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Show HN: Scipress.io – a Markdown writing platform like Notion Medium MkDocs (scipress.io)

110 points by neb519 ↗ HN
Scipress is a writing platform with VS code editor built into the browser. It lets you make beautiful blog posts and programming docs with Markdown.

Scipress supports code blocks with syntax highlighting, Katex, Tailwind CSS, images & videos, admonitions, popovers, blur screens, private posts, and a bunch of other cool stuff. You can also monetize via paywalls, if you want.

I started this project almost a year ago to the date. This is my first time posting about it on HN. And if you're curious, I have made $0 from this project (but not for lack of trying).

19 comments

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sashikumar
I am incredibly impressed with Scipress. Your dedication and hard work truly shine through in the range of capabilities you've built. Stay focused on enhancing the product and reaching the right users. I am confident that Scipress will resonate with technical professionals. Keep up the excellent work!
r0ckarong
I just wish people would start building this kind of stuff around Asciidoc and not Markdown. Markdown works fine for notes and short how-to's but once you move into longer manuals that need more structure elements you quickly run out of options.
sshine
Markdown vs. AsciiDoc: I find that mdBook is sufficient for my needs.

Where Markdown comes short for me is presentation layout. The only worthy contender of LaTeX so far is Typst. I’ve made my resume and my slides with Typst, and it’s amazing.

I really like SciPress, and I think a web-based VSCode with the right plugins and a presentation layer holds a LOT of potential.

EligibleDecoy
I really agree. All of our team documentation is in asciidoc. Importing diagrams from other files, variables, and vastly better tables are the best features for us. I feel like asciidoc’s weakness is that there is only 1 library, and it’s in ruby. Whereas markdown has libraries in almost all languages, making it easier to support.
rychco
I agree, but unfortunately Asciidoc’s adoption is limited (imo) by the fact that the two most supported parsers are written in Ruby & JavaScript. Not having a C library really limits its potential reach. I personally tried it and enjoyed it, but Ruby/Javascript don’t fit into my projects or preferred tools.
neb519
I honestly hadn't heard of Asciidoc until I read this. Looks interesting.

Note that Scipress Markdown supports "directives" which in turn means I can include all types of elements like popovers, blur screens, paywalls, etc.

mattsouth
hackmd but branded for science and with a monetisation angle - that's cool. You are missing terms and privacy - I need to know who Im trusting and where Im operating before I sign up to something like this. These are the most concise I know of: https://simplenote.com/terms/
neb519
Hey, thanks for the feedback. I know this is something I need. I've just been reluctant to do it because I want to hire a lawyer and get it done right, but not before validating that people actually want to use the platform. I'll probably put a stop-gap in place this week. In general, I plan on being pretty author-friendly, as I'm an author and I wouldn't want someone else controlling my content / data.
casper14
It looks really great! Your privacy policy returns a 404 though.
neb519
Hey thanks! I plan on fixing that this week. Let me know if you have suggestions for it.
Brajeshwar
This is awesome but I really want to have Custom domain from the start (make it a paid plan). Owning my own domain and being able to move content around on different systems with a standard (Markdown) format is an awesome thing.

The ability to paywall part of the content is a brilliant idea and I already have ideas but that non-availability of custom domain is a no-deal for me right now.

neb519
Thanks for the feedback. I'll have to see how nasty of a refactor this would be...