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Superpaper learnings log #1 design

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I had an in person discussion with Denny the other day about this, so writing down.

I’ve learned three things from the Superpaper experiment thus far:

Viewing PDFs in dark mode feels good
Link creation between PDFs and posts makes the tool useful
All data stored on your local device makes users feel safe

Viewing PDFs in dark mode feels good

Adding dark mode as a feature is very silly. I wrote about it in dark mode. I don’t have a logical explanation for why this is better and I am not sure a logical explanation is needed.

I like the dark mode and would read purely on that

Link creation between PDFs and posts makes the tool useful

Link creation between PDFs and posts is a silly simple feature, but creates an entirely new experience not represented in existing tools.

I am not aware of any popular PDF organizing tools (Zotero, Mendeley, etc.) that allow users to write posts and link to PDFs.

All data stored on your local device makes users feel safe

Removing the web from the tool and storing all data locally gives users a feeling that they can be alone with their thoughts. I wrote about this in 2017. There is a HN thread for this post, but I can’t find it right now.

One condition. The files and text. It’s gotta stay local. Confidential work

Taking what I have learned from Superpaper and applying it to the Jelly web experience, I would prioritize these things:

Dark mode for post view and PDF view
Implement a PDF viewer and allow users to inline comment and link between PDFs and posts
Change the responsibility of the server, where the local server and the web server are mirrors of each other (the web server contains a percentage of what is on the local server)
Package Jelly as an offline desktop app (including the GROBID parser)

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dark mode design

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Science should be done in secrecy

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dark mode design

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Science should be done in secrecy

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Superpaper learnings log #1 design

References

Superpaper learnings log #1 `design`