[HN Gopher] Show HN: I built Multy - Generate a short URL to sha...
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       Show HN: I built Multy - Generate a short URL to share a list of
       websites
        
       Author : Etheon
       Score  : 40 points
       Date   : 2021-01-22 10:52 UTC (12 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.multy.me)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.multy.me)
        
       | jamescampbell wrote:
       | I would love a browser add-on to go with this to gather up the
       | links as you browse. I used to do this with mailephant (now
       | defunct) that allowed me to queue up links and snippets of text
       | related to links in a nice list to email along with an email
       | template. good work and definitely useful.
        
         | jstrieb wrote:
         | You might be looking for something like One-Tab.[1] In addition
         | to saving groups of tabs, you can share links to the groups of
         | tabs. That being said, it may not 100% fit your use-case.
         | 
         | For reference, the original author did a Show HN when they
         | released One-Tab.[2]
         | 
         | [1]: https://www.one-tab.com/
         | 
         | [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5356823
        
         | jamescampbell wrote:
         | I just tried it out and it works. https://multy.me/l3uepo
        
         | Etheon wrote:
         | Hey that's a great idea!
         | 
         | I never built an add-on for a browser so it will make a good
         | challenge. Maybe for this week-end ^^
        
           | jamescampbell wrote:
           | Yeah its not that bad, here is a simple bookmarklet example
           | that grabs current url and posts it to your endpoint
           | (mailephant in this case). Might be a good first step.
           | javascript:q=location.href;if(document.getSelection)%7Bd=docu
           | ment.getSelection();%7Delse%7Bd='';%7D;p=document.title;void(
           | open('https://mailephant.email/views/curate.html?showtags=yes
           | &url='+encodeURIComponent(q)+'&description='+encodeURICompone
           | nt(d)+'&title='+encodeURIComponent(p),'Mailephant','toolbar=n
           | o,scrollbars=yes,width=550,height=700'));
        
             | jamescampbell wrote:
             | You just save that as a new bookmark after updated your
             | endpoint and you can gather that data quickly.
        
               | Etheon wrote:
               | Thank you for the tips! I will definitely try that this
               | week end and keep you updated.
        
       | gnicholas wrote:
       | Pretty cool; reminds me of Insight Browser's multiple tab
       | behavior. [1] For example, the browser has a functionality that
       | when you load HN, it automatically opens the first few links in
       | separate tabs.
       | 
       | I don't know if there's enough overlap in what you do that you
       | could work with them (maybe via deep linking with fallback?), but
       | it'd be interesting! They're a cool group of founders (YC W19, I
       | think), and their extensible mobile browser is now my go-to on
       | iOS.
       | 
       | 1: https://insightbrowser.com/
        
         | Etheon wrote:
         | Thanks! And yes this is interesting.
         | 
         | For a few days now I've been thinking about an API system
         | allowing users to create lists directly, without going through
         | Multy. With a POST that would return a unique link to a JSON.
         | This would allow people to integrate their own system to their
         | site/application. If I had to monetize a part of Multy, maybe
         | it would be this API, I don't know what you think?
        
       | ljf wrote:
       | Looks great. Congratulations on getting it out so fast. I wish I
       | had your drive (and skills).
       | 
       | What is your plan to deal with spam or abuse of the service?
        
         | Etheon wrote:
         | Good question and right now I don't have an answer... I thought
         | about checking a blacklist before create any list but I had
         | trouble to find a good domain blacklist.
         | 
         | We can always handle spam with checking IP / number of requests
         | but it's easy to say ;)
        
       | adambware wrote:
       | I use a Chrome Extension called OneTab that allows me to collapse
       | all of my tabs into a list. You can also "Share as webpage" but
       | the design leaves a lot to be desired. Congrats on the project!
        
         | Etheon wrote:
         | Thank you :) Didn't know OneTab but it looks really useful for
         | a guy like me with 100 open tabs.
         | 
         | I will check if I can create my own browser extension!
        
