[HN Gopher] Show HN: Script - A text editor for digitally interc...
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Show HN: Script - A text editor for digitally interconnected
documents
script is a text editor powering truly digital documents recently
launched. Feel free to play with and share your feedback.
Author : kevintouati
Score : 66 points
Date : 2023-07-02 16:57 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.use-script.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.use-script.com)
| rosebay wrote:
| [dead]
| cjbprime wrote:
| I didn't see any mention of AI tech -- using embeddings to
| automatically surface relevant documents, a chat mode to answer
| questions about them, etc.
|
| It seems like the legal industry always has a great deal of
| inertia around tools, such that it will be a huge effort to
| change software, but if something does overcome that inertia I
| think it's likely to be because of AI features.
| Mesmoria wrote:
| Maybe it's my ignorant paranoia - but entering my google password
| into a login box produced by an app i just downloaded makes me
| nervous.
|
| I am (mostly) sure it was doing a legitimate OAuth - but how can
| I tell?
| mkl wrote:
| It seems pretty crazy to handicap yourself with an unsearchable
| name like "Script", especially when it's not an editor for
| scripts (drama or programming).
|
| The site has no scrollbar for some reason, so it's hard to
| navigate.
|
| The HN title talks about interconnected documents, as if it's a
| wiki or something, but the site doesn't seem to mention that.
|
| We've been working with truly digital documents for decades now,
| and it's not clear that this adds anything important. It also
| seems focused on proprietary lock-in, and doesn't have pricing
| available.
| IceHegel wrote:
| I want to be able to try something without signing up. I'll sign
| up if it's good.
| [deleted]
| esafak wrote:
| Gating is part of the growth playbook from ten years ago. It is
| considered outdated now, where the idea is to demonstrate value
| first, as you said.
|
| Gating makes your conversion rates look good, as it filters out
| prospects unlikely to convert, but it also reduces the volume
| of users who might convert.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Maybe gating makes sense for slow growth and so might be
| appropriate here?
| esafak wrote:
| It makes sense when non-conversion is expensive; e.g., in
| customer support, or resource usage.
| jatins wrote:
| I love to try every authoring platform out there however this one
| seems to require login even before I can type first word. Would
| be great to drop that requirement so that one can try the editing
| experience without a login wall
| mattkevan wrote:
| I love a text editor app and I'm always happy to try out new
| ones, especially one that looks like it might be useful in
| extracting meaning from text or linking ideas and relationships
| between documents.
|
| I also like the cleanness of the design and the illustrations are
| fun - definitely a cut above the usual Corporate Memphis.
|
| However, and this was the deal-breaker for me, there was no
| mention of the cost or licensing model.
|
| A one point a subscription was mentioned, but there was no link
| to find out more. I'm not going to download or try an app without
| knowing the pricing up-front.
| tqwhite wrote:
| There is no information about the pricing after trying it for
| free. I never, ever invest time if I don't know what it costs.
| Maybe others feel that way, too.
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| Some (hopefully) constructive feedback. UI looks great. FWIW I
| don't dislike the "cartoon people" as per the other comment -
| much more original than the usual stock illustrations you see.
|
| But... I wouldn't get as far as downloading this without having a
| much clearer idea of whether this is a standalone app - fully
| offline - or some sort of cloud/SaaS service ala Notion, with a
| desktop client.
|
| The integrations and the "dedicated project workspace"
| terminology makes me think it might be the latter?
|
| Either way, this should be made clearer I think.
|
| But the concept looks very nice!
| jrm4 wrote:
| "Proprietary syntax highlighting system" is absolutely a deal-
| killer here. That would be the thing that would make me stand up
| and say "avoid this like the plague."
|
| Figure out how to do this without doing that. Obsidian did.
| MissTake wrote:
| Only basic Office file types supported? No thanks.
|
| Not even markdown is on the list.
| criddell wrote:
| When I click on the blog link I can see only the first paragraph.
