Stashpad launches Google Docs alternative you can use without any login(techcrunch.com)

130 pointsby yuvalhazaz2 yıl önce68 comments

Stashpad launches Google Docs alternative you can use without any login

https://techcrunch.com/2024/03/13/dev-focused-note-taking-startup-stashpad-launches-google-docs-alternative-you-can-use-without-any-login/

70 comments

neom2 yıl önce

I have a bookmark on my bookmark bar that just does

data:text/html, <html contenteditable>

It's great for quick notes between tabs or copy/pasting things together into a cohesive comment.

maxmcd2 yıl önce

My slight modification on this is:

    data:text/html,<html><head><title>Notepad</title><style>html,body{margin:0;padding:0;}textarea{padding:10px;font-family:Courier;font-size:16px;height:100%;width:100%;border:none;outline:none;}</style></head><body><textarea style="height:100%;width:100%;font-size:16px;padding:10px;"></textarea><script>document.getElementsByTagName('textarea')[0].focus()</script></body></html>

dannyphantom2 yıl önce

I love, love, love threads like this where people share their bookmarklets.

It's how I found kill-sticky[1] which I use religiously.

javascript:(function()%7Bdocument.querySelectorAll(%22body%20%22).forEach(function(node)%7Bif(%5B%22fixed%22%2C%22sticky%22%5D.includes(getComputedStyle(node).position))%7Bnode.parentNode.removeChild(node)%7D%7D)%3Bdocument.querySelectorAll(%22html%20%22).forEach(function(node)%7Bvar%20s%3DgetComputedStyle(node)%3Bif(%22hidden%22%3D%3D%3Ds%5B%22overflow%22%5D)%7Bnode.style%5B%22overflow%22%5D%3D%22visible%22%7Dif(%22hidden%22%3D%3D%3Ds%5B%22overflow-x%22%5D)%7Bnode.style%5B%22overflow-x%22%5D%3D%22visible%22%7Dif(%22hidden%22%3D%3D%3Ds%5B%22overflow-y%22%5D)%7Bnode.style%5B%22overflow-y%22%5D%3D%22visible%22%7D%7D)%3Bvar%20htmlNode%3Ddocument.querySelector(%22html%22)%3BhtmlNode.style%5B%22overflow%22%5D%3D%22visible%22%3BhtmlNode.style%5B%22overflow-x%22%5D%3D%22visible%22%3BhtmlNode.style%5B%22overflow-y%22%5D%3D%22visible%22%7D)()%3B%0A

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

hagbard_c2 yıl önce

If you have uBlock Origin - and who doesn't - you can use the 'element zapper' to do targeted killing of such annoying elements. It does wonders for those sticky headers, grey-out overlays and similar nuisances. Bind it to a key - I use CTRL-ALT-Z for 'zap' - and you don't need to leave the keyboard to go on a killing spree.

sublinear2 yıl önce

Haha this is funny. Does this even work for pages that are written with frontend frameworks? Needs a remix for 2024.

Virtual DOM refreshes might bring back the original style if not the elements themselves.

As insane as it sounds what probably makes more sense is to query for and remove the elements, generate a PNG of the page, delete everything in the body, and make sure the only child element of the body tag is your new img tag.

Also since you cannot unload or make undefined all the other js already running you may want to add some defensive event handlers on the body tag with MutationObserver.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/MutationObs...

hattmall2 yıl önce

Wat do?

celadin2 yıl önce

It kills dickbars (aka sticky hover-over UI elements on websites), which term was coined by Mr Gruber of Daring Fireball fame.

https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/06/27/mcdiarmid-stick...

consumer4512 yıl önce

Thanks for this!

