[HN Gopher] Show HN: Open-sourcing my failed startup Buzee - A f...
___________________________________________________________________
Show HN: Open-sourcing my failed startup Buzee - A file search
application
Buzee is a file search application that helps you find your files
effortlessly. As a modern-day knowledge worker, I have several
thousand documents, presentations and other files on my computer. I
built Buzee in my free time to help me weave my way through this
maze. I have been using it pretty much everyday since the day I
built it - and I love it! I thought I could turn Buzee into a
startup. I reached out to offices and helped set it up for them.
But it didn't pan out. I am now letting go of this project because
I have other priorities in life. Please feel free to do with this
project as you wish. I am happy to help you get started with the
codebase. Do share what you build. I would love to see it! Cheers
Author : thatgurjot
Score : 105 points
Date : 2024-12-14 14:24 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| alexander2002 wrote:
| Please improve the documentation!
| thatgurjot wrote:
| That's the next step. Today I just wanted to get it out in the
| public.
|
| Will add an architectural diagram to the readme and in-line
| comments to the code.
| chgs wrote:
| Or you could work it out and add documentation. The beauty of
| open source.
| mutant wrote:
| I get a lot of this with spotlight/mdfind and it's realtime.
| Trying to understand if I'm missing a value add.
| thatgurjot wrote:
| Spotlight didn't quite work for me for file search. But yes,
| there is not much value add here other than a GUI.
|
| The main motivation was that Windows Search is often slow and
| terrible. But then I wasn't able to help many Windows users
| because of corporate security on their work machines and my
| lack of $500 Windows code signing certificates.
|
| The main sell was that it was fast and did full text search
| using natural language.
|
| I had several other plans but wasn't really able to make much
| of it happen. In the end this became a passion project that I
| tweaked endlessly to learn new technologies rather than create
| value for the user.
| mutant wrote:
| Dope, I like the use of Tauri!
| wileydragonfly wrote:
| Won't let me download? My work environment could really use
| something like this. Our electronic records are so vast that
| Windows search no longer works. And they refuse to delete
| anything. With paper files, after a certain number of years, we
| knew what to trash. That mentality hasn't extended to electronic
| yet. As soon as someone gets nailed in audit discovery, I
| suppose...
| thatgurjot wrote:
| Hi, I am sure Buzee could be of great help to you! It certainly
| helps me out with my work which is quite similar to your
| scenario.
|
| For Windows, you should try this link [1]. Unfortunately, it'll
| only work if you install it under admin privileges since I
| couldn't afford to buy a $500 code signing certificate.
| Otherwise, you could build the app on your machine from the
| source code! I'd be happy to help you with that.
|
| Let me know how it works out.
|
| [1]: https://buzee.co/download/#buzee-for-windows
| e12e wrote:
| Ugh, I tried looking into the state of codesigning foss apps
| for windows, and it's not great it seems.
|
| https://github.com/gerardog/gsudo/issues/1#issuecomment-2111.
| ..
|
| suggests either:
|
| https://github.com/Azure/trusted-signing-action
|
| Which is 10 USD/month - or publishing in the windows store:
|
| https://learn.microsoft.com/en-
| us/windows/apps/publish/?tabs...
|
| https://github.com/marketplace/actions/microsoft-store-
| publi...
|
| Not free either, but one time fee:
|
| https://github.com/microsoft/store-submission/issues/15
| thatgurjot wrote:
| Yeah, it's weird on Windows.
|
| I paid Apple $99/year for code signing on Mac but at least
| it worked seamlessly. On Windows it seemed like the code
| signing process varies depending on where you buy the
| certificate from!
| szszrk wrote:
| GDPR helped a lot with that in my previous companies. They
| applied vicious "delete after X years" policies to everything
| (files, emails). There is an ability to change it to longer but
| each element requires action, like moving to special folder
| with different retention.
|
| Absolutely bonkers, as the only metric is creation time, so
| good luck if you have a precious folder you forgot, with old
| contracts or something like that.
| yoavm wrote:
| The first link, "Download for Windows Download for Mac", seem to
| be a broken link to the Releases page. But the real Releases page
| also doesn't have any releases. I also think that a project that
| has the GUI as its main value add should probably include a
| screenshot ;)
| thatgurjot wrote:
| Haha you are right! The releases were actually hosted on a
| separate public repository to handle automatic app updates
| since the source code was private.
|
| I have updated the readme with screenshots. You can visit the
| website [1] or the releases page [2] to try it out.
|
| [1]: https://buzee.co/
|
| [2]: https://github.com/gsidhu/buzee-releases/releases
| AmazingTurtle wrote:
| Great initiative! It's always inspiring to see individuals open-
| sourcing their projects to benefit the community.
