Having made a perfectly good notes app as a single-page, hosted-for-free web app, I now wonder what else could be done like this and what would be a great additional enabling tech.
I still really want a personal, private, key-value store with a simple REST API.
If people could have this then all sorts of stuff would be possible with super-cheap web apps.
And I wonder if things like this exist. But it’s SO hard to find them. Because nothing is simple. Everything is made over-complicated!
@ttntm Super-minimal is great though! That’s my point. Build something that works for you. It doesn’t need all the bells and whistles of another too. You don’t have to compete. 😃
@ross this is interesting - is the point that you don't need to host them yourself, since they work primarily locally and don't need lots of server resources?
I have been playing with yunohost for selfhosting which is pretty simple but requires a bit of work. I host a few tools that work along the lines you're describing, like a QR code generator for my friend who makes a lot of posters. I'd love to learn to build such things myself :)
@RadtkeJCJ It’s hard to know what technical level to reply at. So forgive me and ask where I’ve missed the mark.
There’s services like Netlify and Cloudflare Pages that let you host files for free. This is good for HTML/CSS/JavaScript and images. It won’t let you RUN any code like PHP or Python and there’s no database. Just files.
So if you can build a site/page/app using just files they will host for free!
@ross nice! I didn't know about those services. I'm very much a desktop developer, never really done anything web-based. I shall go read your post :) thank you!
Simple one-page web apps can be quick to build and free to host.
I consider several of mine “finished” software. They won’t ever need updates (unless browsers deprecate functionality). There is no maintenance burden.
We CAN build software like this now. So why don’t we?
@ross Dice golf looks interesting. Here's mine. Move files from anywhere to anywhere using WebRTC, and use a webcam as a security camera. https://TheUnCloud.co
@tappenden Oh, I know it’s both of those things. I could make it if I wanted to.
The complaint isn’t that this doesn’t exist (that’s more of a dream!). The complaint is that things become complicated because for them to exist they have to be monetised and marketed and spam proof and legal-proof and…
So I don’t want to make it precisely because it’s “tricky in practice”.
The “I want” is an idealistic dream. The frustration is almost that such a thing can’t exist as I want it.
Oh and also: things are made over-complicated so that they can be monetised. And to make them monetised they need huge marketing efforts with lots of SEO. And this is why finding simple stuff is hard. It’s lost.
The recently re-ignited interest in the indieweb is GREAT! But what if this also encompassed simple web apps and games built as open source using modern web standards?
What if apps like this were as common as blogs?
How could these be made discoverable? What’s the App Store for these?
Add comment