Cool project, though - don't mean to take away anything from it.
- Split JS out from HTML, split CSS out from HTML
- Keep files reasonably small
So if I read "Single HTML file" I'd expect around a couple hundred lines at most, possibly with some embedded CSS.
It's kind of like saying "I've solved your problem in one line of JS" but then your line of JS is 1000 characters long and is actually 50 statements separated by semicolons. Yes, technically you're not lying, but I was expecting when you said "one line of JS" that it would be roughly the size and shape of a typical line of JS found in the wild.
When I see “single HTML file” it conjures up the same expectations as when PocketBase[0] describes itself as an “Open Source backend in 1 file”.
That is that I can copy that file (and nothing else) somewhere and open/run it, and the application will function correctly. No internet connection, no external "assets" needed, and definitely no server.
This mode of distribution, along with offline and local-first software, avoiding susbscriptions and third party / cloud dependencies, etc. all appeal to me very much.
So far I'm impressed, I appreciate the nice, dense and uncluttered UI out of the box and it seems to cover enough functionality to be useful. I'll definitely look out for a chance to give it a spin on something real.
[0] which I also think is great
Sorry if it's a bit direct and unrelated. I've actually got a question if you wouldn't mind.
I've been in the process of creating a local-first, non-subscription based Linux/Windows application that acts as a completely local search engine for your own documents and files. It's completely offline, utlises open source LLMs and you just use it like a search, so for example "what's my home insurance policy number", "how much did I pay for the humidifier", that kinda stuff. Things where you don't know exactly where the file is, but you know what you're looking for. You can browse through the results and go direct to the document if you want, or wait for the LLM response (which can be disabled if you just want plain search) to sift through the sources and give you a verifiable answer (checks sources for matching words, links to the source directly for you to reference etc).
My question would be. If you wanted something like this, how much would you pay? I'm going with the complete ownership type model, you pay, you get the exe and that's that. You like the new features in next major release, you pay an upgrade fee or something like that, but it's a "one and done" type affair.
$10, $30, $60, $100? I want it to be accessible to many people that don't want to feed their data to big corps but I also want to be able to make a living off improving it and bringing these features to people.
I've not really worked out any of this monetary side of things, or if it's something people even want. It's something I've developed over time for myself which I think could potentially be useful to other people.
I try to avoid proprietary software when I can, so if I wanted something like this I’d definitely look for open source options first. I’ll endure a reasonable amount of setup pain as long as the solution is what I’m after to go the open source route over a proprietary app.
For example, your idea seems to sit somewhere between Alfred (which I’ve bought every upgrade/ultimate pack/whatever for) or Raycast, and an LLM augmented search of a NAS / “personal cloud” server. So assuming I wanted it, if there was no neat and self contained open source solution, I’d probably try to cobble something together with Alfred, Ollama, Open WebUI, etc. (all of which I already run) plus some scripts/code first, too.
That said, for a good, feature-full local/self hosted solution that does exactly what I want in the absence of an open source option (or if it’s just much better in significant ways), I’m generally willing pay between $20–$100 per major release (for ex. I pay around that for e.g.: Alfred, the Affinity apps). For this I suppose $30–50 if it was pretty slick and filled an important niche. (I have paid more a handful of times in my life, usually for very specific use cases or if it helps me professionally, but not very recently.)
However, if a nice (or very promising and exciting to me), well maintained open source (GPL/MIT/Apache/BSD type license) solution does [most of] what I want and it’s something I really use (and a smaller project[0]) then I donate $10–30 per month (ex.: Helix, WezTerm). I sometimes do smaller or one-off donations, etc. for stuff I use less but appreciate.
That is, I intentionally pay more for open source I care about, and would humbly suggest considering that option for your project. Though I recognise that sustaining yourself financially that way is more than likely considerably harder, even with my small personal attempt at creating incentives for the world I want to see :)
NB: I do not buy subscription software unless it comes with a genuinely value added service (storing a few MiB on the devs cloud service doesn’t count) or access to data, for instance detailed snow/weather forecasts, market data, an advanced AI model (though my admittedly relatively minimal LLM use is currently >95% local and free/“open source” models).
[0] I don’t give money to the Linux kernel devs, etc. as I don’t think it’s likely to has as much positive impact
Not heard of Alfred as I'm not in the Apple ecosystem, but yes, you've hit the nail on the head between the combination of both after doing a bit of digging.
I'll seriously think about making it open source (time to brush up on the different licenses again). I want to keep it accessible so even my grandma could use it. I'm not expecting her to go cloning a git repo and checking dependencies etc, so I'm packaging it into a standalone executable. Maybe making the source open is something for me to consider and people can just pay if they don't want to go through any setup hassle (do I put some soft donation paywall up with a $0 minimum or something - just thinking out loud).
In terms of pricing, you've landed where I was thinking, maybe more towards the $30 end. I mean I think it's pretty slick and fills a niche, but I'm conscious I may be ever so slightly biased. A lot of stuff to mull over. Thanks again, really useful.
It will greatly increase the attractiveness of your software to me if you stick to the philosophy you’ve outlined there.
One approach that I’ve seen and have absolutely no issues with (in fact I think it’s a pretty smart way of doing things) is where a fully open source project provides code and releases on GitHub and in package managers like Homebrew, but also publishes releases as paid software on app stores.
This allows users to pay for the peace of mind of a “verified” app store install that Just Works. It also provides an easy way for the more technical among us to donate. I’ve switched to paid releases like this myself for a least a couple of fully open source projects just to give a little back.