Here is my modification to yours. I added a data URI notepad favicon.

    data:text/html,<html><head><link rel="icon" type="image/png" sizes="32x32" href="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAACAAAAAgCAYAAABzenr0AAAERElEQVRYR+1XbUxbVRh+zm2hX7TlY4LOGF1GOnQuTv0x5twPdS5qlABlOHXJmNn8o+6Hy2ayKGMwkyWO+MsYt2Rios6MTo2bSoQNIpFgYYv7YMXxIRTaCrTQ0rLStdzje++kUtdAa5uYJZ6kufe8vc/7PPe873nfcxnijF1v1ZiYAoc4+CoG1q5QzL4bVKuDGQGxmjH2LANGRVGsPVZf17VzT00FE8TdjCOTXH1y9Ejtx/HwHx0+PBWPi3zFjp379xcIkcyLEMV8MDZB/+ZzoJMInGAop7kbnOeACbPg4vtkO0C2WYCF6WoAeD1dt4EjBt+nYxvbamoi/+S7RcCuvQfqyPgO5+KeY0fqPqD5cZpXyUCGn+BdvgkGx2YSd+amiQXFOawVOdwKJX4lAfdIds4Z4Wv+xotzZUfrD32zpIDX9lZ/S25fMJeWHMzLzp62O50PXr7Ss93hdAkmk+n0Y8Xr2hmxWq3dtT02m8qg1w+Xl5V+KDm29fZWku3RgD/AyktK3jNkG31DDldRx7Xx7V5m/DxU8Mjuxspc30IRMStwwTa0vuns2TNDw/bc55/ZjOV33Sk/ax8ZRVPLOawuWoUN69fJNs45Gj47gUxVJraay6BQKGR7W/vPuNY/gIX4OYphs0uLi17VBOFKLVvyOuZFRAW0tv6u1hfM9dtHHHdLZAK9ppKHUbXjVYQjEZxo/AqhUAihwDRerNyCO/Lzo2RiJIw195uw4fGNsI+S2OZYvERGIcLxQQM8IYVD5/cVNuxYQXkjhfCvYe0ZeEpgaJGmnV3duHSlB6NDg3h73z7odDo4XC782NIKv38aa4oK8cSTmzBLgr5raoZnchLhGR9ef+NN2Vs8vGRvH9egw62m9BGfPmleJnNFBXT1DlYwkTfOL6+l8SQEUmSuqIyG7ML587D+0omXX9kGg9Eo2z1uNyyWRhQXF+OhtQ9HwxMP3+VR4dyYVgpfJYVB5oorIMqY5pv/Bdw+KzATDGLK66dqSnsnxZGl1SLHqJe9JLwCw84/4J70pkh9E65Rq/BA4YrkBFCnw/XZUFoEqDIzkKFUJicgLcxxnCQcAqnOS+U3HUNJLVIqaEnlwIhrDOOeuOeHpDXpNGoUrbwvOQHTgRk5CVPfA4Bep0V+Xk5yApJ+zQQBCedAgv6SfixhAXIIpqgOpCEGWf8mBP95EqZ3GypoGwq3WRJKpThIpTjRFNDQwXT+ULpYZiachHZqRhNJNCOjXofCe+XPgUVHwgJmrlM79iXejo36LBiydEvxL96OrbaBcoHj1JJeUnjA6lGjdUwDEbziVEWezBU9lHZc+q1IlaG8Sn3ols+1FDhjoN87tbjsU/FIWFz99dZlthgB0qT76sAXdHkpXYQL/XhCAhrowyQM9qXFnBvliHnbvr4+lS8sHCRgFf0K0iHkhsjQ71eibVw7Nn1D+HRGl1P9w3Msetr5Exxr3z9q3s3kAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC"><title>Notepad</title><style>html,body{margin:0;padding:0;}textarea{padding:10px;font-family:Courier;font-size:16px;height:100%;width:100%;border:none;outline:none;}</style></head><body><textarea style="height:100%;width:100%;font-size:16px;padding:10px;"></textarea><script>document.getElementsByTagName('textarea')[0].focus()</script></body></html>

qhungg2892 yıl önce

Add my own little twist to use the default Monospace font and change color scheme based on system theme:

