Scratchtop
By Emmett on Saturday, October 14 2006, 19:47 - Permalink
I threw together scratchtop.com in frustration with all the current ways to write and share simple documents on the web. Why are you making me register? Why do I have to click 10 times to start writing my first document? Why do I have to click edit and save? Why do I have to click at all? Feel free to use scratch top, but be warned that it's still very much development software.
As far as I know, scratch top is the simplest useful web application ever written. Anyone know anything simpler?
Comments
Are we measuring by UI or coding? Arguably makeashorterlink.com wins on both.
I can't comment on coding, but I suspect you're right. But by UI (which was what I was thinking of), there are only 2 screens and 3 non-text elements in scratchtop, compared with 3 screens and a 5 non-text elements for makeashorterlink.com. Plus, they wimp out and include "options".
A web app I created (Google Notes) comes close...it used to be that simple, but I've added a few features with minimal impact on the UI. Only 1 screen, and only two non-text elements.
To be fair though, I'm planning to make an update today or tomorrow to add a "full screen" button, which brings it to two possible screens and three non-text elements...maybe I should hold off to keep the lead on the simplest Web 2.0 app. :)
w.r.t. coding, mine loses on simplicity. With text size selection, time zone selection, printability, Google integration, etc. the code is probably a bit more than that for Scratchtop. More information here: http://infinityis.blogspot.com/2006...
It may "wimp out" by including options, but they've been in response to user requests, so if giving people they want make it wimpy, then so be it. However, Scratchtop wimps out by requiring a login...when I open my browser, it goes to google.com/ig and logs in for me, so I may have you beat on convenience. :)
I had a very similar idea a few months back that I was trying to get programmer friend to build.
You nailed the login / no-login - thank you.
I started poking around again when I was looking for a place to put a page where my friends could post pizza orders w/o logging in etc. goto http://scratchtop.com/98800f81c88# and all will make sense.
I was just about to send it when I thought I'd give it a quick test in IE (b/c some of my friends are commies)
No workie for me.
Anyway, if you fix it (or not) you and your posse are welcome to join. I gather from your blog that you just moved from Boston. It took me about 3 months to realize how f'ing bad the pizza is out here, so you're prob not desparate enough to hike to Berkeley for pizza yet.