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Ask HN: Show me the sexy, sexy home page of your favorite free CLI project

170 points by tomcam ↗ HN
Would like to make the homepage of my me-too FOSS project (a command-line static site generator (IT'S DIFFERENT FROM ALL THE OTHERS, I SWEAR)) as sexy as possible. Even more than that I want it to be functional and clear. Would you mind linking to super-good home pages of CLI projects? For example, I think Jekyll's is pretty darn good but Hugo, which product I much prefer, has an oddly subpar home page.

145 comments

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chriswalz
I feel like mine isn't that beautiful but I'll show it anyway - https://github.com/chriswalz/bit

It's a CLI "enhancer" for git

tomcam
Are you out of your mind? It's the sexiest yet! Animated illustration, short description right at the top, news section, clearly delineated sections, update for current users... this is a model of clarity. Thank you for being a role model.
exolymph
WP-CLI is great :) https://wp-cli.org/
tomcam
It's very clear about what it does, gets both beginners and existing users into the mix ASAP, gratifies sponsors.. pretty sexy. Thank you for that contribution.
jonnycomputer
I have to say that WP-CLI is how I do everything now for a few personal sites I manage, and I have zero complaints. So much better, actually, than doing anything in the WP GUI.
ibraheemdev
A big terminal recording on the front page is a must for CLI tools IMO: https://httpie.io/
tomcam
Word. You wonder how many of those 50,000 stars are just because they sell it so well. Brilliantly done and sexy as all get out. Bonus points for zooming in so the, ah, temporally disadvantaged among us can view parts of it easily too. The clear Try it and Docs buttons, then a big illustration and bullet list next to it, a brief getting started section, and examples... and testimonials! For a free product! That brings things to a whole new level.
amcaskill
Pretty nice animation of the input & output: https://evidence.dev/
desi_ninja
pretty cool presentation. kind of gets missed out in Mobile though
tomcam
Slick AF! A moving picture is worth a megaword. Way sexy. Thank you!
cors-fls
The exa website [1] is pretty good looking. It is an alternative to the ls command.

[1] https://the.exa.website/

tomcam
Very, very nice. Sexy, minimal, and honest about what it does. You feel really good when you've finished that homepage because they've sold you, but not tried to deceive you. SWEET.
fatpixel
Where has this utility been all my life?! Thank you for introducing me to my new favorite filesystem lister of all time.
thiht
I'm not sure why we need an ls alternative with different colors. It's not clear what it brings to the table?
smoldesu
+1 for Feesh[1]

[1] https://fishshell.com/

hibbelig
"Finally, a command line shell for the 90s"

That line is what got me to try it. I didn't like it so much at that time. Then I tried it again a few years later. And I switched back, again. Recently, I've tried it again, and I'm still using it.

smoldesu
Fish is my default. I'm normally pretty minimalist with my shell configurations, but the Fish defaults just feel so right to me. It's minimal nudges in the spots that help are fantastic, and it's tab-completion is best in class. Unless you have a very specific powerline setup that you absolutely need, I think Fish is better than zsh for everyday use.
tomcam
Sexy, funny, simple, truthy. Thank you.
gru
Python Poetry [1] is very sexy.

Oh, and Starship prompt [2] too.

[1] https://python-poetry.org/

[2] https://starship.rs/

tomcam
You have a very special eye! These are sexy and arty, yet still functional. Maybe the best kind of sexy. Mad props to you, gru.
yesenadam
That starship one is nothing special. Sure, it got me to instantly download and install Starship and its recommended NerdFont without having heard of either one or knowing what they do, but I'm sure the page design had nothing to do with it. /s
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thiht
Starship uses Vuepress, which is amazing. I used it for a side project and not only is the result great, but the setup is also extremely quick and painless. I find it a lot better than Docusaurus (the React equivalent).
lawrencema92
How does starship compare to power level 10k with oh my zsh?
camcaine
Clean – https://cli.github.com
tomcam
That is sexy AF and so, so clean. THANK YOU CITIZEN
systemvoltage
Big giant typography is a turn off for me as if they're trying to compensate for something. I prefer refined aesthetics without the loudness.
uxcolumbo
Care to share some examples?
systemvoltage
Someone posted this in another comment: http://cht.sh/ and http://ix.io/
eliseumds
Well, we can clearly see here that taste is indeed personal.
happymellon
Not a fan of that IX. On mobile and there is weird wrapping which breaks the indentation making it hard to read.
mstipetic
Both of them are horrible on mobile
happymellon
Ah, because they are both just copy paste in a `pre` element.
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amzans
I think there’s many nice OSS websites (and docs) built with Docusaurus [1].

It’s not exclusively for CLI projects, and their own website is pretty nice IMO.

[1] https://docusaurus.io/showcase

alphabet9000
<html><body><h1>project name</h1><hr><p>info</p></body></html>
zzo38computer
Actually, I think that it is a good idea, although it should need to mention what info (e.g. download link, source code, documentation, etc; this will likely span several paragraphs), and you should probably include the <title> as well. Other than that, I think that is good.
samuell
I hate when text is flowed to the full screen width. Makes it close to impossible to read without losing track of where you are.