data:text/html,<html><head><link rel="icon" type="image/png" sizes="32x32" href="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAACAAAAAgCAYAAABzenr0AAAERElEQVRYR+1XbUxbVRh+zm2hX7TlY4LOGF1GOnQuTv0x5twPdS5qlABlOHXJmNn8o+6Hy2ayKGMwkyWO+MsYt2Rios6MTo2bSoQNIpFgYYv7YMXxIRTaCrTQ0rLStdzje++kUtdAa5uYJZ6kufe8vc/7PPe873nfcxnijF1v1ZiYAoc4+CoG1q5QzL4bVKuDGQGxmjH2LANGRVGsPVZf17VzT00FE8TdjCOTXH1y9Ejtx/HwHx0+PBWPi3zFjp379xcIkcyLEMV8MDZB/+ZzoJMInGAop7kbnOeACbPg4vtkO0C2WYCF6WoAeD1dt4EjBt+nYxvbamoi/+S7RcCuvQfqyPgO5+KeY0fqPqD5cZpXyUCGn+BdvgkGx2YSd+amiQXFOawVOdwKJX4lAfdIds4Z4Wv+xotzZUfrD32zpIDX9lZ/S25fMJeWHMzLzp62O50PXr7Ss93hdAkmk+n0Y8Xr2hmxWq3dtT02m8qg1w+Xl5V+KDm29fZWku3RgD/AyktK3jNkG31DDldRx7Xx7V5m/DxU8Mjuxspc30IRMStwwTa0vuns2TNDw/bc55/ZjOV33Sk/ax8ZRVPLOawuWoUN69fJNs45Gj47gUxVJraay6BQKGR7W/vPuNY/gIX4OYphs0uLi17VBOFKLVvyOuZFRAW0tv6u1hfM9dtHHHdLZAK9ppKHUbXjVYQjEZxo/AqhUAihwDRerNyCO/Lzo2RiJIw195uw4fGNsI+S2OZYvERGIcLxQQM8IYVD5/cVNuxYQXkjhfCvYe0ZeEpgaJGmnV3duHSlB6NDg3h73z7odDo4XC782NIKv38aa4oK8cSTmzBLgr5raoZnchLhGR9ef+NN2Vs8vGRvH9egw62m9BGfPmleJnNFBXT1DlYwkTfOL6+l8SQEUmSuqIyG7ML587D+0omXX9kGg9Eo2z1uNyyWRhQXF+OhtQ9HwxMP3+VR4dyYVgpfJYVB5oorIMqY5pv/Bdw+KzATDGLK66dqSnsnxZGl1SLHqJe9JLwCw84/4J70pkh9E65Rq/BA4YrkBFCnw/XZUFoEqDIzkKFUJicgLcxxnCQcAqnOS+U3HUNJLVIqaEnlwIhrDOOeuOeHpDXpNGoUrbwvOQHTgRk5CVPfA4Bep0V+Xk5yApJ+zQQBCedAgv6SfixhAXIIpqgOpCEGWf8mBP95EqZ3GypoGwq3WRJKpThIpTjRFNDQwXT+ULpYZiachHZqRhNJNCOjXofCe+XPgUVHwgJmrlM79iXejo36LBiydEvxL96OrbaBcoHj1JJeUnjA6lGjdUwDEbziVEWezBU9lHZc+q1IlaG8Sn3ols+1FDhjoN87tbjsU/FIWFz99dZlthgB0qT76sAXdHkpXYQL/XhCAhrowyQM9qXFnBvliHnbvr4+lS8sHCRgFf0K0iHkhsjQ71eibVw7Nn1D+HRGl1P9w3Msetr5Exxr3z9q3s3kAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC"><title>Notepad</title><style>html,body{margin:0;padding:0;color-scheme:light dark;}textarea{padding:10px;font-family:Monospace;font-size:16px;height:100%;width:100%;border:none;outline:none;resize:none;}</style></head><body><textarea style="height:100%;width:100%;font-size:16px;padding:10px;"></textarea><script>document.getElementsByTagName('textarea')[0].focus()</script></body></html>

nbbaier2 yıl önce

This is great! Is there a way to persist the state across refreshes?

blisterpeanuts2 yıl önce

Thanks for this. Very clever and handy.