| How do I get to the rest of it?
| dvt wrote:
| Boy oh boy, HN loves their note-taking apps. I guarantee I'd hit
| the front page by just using the title "Show HN: Markdown note-
| taking app written in Rust."
|
| More to the point, is there any reason you're hijacking the
| browser scrollbar (Windows 11, Brave) or is that a bug on my end?
| And to be completely honest here, the app looks completely
| uninspiring. It looks clinical (in a bad way) and lacks any sort
| of identity or playfulness. Also, word salad like "powering truly
| digital documents in a dedicated project workspace" gives me a
| ChatGPT vibe. "Truly digital" as opposed to.. "falsely digital?"
| Come on.
| chews wrote:
| I like the direction you are thinking Kevin, clearly you have a
| background in law and it's noticeable in what you're launching
| with script.
|
| I agree the drafting process for legal documents has
| fundamentally not improved while IDEs for software code
| supportive tooling has gotten much better.
|
| I've kicked the tires on the editor and like some of your ideas a
| whole lot, it would be wonderful though if there was some sort of
| programmatic interaction or some sort of interface for electronic
| composition and export of documents.
| Renaud wrote:
| It seems like something I'd want, but the site doesn't give
| enough information about what the product is. It states a few
| high-level goals, like Office integration, but it doesn't say
| _how_.
|
| Who is the target customer? Some of the features seem interesting
| and useful, like domain-specific syntax highlighting, Definition
| tooltips.
|
| The site talks about accessibiltity and inclusion, but doesn't
| expand on what that actually entails.
|
| All of the "Explore" links just download the app instead of
| expanding on the feature.
|
| I mean, this looks like it could be a nifty product, but as
| others have said, you must be clear about wetting your target
| audience in the first screen of the page, and then provide
| details about what are each of the features.
|
| You can't rely on people installing it to understand if it's for
| them. You got to make them _think_ it's for them first, then
| they'll download it and take the time to try it.
|
| There are lots of small psychological hurdles to overcome before
| someone decides to install a piece of software and commit time to
| trying it. Downloading it going to require me to clean-up the
| setup file at some point, maybe it's a messy install, and it's
| going to be a pain to uninstall, maybe it's not really safe or
| could be a security hazard or mess up with other parts of my
| system, or it will just crash, maybe it requires libraries or
| runtimes that I don't have on my machine (jre?), maybe it will
| require an account, and I'm not ready to create one, maybe it's
| complex to use and I'm just going to waste time, maybe it's
| really targetted at lawyers and won't fit my industry, maybe...
|
| [edit]: so I downloaded and ran the setup and Windows Smartscreen
| barked at me, and now I have to bypass that safety net. I hate
| Windows Smartscreen and will force through for software I know to
| be safe (like grafana), but I know nothing of this software, and
| I'm not sure I should force its installation. A major hurdle.
| Maybe having a separate page show up when downloading for
| Windows, explaining Smartcreen could popup and how to bypass it
| would help non-techie users?
| kmoser wrote:
| The site really needs some videos showing it in action, and how
| it differs from a regular editor or word processor. The
| screenshots give a tantalizing clue, but I'm left wondering how
| it actually works from a practical perspective.
| esafak wrote:
| Your positioning could be tightened. Revise your tagline to state
| your product differentiation. Why shouldn't I use an established
| product like Notion, Coda, or Obsidian? Don't make users think.
| If they have to, they'll go with the status quo, not you. I also
| picked up the lawyer vibe and I think you should lean right into
| it. You could say _Script: the text editor for lawyers_ , then
| explain how your UX support lawyers. Don't worry that the market
| is smaller. It is plenty big, you can expand it, and you can't
| beat the incumbents at the beginning anyway. Pick a battle you
| can win.
|
| Finally, I think you need to better explain how your product
| supports DEI, which is mentioned in the second half of the page.
| You should probably just remove that section; it muddies the
| message.
| nativeit wrote:
| I learned pretty quickly when I struck out as an entrepreneur
| that a narrow audience is exponentially easier to succeed with
| than trying to generalize. It does seem this is rather tailor
| made for lawyerly document writing, and that is a perfectly
| suitable niche to target with particular circumstances that
| could be quite favorable for developing a sales pitch--their
| time is worth quite a lot of money, and their need to ensure
| that they have done everything exactly right is mission
| critical. I wholeheartedly agree with the above comment that
| positioning this as something like "document authoring for
| lawyers" would be a smart way to get established in a
| potentially lucrative market.