At least add a style="max-width: 840px" or so to the <body>-tag.

resizeitplz
I hate it when text doesn't flow to the size I've set my window. Makes it a waste of space when the window is expanded past whatever the designer felt was a good one-size-fits-all fixed limit. At least let me choose how wide my wall of text should be.
walrus01
Everyone should know that youtube-dl exists and how to use it.

https://youtube-dl.org/

tomcam
Pretty good. That About button does tell you exactly what's what. I sort of feel the home page isn't a home run because it's all inside baseball. I say not sexy, though YouTube-dl is definitely sexy.
sathackr
.
walrus01
I've replied to you from an account abbreviated as R.W.
ufo
Htop: https://htop.dev/

I think the animated gif in the background is charming.

tomcam
And so fitting for this particular (indispensable) utility. Seamless. Nice!
jsjsbdkj
Please sign my petition to never use "sexy" to refer to anything ever again.
tomcam
Duly upvoted and signed because while all this is meant to be lighthearted I don’t blame your attitude in the slightest
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danShumway
Not sure if this counts, but I'll throw my own project (semi-CLI-driven testing framework) into the ring, not as a perfect example overall, but as an example of what I wish more projects did, which was let me experiment a bit with their interfaces before I downloaded them.

This isn't something that's doable for every utility, but especially with the advent of WASM and easier cross-compiling from C, I wish more CLI/API documentation would allow me to play around with examples or try out a command on their docs page or in a sandbox; particularly if they're selling themselves as having a composable interface.

That's not only helpful for figuring out whether or not I want to use the project, it's also helpful when I look at a piece of documentation and am not sure which flag or option is actually important.

https://distilledjs.com

tomcam
It sure does count, Dan. Love how you pare it down to the absolute minimum so anyone visiting all of the site just pick up the essentials and learn more or just dip without wasting any time. And I agree, the playground concept is always welcome. Definitely sexy.
TeddyDD
http://cht.sh/

This is the pinnacle of design.

tomcam
So sexy for the intended audience. Form follows function perfectly.
1_player
No, it's so close to being perfect: I can open the dropdown at the top with the mouse, but I have to SPEND ENERGY moving my shoulder, arm and wrist system over to the Enter key for the page to refresh. Unacceptable.

So close to greatness, yet so far.

O_H_E
You actually don't need to, looks like the search box is auto focused by default.
antisol
The pain! Why oh why are we only allowed to upvote once?
tomcam
No one said life was easy my friend. We must all make sacrifices for the cause.
O_H_E
And of course it is by the same person as wttr.in

Damn the open-source world is small.

throwaway823882
Why make a sexy homepage? To convince people to use it? Don't you want to make it work real well first, and then make the sexy homepage, when it's, you know... good software?

Back in the day, you would release your software on Freshmeat.net (https://web.archive.org/web/20010528211603/http://freshmeat....). You would get excited if people clicked on your project (https://web.archive.org/web/20100627062409/http://freshmeat....), but you'd get more excited if people downloaded your software, because it meant people were actually trying it out. (I can't find the graphs anymore, but it used to show you if anyone had clicked on the .tar.gz of your source code. It also used to have comments, but in later versions seems like comments were removed)

Anyone else remember back when the web was useful?

tomcam
Well I’m having fun with this post, your objections are completely warranted.

If you’d like to email me the address in my profile I will post a serious response in my blog. Long story short, I think an attractive, credible looking webpage helps enormously in user acceptance.

throwaway823882
I get that a nice looking project can make people want to use it more, but what I'm really asking is your motivation. Why is it important that people other than yourself use it?
tomcam
Making it work well first is my first priority by a country mile. Making it maintainable is my next priority. Documenting it well, third. Following those are:

1. Professional vanity. 2. Personal vanity. 3. Public service. 4. Backup business idea.

ibraheemdev
Another static site generator huh? I would love to hear what you are doing differently :)
tomcam
Ibraheem, I hang my head in shame after seeing all these sexy home pages. With your permission I will let you know at the email address in your profile after I revise mine because I have been massively humbled by some of these masterpieces.
meristem
After browsing the current (as of now) 41 comments, I am curious: what constitutes 'sexy' for your audience?
tomcam
I am totally letting them decide!
majewsky
If I may toot my own horn: The thing that grinds my gears the most about software project websites is when they don't clearly say what the thing does, and who this is for. That's why the website for my configuration management tool (https://holocm.org) has two sections, "This is for you if..." and even more importantly "This is NOT for you if..."
yesenadam
I agree. Very considerate, I love it, thanks.
tomcam
Strong yesses to both points. The vast majority of these sites do in fact avoid the first trap, and you will notice that I politely chose not to compliment them. A good-looking site is important to me, but well-organized, well-written content always trumps looks to me.