I've been wanting to make a simple web app with persistent notes, a homegrown Google Keep clone, to run on my shared host, just for privacy purposes.

But this is a neat little non-persistent solution for single-location use.

jddj2 yıl önce

If it's just for you (and in some cases even if not), you can also just save the innerhtml directly to a database to get the persistence.

Run it through a sanitizer before serving it back, but otherwise it'll work fine.

ajcp2 yıl önce

This truly delighted me to learn, thank you!

[deleted]2 yıl önce

xwowsersx2 yıl önce

This is wonderfully clever and simple!

lakpan2 yıl önce

And then something happens and you lose it.

A million editors and you pick the least capable. My go-to is a sublime text window, even if ST is not my code editor.

buggy62572 yıl önce

At this point I have PyCharm as my IDE, Obsidian as my official "Notes" with a capital N, and about 40 open unsaved text documents in Sublime Text that i just use as scratchpads. Writing down things, acting as a poor man's extended clipboard, etc.

I absolutely love this flow and it works so well for me now.

joshstrange2 yıl önce

I recommend you check out “Scratches” in PyCharm (or any IntelliJ IDE). Cmd+Shift+N I think? I type it reflexively, it lets you create a scratch pad of any “type” (Python, PHP, plain text, shell, everything IntelliJ supports) and write code with syntax highlighting and all the bells and whistles you are used to.

They are all saved in a folder on your computer and easily accessible from the “Scratches” section at the bottom of the file explorer.

It’s my go-to for any text manipulation and I think you can even configure it up to run your snippets of code if you want (I’m stuck using CodeRunner cause I’m too lazy to look more into “running” Scratches).

I also use it to paste in information as I’m debugging a problem. Then I can use multiple cursors or regex find/replace to take information and turn it into commands to run. Yes, I know about CLI tools built in to most systems and I use them to create one-liners but sometimes I want a little more direct control and/or I want to build a script from the commands.

theamk2 yıl önce

> The product is browser first and document history is stored locally

so.. for throwaway documents then?

browser storage is one of the worst data places imagineable. Hard to backup, very hard for user to access, impossible to sync or share. And very unreliable too: many troubleshooting procedures for web apps start with "reset browser profile" or "clear site data"

qingcharles2 yıl önce

I assumed it was letting you store it on the local filesystem, not in the browser storage, which I agree is a bad place to store anything. There is one site I use that stores my favorites in the browser store and I had to write two JS bookmarklets so I can import/export my settings on a regular basis because pretty much every time Chrome crashes you can be assured that all my cookies and storage data gets zero'd out.

RajT882 yıl önce

The new and improved Pastebin

willsmith722 yıl önce

"document history is stored locally" doesn't necessarily mean "document history is not stored in the cloud/elsewhere"

SahAssar2 yıl önce

It sort of does. Not in a strict semantic sense, but I don't think any user of a service that says it stores stuff "locally" expects it to upload that to somewhere else without explicit consent.

It sounds like your interpretation is like if I said "our data is stored on our servers" but that actually meant "our data is stored on our servers, but also on AWS, GCP, Azure, Alibaba and shared with FSB, CIA, CCP, and the public and other parties (including but not limited to the Royal Bhutan Police)".

That would be true, but misleading to the point of being meaningless or (hopefully) potentially criminal.

willsmith722 yıl önce

I guess, but local-first is a huge movement which means exactly "data is stored locally" AND usually "data is synced to the cloud"

Just saying it's not a novel concept if that's what they're doing (I couldn't tell from the article)

SahAssar2 yıl önce

There is a huge difference between "document history is stored locally" and "works offline".

