[HN Gopher] Show HN: Kraa - Writing App for Everything
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Show HN: Kraa - Writing App for Everything
Hello HN! We're a team of three building a new kind of web-based
markdown editor. There are many editors out there, so one is
spoiled for choice, but Kraa's approach is a little different. It's
trying to be both a minimal and distraction-free experience while
being feature-rich and allowing for tons of use cases. What Kraa's
good for: - Distraction-free writing & reading (minimal UI,
performant, styling logic completely separated from the editing
experience) - Quick sharing of any written text - compared to many
other writing tools, your content can be easily shared just by
posting a link and giving 'read' or 'edit' access (we also have
password-protection) - Real-time chat / communities - Kraa has
some unique features around real-time editing and our Chat widget
allows for a frictionless chat experience. No send button. - Kraa
works well on mobile (though dedicated apps are planned) --- Demo
examples (all live, no login needed): Blog article:
https://kraa.io/kraa/examples/echolibrary Long-form story:
https://kraa.io/kraa/examples/insidekick Magazine:
https://kraa.io/weeklyinspiration Kraa is built on top of
ProseMirror (and TipTap) and Svelte. You don't need an account to
try Kraa. We'd really appreciate your thoughts and feedback!
Author : levmiseri
Score : 99 points
Date : 2025-12-04 07:35 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (kraa.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (kraa.io)
| levmiseri wrote:
| Example of the real-real-time chat: https://kraa.io/hackernews
| kylecazar wrote:
| This went to hell fairly quickly
| embedding-shape wrote:
| Everyone learns some important lessons the first time they
| allow user-generated content on the public internet,
| particularly if you're brave enough to allow so without any
| login :) It's a rite of passage at this point I think, lucky
| OP :)
| bonesss wrote:
| I'm reminded, by the ascii art d's, about a metric used in
| game dev where users can shape content, something to the
| effect of time to penis (TTP): defined as the time from
| tool availability to when users abuse said tool to craft
| dong.
|
| Supposedly it's pretty quick.
| input_sh wrote:
| Really? IMO it went about as well as I expected given the
| audience.
| heliumtera wrote:
| I couldn't see the value of this application until I went on
| this link and saw the euphoria. Whatever this means, there's
| certainly a place for unfiltered, unmoderated "anonymous" chat.
| This is promising, but I still don't understand why it always
| had to end in penis.
|
| Anyway, I liked this. Consider making sent messages as
| immutable, it's very distracting people editing old messages.
| GaryBluto wrote:
| Shows a lot of confidence in their own service when they link
| to their "main" chatroom on another live chat provider.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| - Click "Start Writing"
|
| - Start typing, nothing happens
|
| - Editor apparently didn't focus, I try clicking anywhere on the
| page to give text editor focus
|
| - Editor doesn't focus when you click on it?
|
| For being an experience "all about writing", I sure don't
| understand how to get started? I click in the middle of the page,
| but nothing is focusing? Using Firefox 145.0.1.
| grvdrm wrote:
| Using Safari (OSX). No problems.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| Sorry to be doubting, but are you sure?
|
| I got curious, and looked at the DOM, and seems the editor
| when empty is just one line of the full page, which if you
| click anywhere else (like what I did initially, in the middle
| of the page) the editor can't be focused. Are you sure you
| clicked in the middle of the page?
|
| Looks like this for me: https://i.imgur.com/DOdiN4o.png
|
| Unless you click that specific rectangle, the editor doesn't
| focus, isn't it the same in Safari?
| levmiseri wrote:
| This is embarrassing and a recent regression on the latest
| update. Thanks for the report, we will fix this.
| previnder wrote:
| Clicking on the line with the cursor worked for me.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| I mean yes, of course. The point is that the rest of the 99%
| of the document isn't clickable...
| dmje wrote:
| Intriguing.
|
| But - the first thing I want to know it "how much" and then
| shortly after that I want to know "can I run it myself".
| tigroferoce wrote:
| This should be the first and most important question anyone
| asks when trying a new product/service. If I don't understant
| the business model and how much I could be locked-in, I don't
| even bother wasting 1 minute on the product (I might tray that
| to get inspiration, but I probably wouldn't use that for
| anything serious).
| embedding-shape wrote:
| > If I don't understant the business model and how much I
| could be locked-in, I don't even bother wasting 1 minute on
| the product
|
| Personally I do it the other way around, first I try it out
| and see if it's useful, then I'd figure out if I'm willing to
| accept the tradeoffs of pricing/lock-in.