|
| At refind.ai (https://refind.ai/), we've been working on a
| similar challenge of navigating large volumes of documents, but
| with a more AI-driven and user centric approach. Beyond just
| search, we focus on transforming unstructured data into
| structured insights. This includes features like automatic
| metadata extraction, natural language search, and integrations
| with external systems like email and CRMs.
|
| To those who struggle with file management at scale, especially
| in environments where tools like Spotlight or Windows Search fall
| short, I think there's a lot of potential for tools like Buzee to
| evolve further. If anyone wants to collaborate or learn more
| about our approach, feel free to reach out!
|
| Best of luck with Buzee's journey--I'd love to see how the
| community builds on it!
| thatgurjot wrote:
| That's pretty cool! What you're building is kind of what my
| vision with Buzee was. Wishing you good luck!
| rukshn wrote:
| It would be great if you can share your journey, and why you
| think it failed? And how you would do it differently if you start
| today?
|
| Also this is not the first time I'm seeing a universal search
| startups fail, some even YC backed. It sounds like an interesting
| idea, but why is it failing, I can't seem to figure out, maybe
| not enough market or adaptation?
| thatgurjot wrote:
| Honestly, the story isn't that interesting. When I started I
| barely new JavaScript. Over the course of development, I
| learned Rust and TypeScript, and grappled with so many edge-
| cases and intricacies of NodeJS, SQLite, Tauri, Tantivy, and
| many other technologies. It was a great learning experience for
| me.
|
| The original idea emerged from my workplace where everyone has
| thousands of documents on their machines but can't recall
| what's where, so they always ask each other for files, and then
| end up with several duplicates. It's a mess. I thought a
| natural language powered high-speed, low-footprint app would be
| a great USP, especially when you compare it against Windows
| Search.
|
| Turned out, everyday office people (not nerdy hackers) have
| their own set ways of managing and discovering files on their
| machines. A guy I met keeps ONE 1000-page Word document instead
| of hundreds of smaller Word files because Ctrl+F in a Word
| document is more effective than Windows Search! Plus, a lot of
| files are now moving online to Google Drive or are locked
| behind Microsoft OneDrive, especially if it's a corporate
| workplace. Corporate work machines also made it quite
| impossible to install an app with that isn't code signed. So my
| target audience was kind of priced out for me!
|
| I didn't start out to make an 'universal search app' but I fell
| for its allure somewhere along the way. I wanted to make a
| simple desktop search app that _just works_. Kind of like
| Everything [1] for Windows but full-text, cross-platform and
| less nerdy.
|
| In the end, what I got was an app that fits my needs perfectly
| and I am really happy with it!
|
| [1]: https://www.voidtools.com/
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| Why not Alfred or Everything?
| thatgurjot wrote:
| Of course, Alfred and Everything are more mature products. My
| motivation was: (1) Build something on my own (2) Build a
| dedicated full-text search only product
|
| I was trying to scratch my own itch really.
| domoregood wrote:
| To this list I'll add Thomas Tempelmann's excellent Find Any
| File for Mac (NMNA):
|
| https://findanyfile.app
|
| Still, I like Buzee's UX and 10/10 agree it would be a major
| step up for Windows users.
| thatgurjot wrote:
| I just read "I like Buzee's UX" and giggled. Thank you for
| the kind words, stranger!
| nunez wrote:
| Alfred is amazing, but it's Mac only.
| sigmoid10 wrote:
| Why did you focus on Mac when they already have something that is
| at least presentable with spotlight/mdfind, whereas Windows
| search is (and always has been) atrocious? Especially in a
| business context. I see a much bigger market opportunity for a
| good search tool that is tailored to Windows.
| thatgurjot wrote:
| You are 100% correct. I focused on Mac because my personal
| machine is a MacBook :)
|
| That was part of my failure. I wanted to solve a problem for
| Windows but didn't have a decent Windows machine myself! Had to
| rely on a 10-year old laptop to do testing and building, which
| inevitably didn't work well.
| leros wrote:
| Windows would also have let you target business people with
| specific niche business problems. You could be the best
| search for legal documents, invoices, etc.
| thatgurjot wrote:
| Funny you say that. Legal and invoice were actually the two
| avenues I actually explored! There definitely is an
| opportunity there but I found that there is an intense
| status quo to fight.
| criddell wrote:
| Was running Windows in a VM not an option?
| thatgurjot wrote:
| I tried Parallels with like three different accounts :)
|
| But I also found that a native Windows machine throws a lot
| more errors than a VM. For example, having a sqlite3.dll
| ended up being critical on the Windows 10 machine but not
| on the Parallels VM. Not sure why!
| criddell wrote:
| SQLite is actually bundled with Windows as winsqlite. You
| _can_ install your own copy if you want to take control
| of the version, but you usually don't need to.