The local-first movement might sometimes talk about privacy and offline availability in the same breath, but those are very different concerns and if someones says "data is stored locally" then I assume they should check both the privacy and offline boxes but with a huge "I might loose all my data" caveat. If it still uploads my data to some cloud then I would not describe it as "document history is stored locally".

lewisjoe2 yıl önce

I tried using the product and out of curiosity inspected the editor. The editor is basically a CodeMirror plugin with all the tech heavy-lifting like realtime collaboration is enabled by CodeMirror itself.

It's clearly an overstretch to call this a Google Docs alternative, especially since Google docs is powered by insane levels of engineering. I know because I work on a competing word-processing product.

It's mildly surprising seeing such a shell product receiving millions of dollars in funding and even a published post in TechCrunch!

somenameforme2 yıl önce

I'll be swapping over. My usage for Google Docs is little more than pastebin + formating + access control. I suspect this is also probably a huge chunk of their overall use-case as well. In general, the least engineering amount possible to deliver what's actually needed is best IMO!

ilikehurdles2 yıl önce

There once was an incredibly nice product like this called hackpad. It even had a similar theme IIRC. It was a yc company, lovely polished product, and the folks I was founding a startup with loved it with zero effort spent on convincing them.

10 years ago Dropbox bought it and shut it down.

https://hn.algolia.com/?q=hackpad

Shank2 yıl önce

Hackpad still quasi-exists as Dropbox Paper, but it's definitely not the same. I really like this product because it reminds me a lot of Hackpad!

rigid2 yıl önce

I loved etherpad but it was a pain to host back then.

I'd love to have something similar that's lightweight and not serverside node.js

aedocw2 yıl önce

Take a look at https://github.com/ekzhang/rustpad

unspecified2 yıl önce

I just got hedgedoc (nee codimd, nee hackmd [1]) setup for my own purposes. It does have the advantage of splitscreen edit/preview, and it has the option to use vim/emacs keybinds in the editor, but if I'd had stashpad, I probably would not have bothered setting up a selfhost hedgedoc.

[1] https://hedgedoc.org/history/

rapnie2 yıl önce

+1 for hedgedoc. Only weird thing missing is an admin interface and easy way to check if no one is abusing any of those forgotten public pads that are hanging about.

sigmonsays2 yıl önce

It needs to support some table of contents concept, pretty limited tbh. This looks like a very basic app. Who do they know at TC?

xenodium2 yıl önce

I’m seeing scratch solutions shared, so here’s mine for iOS

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/scratch/id1671420139

I tried to optimise for least number of taps to quickly write something down.

Here’s a blog post by a user https://irreal.org/blog/?p=11202

acheron2 yıl önce

But if there’s no login how do they track you for marketing purposes? This doesn’t sound like a web app at all.

ImPleadThe5th2 yıl önce

Instead they'll record all your keystrokes and feed that to their proprietary AI and sell it back to you

catapart2 yıl önce

Awesome. This functions exactly like I expect it to, and without any unnecessary nonsense that I've come to begrudgingly accept.

Clean, simple, intuitive, and local-first. A really great product that I'm happy to have found! Thanks!

stevage2 yıl önce

I wonder how you compete with Google docs while charging $8 a month?

bombcar2 yıl önce

A full office suite with email from Microsoft is only $13/mo so the bar is pretty low.

Aachen2 yıl önce

"only", when 99% of the people are perfectly well served with the featureset of yesterdecade's LibreOffice suite, the three problems being the network effect (if everyone else is on another "network" or standard, you're forced to as well), that it looks like 2002, and that they have to spend 10 minutes on the first day to figure out that some buttons are in different places (I'm lost in Office nowadays, it really is just a matter of habit and not that either of them has an inferior layout). With the only functional defect being "it looks old", a modern style is what you pay 150€ every year for when buying into the Office monopoly. Except as a student: they're happy to help you gain the habit and experience the network effect.