|
| If you do it the way you suggest, wouldn't that mean you
| can't actually understand if the business model is fine
| because of the benefits you get? Seems backwards to me.
| quentindanjou wrote:
| 100% agree. Why even question the business model if that's
| not a product that I would use. First should be "Can I use
| it?"(meaning does it run on my devices etc.), then "Do I
| find it useful?" before anything else.
| levmiseri wrote:
| What you see now will always be free. In 2026 we will introduce
| a 'pro' tier that will increase storage space for media/images
| and additional advanced features.
|
| No self-hosting planned for now.
| imcritic wrote:
| This is damn awesome!
|
| Edit: at first I thought it was too damn awesome, but then I
| noticed that my phone is overheating after just a few minutes
| watching the live chat.
| linhns wrote:
| Mine got laggy after refresh, however have to commend them for
| such slick UI
| dwa3592 wrote:
| Beautiful. Is it E2E encrypted?
| levmiseri wrote:
| No, it is not. But that's high on the list of things we're
| focusing on.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| Does it matter? They'll surely wouldn't implement a
| local/client-first E2E encryption, so in the end they'll be
| holding the keys anyways.
|
| If you want something private, don't put it on other people's
| platforms, it's very simple.
| bilekas wrote:
| > Does it matter? They'll surely wouldn't implement a
| local/client-first E2E encryption, so in the end they'll be
| holding the keys anyways
|
| Yes it matters, there are use cases if not only for privacy
| focus people. Why would the hold the keys? I actually have
| found a good example of one that I am working to verify.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| Because currently they have search and they do user-to-user
| messaging, good luck implementing that over the web in a
| reliable and scalable way with E2E encryption.
| bilekas wrote:
| I was looking for this too. shared one that was client side
| encrypted. No realtime chat though. SecuriNote.com
| heliumtera wrote:
| Congrats! This was something I have not seen before. People loved
| it, apparently. Real time chat makes it so even with few users,
| there is so much happening. Unfortunately moderation could be a
| problem. Good luck with it. Gos bless you, my morning is a little
| bit happier now
| steego wrote:
| After watching a bunch of people use the live chat, I am not
| discouraged by live chat anymore.
|
| I actually think one can make it work, one simply needs to
| account for moderation and flooding upfront.
|
| The first feature you need is a way to instantly ignore people
| who are ruining the collective experience. I would think when a
| person is ignored by a certain threshold of people, their content
| should automatically be moderated.
|
| The second feature that's needed is some sort of flood protection
| or detection. If a user is pasting or trying to flood the chat
| with characters, they should be instantly hidden and their
| content be subject to moderation. Being able to distinguish
| between copying and pasting on occasion and flooding goes a long
| way.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| > The first feature you need is a way to instantly ignore
| people who are ruining the collective experience. I
|
| Yeah, and we all know you're talking about Anon Pond Heron,
| lets be honest.
| steego wrote:
| I am.
|
| While I'm not the kind of person who races to test the most
| triggering racial slurs, I'm actually glad Anon Pond Heron
| did because I thought his behavior was informative,
| especially as you could watch him slowly type out the
| beginnings of a slur.
|
| I actually think these types of CRDTs can be enhanced with a
| handful of simple mechanisms to ensure a higher quality chat
| experience.
| _thisdot wrote:
| The recently sunsetted Reddit public chat was a good example.
| They were tied to a subreddit, so only people with some shared
| interest came together. And the moderators could set an entry
| barrier based on karma. And you stood to lose your reddit
| account if you misbehaved in a public chat
| steego wrote:
| I understand and appreciate Reddit's approach.
|
| On the other hand, I think there might be a way to solve this
| problem for live anonymous chat in a way that doesn't rely on
| threats of "punishment" or "banning".
|
| I think most people looking at this problem don't appreciate
| how much realtime information can be calculated from the
| event stream and how that information can be leveraged toward
| solving it in near realtime.
| ramon156 wrote:
| Without sounding negative, i see a lot of bells and whistles
|
| For UX it seems better to only show features when you need it.
| You're up against a physical notepad.
|
| Maybe I'm not the target audience
| levmiseri wrote:
| Could you please expand on this? Showing only the features you
| need is pretty much what we tried to do. Keeping the writing UI
| minimal and distraction-free.
| _kidlike wrote:
| self hosting when?
| wiz21c wrote:
| The Food Recipe example link doesn't go to a food recipe :-(
| qntmfred wrote:
| nice work. i'm curious, what's the architecture for
| authorization?
