to measure the quality of a post, reducing their utility. With MarketRank, you can expect the top results for any query to be something you’d want to read.<p>The mental model for searching Blog Surf is “I want to see the best essays on X”<p>There’s also a directory so you can browse blogs by category, if you want a throwback to the Yahoo days.<p>If you’re a blogger yourself, you can check out the rankings page to see how your blog compares to others.<p>If you want to play around with things, we have a search API, and the full post dataset is also available for download.<p>[0] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28591880" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28591880</a><p>[1] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26506126" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26506126</a><p>[2] <a href="https://dkb.io/post/market-rank" rel="nofollow">https://dkb.io/post/market-rank</a>
Show HN: Caddy-SSH
Show HN: Caddy-SSH
Show HN: I'm writing a free book called Computer Networks from Scratch
Show HN: I'm writing a free book called Computer Networks from Scratch
Show HN: I'm writing a free book called Computer Networks from Scratch
Show HN: A website to find public pianos
Show HN: A website to find public pianos
Show HN: A website to find public pianos
Show HN: Postgres.js – Fastest Full-Featured PostgreSQL Client for Node and Deno