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| Exactly. I saw this and my only reaction was "eh, I'd just use
| Notion".
| seanthemon wrote:
| The first thing I thought too, second thing was "wow, people
| love notes"
| cratermoon wrote:
| What does "digitally interconnected" mean?
|
| Also, out of curiosity, does the legal world still hang on to
| some obscure version of WordPerfect, or have they made the switch
| to Word?
| themadturk wrote:
| As of 2006 (when I left the legal tech world), the transition
| to Word was already well underway. Law firms hated it, but like
| everywhere else it was becoming The Way. And before Word, there
| were no "obscure" versions of WordPerfect; it was very widely
| used, in and out of the legal industry.
|
| Everyone loved WordPerfect because of its ability to tune the
| final output. Formatting requirements for some court filings
| are very specific. Back in the day, it was like "12 point
| Courier, double spaced, no more than 50 pages in length" for
| appellate briefs (that's from memory, may not match the actual
| situation at the time) and it was important that an
| electronically transmitted document look alike on every
| machine, something that's virtually impossible to guarantee
| with Word.
|
| This was in the day before print-to-PDF drivers were available,
| and no one was going to buy Adobe Acrobat licenses for every
| attorney, paralegal, secretary and word processor in the firm.
| Wordperfect was well-loved for a reason.
| cratermoon wrote:
| Oh yes, I used WordPerfect 5.1 myself. I even had a function
| key template for my keyboard. By "obscure" version, I meant
| some version still in use, like WordPerfect Office
| Professional 2021.
| bckr wrote:
| Truly digital? I don't know what that means
|
| Typewriter? What do you mean by that?
|
| Proprietary syntax highlighting? Why would I want that?
|
| Integrates with... file types?
|
| Why the cartoon people?
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Truly digital? I don't know what that means_
|
| Well, they're "powered" so they must be truly digital. Or
| something like that.
|
| _Typewriter? What do you mean by that?_
|
| Seems pretty clear. Even if you're not 50 years old, you've
| seen a typewriter and know what one is. It's not 2123 yet.
|
| _Proprietary syntax highlighting? Why would I want that?_
|
| It looks like this is syntax highlighting for non-programmers.
| People in certain types of businesses might like syntax
| highlighting customized to their needs, rather than repurposing
| the syntax highlighting used by programmers.
|
| _Integrates with... file types?_
|
| Worse, only five file types from three companies.
|
| _Why the cartoon people?_
|
| Maybe to seem friendly? Looks like Schoolhouse Rock to me.
| Since it's collaborative, I guess he's trying to show people
| together. Better than rando Adobe Stock of generic people super
| excited about doing mundane things.
|
| That said...
|
| When I click "Expore," some kind of menu pops up, but it's
| mostly off the side of my very wide computer screen, so I have
| no idea what that's supposed to do.
|
| The contrast ratio of the entire page is awful. It's like
| looking at a web site through a light drizzle.
|
| For what's supposed to be a basic, informative landing page,
| there's an awful lot of outbound connections that my computer
| is happy to block.
|
| Ah, later on when I click on "Explore" the pop-up wants to know
| what kind of computer I have. How about I have a "None of Your
| Business Yet." Do you support that?
|
| ...and it stopped scrolling and responding to anything.
|
| This page should have been just bare HTML/images/CSS.
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(page generated 2023-07-02 23:01 UTC)