I guess this is why Google Docs has been the first to make a dent: you seamlessly download the software to render the file format upon pageload, so there's no network effect on file formats anymore. Add a modern look, reach into your pockets to make it free until you've established a good market share, advertise for it in your already popular products (costing them nothing), et voila

ilrwbwrkhv2 yıl önce

The real secret we need to know here is how to convince TechCrunch to write about you when you have the most generic product on the planet. Knowing journalists is the secret?

jhanoncomm2 yıl önce

They raised $2M on the original idea this pivoted off which is insane.

https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/30/stashpad-is-a-notepad-for-...

turnsout2 yıl önce

If it makes you feel any better, news articles make almost no impact on a product’s revenue or success.

ilrwbwrkhv2 yıl önce

Yes and no. In this case it won't make a difference.

soared2 yıl önce

Is this not exactly the papier chrome extension?

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/papier/hhjeaokafpl...

vander_elst2 yıl önce

Not sure where the data is actually stored, but assuming the last version is stored in the cloud, how can they prevent users from sharing data e.g. music though the docs? And how can they they stop users from doing that?

uptownhr2 yıl önce

The thing that immediately stood out to me is `stash.new`. I thought that was only for google apps....

How is this accomplished? I does one register with chrome?

prattmic2 yıl önce

It is just a TLD. https://get.new/

bluish292 yıl önce

Thanks for the link. I discovered that you can create new repo or gist on github using

repo.new

gist.new

That's very handy and useful.

uptownhr2 yıl önce

wow - did not know this but found it. https://get.new/

jahewson2 yıl önce

This is a Google Docs alternative in the way that a pair of shoes is a car alternative.

xwowsersx2 yıl önce

A pair of shoes is a great alternative when a car would be overkill!

jahewson2 yıl önce

I’ll drive to my garden shed if I want to!

ies72 yıl önce

But who will buy it when the price is $8 for the shoes, $6 for starter car and $12 for standard car.

groestl2 yıl önce

Or stuck in traffic while you walk by

LegitShady2 yıl önce

To be fair that's what I consider Google docs relative to office.

killerstorm2 yıl önce

How is it better than Emacs?

insane_dreamer2 yıl önce

why not just use something like Notational Velocity?

[deleted]2 yıl önce

thorncorona2 yıl önce

what is the point of this?

you can’t store any important info if there’s no login unless your links contain the key.

and at that point you might as well just use a login instead maintaining your own list of docs

omoikane2 yıl önce

Access control appears to be a paid feature:

https://www.stashpad.com/pricing

Using the free version for anything sensitive might not be a good idea, especially since I can't find anything about their retention policy or something like terms of service.

ryandrake2 yıl önce

The lack of needing an account is a (or the) key feature: one I wish more online services copied. How much better and more frictionless would the web be if we weren’t having to log into an account everywhere we went?

warkdarrior2 yıl önce

How do I get back to my docs from a second device?

ryandrake2 yıl önce

If each doc has a unique URL, then bookmarks? Most browsers already do this. I’d be willing to argue that browsers should make sharing bookmarks from one device to the other easier and account-less, too, but that’s a different rant.

kccqzy2 yıl önce

Bookmarks might be fine for technical users, but these days I do not see non-technical users use this feature at all.

lakpan2 yıl önce

Not really. Regular users send links to themselves all the time as a way to bookmark things.

geek_at2 yıl önce

agreed, would be nice als selfhostable service though

inhumantsar2 yıl önce

> The product is browser first and document history is stored locally, so users can search for docs without querying the server. The company said that while there is no offline support at the moment, it is a feature that the startup will introduce in the future. > > You can easily share these docs for others to look at and collaborate with. However, some of the features like read-only sharing are behind a login.

it took you longer to write that comment than it would've taken to get the answer.

thorncorona2 yıl önce

i see no reason to use this product over gsuite when it’s both cheaper, has more functionality, and a data/privacy policy