GitBook
Dev tools
book publishing tool
SHOW HN2014
How HN took it
14 positive, 14 neutral or asking, 5 mixed, 9 critical, out of 42 comments about the project. Thread score +0.19.
Idea: 9 for, 0 againstDesign: 0 for, 8 againstExecution: 2 for, 0 againstDocs: 0 for, 1 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Impressive build speed for three days of spare time
From 2 comments
"Keep in mind we built GitBook in our spare time over the past 3 days." That's impressive!
carlsednaoui on HN> in our spare time over the past 3 days. nice work. you went in with a clear head. congratulations. i will watch your further development. -bowerbird
bowerbird on HN
Good idea for interactive programming tutorials and documentation
From 3 comments
This is an awesome first implementation of a good idea. :) If I was the type to communicate clearly enough in writing to create an open textbook, I'd use it.
opendais on HNThis is really cool. Could be used as an interactive documentation platform for libraries and frameworks as well.
munaf on HNYeah! this is something I've always wanted. Now I can convert any github doc to a codecademy like learning experience !
yong on HN
Objections
Font rendering and baseline problems on Windows and Linux
From 3 comments
Just as a heads-up, the font 'appNormal' looks like this on Windows / Chrome 33: http://i.imgur.com/mXfy7NR.jpg Looks great on OSX etc, so as this is about beautiful books wanted…
daviding on HNMore important than "smoothing" - the font baseline is all over the place
mjgoeke on HNFont is messed up on Chrome/Windows
elwell on HN
Navigation issues: table of contents disappears, spacebar and keyboard paging
From 2 comments
Looks interesting. A little bit of feedback: - I didn't like that the table of contents disappeared on me when I clicked on a page. - Related to this, it would be great for the…
abengoam on HNQuick feedback: When I get to a "next" page, the focus must be on something other than the core content, because spacebar doesn't scroll the page. Clicking anywhere in the main…
aray on HN
Blocks zoom and font size changes on iPad
From 1 comment
Yet another web-based ebook viewer which disables zoom on the iPad and then has no way to change the font size. Sigh.
jahewson on HN
Requests
Export to PDF and ePub
From 2 comments
Export to epub and replace the textbook industry
emehrkay on HNThe front page and demo's seem to be all about interactive on-screen books. Does GitBook also do things like pretty PDF export? (Converting the HTML to PDF does NOT count!)
sspiff on HN
Left and right keys to change pages
From 1 comment
Looks great. It would be cool if the left and right keys changed the pages.
alexchamberlain on HN
Questions
Does it produce print-quality PDF output?
From 1 comment
The front page and demo's seem to be all about interactive on-screen books. Does GitBook also do things like pretty PDF export? (Converting the HTML to PDF does NOT count!)
sspiff on HN
Alternatives named
Sphinx with ReadTheDocs
From 1 comment
Sphinx already does ePub, PDF, and HTML. (Pair with ReadTheDocs.org for automatic builds and hosting from a git repository).
BHSPitMonkey on HN
Leanpub
From 1 comment
How does selling on your own site compare to selling on Leanpub and KDP?
csdreamer7 on HN
Scrivener
From 1 comment
As someone who has just recently started writing programming books [1] I'm really excited to see more such tools! Some thoughts: 1. Code examples are the biggest problem to me in…
andrzejkrzywda on HN
Softcover
From 1 comment
Interesting to see what @mhartl thinks about this since he recently launched softcover.io
xpop2027 on HN