| taco_emoji wrote:
| i don't get it. if i need to write a document, i'll still use
| google docs. if i want to write a blogpost, i'll use a blog
| hosting platform. if I want a wiki, i'll use a wiki platform
|
| > It's not designed to be this or that
|
| well then why am i using it
| vinclou wrote:
| Apparently, Notion, Obsidian, Google Docs, Word, Notes,
| Reminders, Evernote, Bear, Typora, iA Writer, Ulysses, Standard
| Notes, Simplenote, Roam, LogSeq, Craft, Vim, Emacs and the
| hundreds other editors launched this week alone just weren't
| doing it. They were too cluttered. Too focused. Too specific in
| their use cases. Not online. Too offline.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| Can't believe you missed notepad.exe(v1).
| w10-1 wrote:
| VSCode, IntelliJ, Eclipse...
| edu wrote:
| Ed
| BrokenCogs wrote:
| Building an editor is a rite of passage for the serial
| procrastinator
| ordinaryradical wrote:
| This comment is clever but adds literally nothing to the
| discussion. It had no spirit of curiosity, just contempt.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| This comment is unfair to this specific product, but it does
| highlight how saturated this category is.
| Otek wrote:
| 99% marketing 1% product Sorry...
| embedding-shape wrote:
| Name one "writing app" that doesn't apply to? Still feel like
| you're being needlessly harsh, don't you remember writing your
| first text editor too? Most of us do it at one point or
| another.
| taco_emoji wrote:
| I don't think the OP was trying to write "My First Text
| Editor". This is a product we're meant to consume and should
| be critiqued as such.
| levmiseri wrote:
| I'm not sure what exactly you're trying to say with this. That
| we need marketing to succeed? Or that the product has too much
| marketing (where?) and low quality?
| desireco42 wrote:
| I love it. What little I tried it. First homepage is actually
| clear and obvious.
|
| I was thinking of similar markdown editing experience, so I am
| happy you did this so I don't have to.
|
| Name is a little bit weird, what is this supposed to mean?
| levmiseri wrote:
| Thanks! The whole app is raven-themed. "Kraa" is the sound a
| raven makes in many languages and is a reasonably short name.
| It's not anyhow deeper than that.
| edu wrote:
| This is intriguing, but honestly the first thought that came to
| my mind reading the home page was "jack of all trades, master of
| none".
|
| Take it as constructive criticism, but I didn't learn why should
| I try over my current tools of choice.
|
| In any case, best of lucks with it!
| jbenner-radham wrote:
| Pretty neat, good job! It doesn't seem to support Setext headings
| though unfortunately.
| bovermyer wrote:
| My ideal writing experience is one where there is nothing in the
| way of writing.
|
| For me, that means as close to hand-writing a manuscript as
| possible, without the pain of extended hours of pressing hard
| with a pen or pencil.
|
| From there, I may want to share my writing, or not. If so, then I
| want the process of moving what I've written from the initial
| medium to online and publicly accessible to be as quick and
| painless as possible.
|
| If not, then... I just want it to be a file. Something I can
| save, archive, move, or whatever, like any other file.
|
| It sounds like, given my context, Kraa is not designed for me.
|
| I am interested in hearing from people who feel like Kraa solves
| a problem for them. I'd like to understand the difference in
| creative environment!
| levmiseri wrote:
| From what you have written, it actually sounds like Kraa
| 'might' be for you.
|
| > I want the process of moving what I've written from the
| initial medium to online and publicly accessible to be as quick
| and painless as possible. With Kraa this is a matter of one
| click.
|
| > If not, then... I just want it to be a file. Something I can
| save, archive, move, or whatever, like any other file. And this
| is more nuanced, but Kraa isn't using any proprietary file
| system. You can export your leaves to .md any time. Though it's
| not the same as e.g. Obsidian where it is literally a local
| file.
| dbtc wrote:
| > without the pain of extended hours of pressing hard with a
| pen or pencil.
|
| Excuse me, do you have a minute to talk about fountain pens?
|
| I recommend a Lamy Safari or Pilot Kakuno to start. If the nib
| is good, no pressure at all is required to write. You have to
| retrain to relax your hand and arm if you're used to ballpoints
| and graphite. High quality paper is not required but it can
| make a big difference too.
|
| As far as digital, .txt will always have a special place in my
| hard drive. As long as a tool has a way to export into
| plaintext, I am not opposed to using it.
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(page generated 2025-12-05 23:00 UTC)