| mritchie712 wrote:
| if you need to do really complicated file search, duckdb has an
| extension that lets you run SQL on your file system could be an
| option.
|
| https://duckdb.org/community_extensions/extensions/hostfs.ht...
| thatgurjot wrote:
| Thanks! Search wasn't the most difficult problem here. I found
| SQLite's FTS5 to be quite powerful. Later combined with
| Tantivy, I think it's a superb combination to tackle pretty
| much any local search needs.
| serial_dev wrote:
| What were the most difficult problems you faced, if it wasn't
| search?
| thatgurjot wrote:
| Getting everything to work reliably. This was my first time
| handling a software with so many moving parts. If I could
| get the search query to work, I would break the date range
| filter, if that worked, the document indexing flow would
| stutter, or I'd discover a new bug caused by an edge-case.
|
| Since I built this application in an exploratory manner
| (branching out without a larger architectural design), it
| often became unwieldy for a solo hobbyist like myself.
|
| Plus, I wasn't able to really get going with user feedback.
| Reached out to family, friends and colleagues but faced the
| Windows roadblock and got demotivated. In the end, built it
| for myself and used it by myself. I am happy with that!
| AlexErrant wrote:
| What issues did you have with FTS5 that made you switch to
| Tantivy? Does using Tantivy mean you have to load the entire
| Sqlite db into memory?
|
| I ask because in my own project I have my own search query
| grammar [0] written in Lezer that more or less "transpiles"
| [1] to SQL+FTS5 that's been uh, tedious to build.
| [0] https://github.com/AlexErrant/Pentive/blob/main/shared-
| dom/src/language/query.grammar [1]
| https://github.com/AlexErrant/Pentive/blob/main/shared-
| dom/src/language/query2sql.ts
| SalmonSnarker wrote:
| Thank you for sharing your Buzee with the world.
|
| (For your next project, may I suggest double checking if the name
| overlaps with any colorful slang?)
| StayTrue wrote:
| I assume it's intentional.
| thatgurjot wrote:
| I named Buzee after my pet dog. I guess I am unaware of what
| you're referring to, English isn't my native language after
| all. Hope it isn't a slur or something!
| octopoc wrote:
| It might be somewhat localized. English is my first language
| and I've never heard this slang.
| thatgurjot wrote:
| Makes sense!
|
| I'd presume they're referring to boozy (like booze/liquor)
| but not sure if that'd qualify as "colorful slang"
| SalmonSnarker wrote:
| None of the people I dm'd didn't notice it :( a buzee
| packed full of docs is likely a cautionary tale about the
| costs of homogeneous tech communities.
|
| https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bussy
|
| Code's great though. Love the trend of svelte used in
| desktop-focused apps.
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| There's an offensive term in UD for every vaguely
| pronounceable thing - that's not even spelt the same.
| CalebDiGriz wrote:
| Made an account just to expand your Hungarian knowledge :).
| Around here "buzi" is a slur for "gay".
| simonw wrote:
| What's the overlap? (I asked Claude and ChatGPT and neither of
| them could figure it out.)
| thatgurjot wrote:
| Omg hi Simon! Big fan. Your work on datasette and generally
| using SQLite for solving problems was one of my main
| motivations behind Buzee. Thank you for all your work and for
| documenting it all!
| yayitswei wrote:
| 'Buzee' pronounced as 'boozey' (from the readme) is a similar
| to a common slang term for intoxicated or alcohol-related.
| fabmilo wrote:
| Thanks to make this open source! Doesn't seem to have any AI
| enabled search feature does it? Honestly I think you gave up too
| early, there are solid foundations in the app but definitely
| needs some more polishing for practical use. I managed to build
| it on my mac. npm install, npm run tauri build. What is your
| workflow to add features / debug?
| thatgurjot wrote:
| I feel I gave up early too but oh well, I sat on it for too
| long. I hope somebody else can make something good out of it!
|
| Once I had a more reliable foundation, I planned on adding a
| tiny LLM that can run locally and parse user's natural queries
| in a manner that the app can understand.
|
| I didn't really have a workflow to do anything since I am not a
| professional developer. I would just hack around in a dev
| branch, merge it with main and create a build when I was happy
| with it.
| simplyinfinity wrote:
| Based on your explanation and my very very limited knowledge of
| Microsoft SharePoint, sounds you were trying to implement
| SharePoint!
|
| And there's a lot of enterprises that use that and pay a lot of
| money for it! The business side problem i can see is : how do you
| convince MS focused companies to use your product instead of
| SharePoint? Could your product be built on top of it?
|
| Can you for example also enhance gSuite?
|
| Thank you for open sourcing this, so others may learn from you or
| build upon your work!
| nunez wrote:
| File search is only one piece of the massive puzzle that is
| SharePoint. A very important one, though!
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-12-14 23:00 UTC)