       | Etheon wrote:
       | Hello HN :)
       | 
       | For the record, I learned how to code less than 2 years ago, next
       | to my full time job.
       | 
       | I rarely have the time to complete a side project, so I
       | challenged myself to make a functional website in a weekend.
       | 
       | The idea was simple, to be able to create a short URL to share a
       | list of websites. It's not revolutionary, but I was surprised not
       | to find more sites to do that. Bit.ly had such a system a few
       | years ago called "Bundles", which they shut down.
       | 
       | I often see interesting lists on Twitter or in articles, but
       | keeping track of all this is sometimes complicated. That's where
       | I got the idea.
       | 
       | So I created Multy over a weekend and was thrilled to see that I
       | could make a functional site, no matter how small, in such a
       | short period of time.
       | 
       | I still have a lot of ideas to improve it, such as adding private
       | links, or a very simple statistics system. I would like as much
       | as possible not to create an authentication system and keep the
       | concept as simple as possible. I haven't necessarily thought
       | about monetization, but there may be some ideas! I didn't create
       | it to make a fortune anyway.
       | 
       | I would like to have your opinion on its current version, and on
       | the evolutions I could bring to it.
       | 
       | Thank you for reading me and taking the time to test Multy!
        
         | kybernetikos wrote:
         | This looks perfect for remote learning. Teachers typically have
         | a bunch of resources that they want to use for the class
         | they're teaching, and sometimes their link is going to be in
         | printed material that the student will have to type in. This
         | seems like a nice solution to that problem.
         | 
         | Currently I use bit.ly for this, but it means generating lots
         | of links. What is helpful on bit.ly is the bookmarklet. Being
         | able to add a link to a bundle from a bookmarklet would be
         | quite nice if you haven't done it already.
        
           | Etheon wrote:
           | This is something I didn't think about but you're absolutely
           | right. I need to find a solution to edit the list. In your
           | example, if a teacher want to add something in the middle of
           | the year or update a website, it would be useful.
           | 
           | If I don't want to add an authentication system, maybe with a
           | token...
        
       | tux1968 wrote:
       | This is such a great idea. So much nicer to include a single link
       | at the bottom of a comment for all mentioned references. For that
       | usage it might be nice to be able to refer to each link as say
       | [1], [2], [3] and have those numbers also show up in the multi-
       | link page.
        
         | Etheon wrote:
         | Thank you :)
         | 
         | So for example multy.me/xXere-1 and you'll be able to go
         | directly to the link?
        
           | tux1968 wrote:
           | Sorry, I didn't do a great job explaining what I meant.
           | Really just comes down to having each link on the multi-link
           | page listed with a number beside its title.
           | 
           | --- Typically[1] i'll put numbers inline[2] for each
           | reference I make[3]. And then at the bottom of the comment
           | just list them as so:
           | 
           | [1] www.typical.com
           | 
           | [2] www.inline.com
           | 
           | [3] www.make.com
           | 
           | ---
           | 
           | But if I replace the listed references with a single link at
           | the bottom of the page to your site:
           | References can be found here: https://multy.me/M9MU0A
           | 
           | Then it would be nice if the individual numbers (1,2,and 3)
           | were obvious on that linked page beside each reference. But
           | it's not a huge difference, it was just an initial thought
           | when I first tried out your site. It's still useful even
           | without numbered links, and I can't guess how many people
           | would use them.
        
             | Etheon wrote:
             | Ok I understand! Easier than I thought ;) Being able to
             | have numbered links is definitely something I can do. I'll
             | add that to my to-do list! It could be an option, not
             | necessarily visible by default.
        
       | d33lio wrote:
       | Any plans to open source?
        
         | Etheon wrote:
         | Well as it's one of my first "big" project as a developper, it
         | can be scary, but my github project is public
         | https://github.com/Etheonor/multy.me
         | 
         | Feel free to check it and I will be happy to have some feedback
         | on my code. Since I'm self-taught, I'm sure I make big
         | mistakes!
        
           | jamescampbell wrote:
           | In my experience, every developer that I hired self-taught
           | was 10x better at solving problems and getting things done
           | themselves than traditionally taught.
        
             | Etheon wrote:
             | I heard that a lot, but the impostor syndrome is always
             | strong when you didn't do anything publicly before!
        
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       (page generated 2021-01-22 23:01 UTC)