My Unhosted App : Shared Stuff - Share Real Stuff With Friends

[shybyte]

Hello,

I'm currently working on an app called "Shared Stuff": an unhosted app made for sharing of real world stuff with your friends.

Imagine you need an electric drill but don't want to buy one for the 2 holes you drill in one year. With Shared Stuff you can easily see who of your friends you can ask. You can also find inspirations for good books in your friend's list or discover an old unused sega game console for a fun retro gaming party ...

It's missing a lot of features and contains probably a lots of bugs, but nevertheless please have a look at the first alpha-version of my app:

http://shared-stuff.github.com

To start with me and my shared stuff in your friends list, go to this URL:

http://shared-stuff.github.com/#/invitation/shy...@owncube.com

I would love to get your opinions (and bug reports ;-)) ! It's only tested on newest Chrome and Firefox and will probably not work in IE or older browser versions.

Please post your opinions here, mail me or use https://github.com/shared-stuff/shared-stuff/issues

Cheers, Marco

[Jan-Christoph Borchardt]

Yeah! Cheers from the hackfest, we already registered! Check all our stuff:

Martin: http://shared-stuff.github.com/#/invitation/xma...@5apps.com
Niklas: http://shared-stuff.github.com/#/invitation/n...@heahdk.net
Pavlik: http://shared-stuff.github.com/#/invitation/elf-p...@5apps.com
Luis: http://shared-stuff.github.com/#/invitation/reis...@5apps.com
Felix: http://shared-stuff.github.com/#/invitation/mrf...@5apps.com
Garret: http://shared-stuff.github.com/#/invitation/gal...@5apps.com
Jacob: http://shared-stuff.github.com/#/invitation/jacobp...@5apps.com
Me: http://shared-stuff.github.com/#/invitation/j...@5apps.com

I already have some suggestions:
It should be possible to specify _where_ that specific thing is
located, in which city.
It should be possible to specify whether you want to give it away or
just temporarily share it.
It should be possible to publicize your friends, or see the stuff
friends of friends share. (so we don’t need to exchange addresses
manually)
It would be cooler to have the public web address shorter, without the
invitation just http://shared-stuff.github.com/#us...@remotestorage.com


And I’ll also check out to help with the interface & interaction
design. :) Are you in the IRC channel #unhosted by the way?

[Sebastian Kippe]

Why is there a public URL at all?

It should be possible to just add a user by their user address, no hosted app required. No?

[elf Pavlik]

Excerpts from Sebastian Kippe's message of 2012-05-28 14:39:43 +0000:

> It should be possible to just add a user by their user address, no hosted app required. No?

s/user/userAccount/

;)

[Sebastian Kippe]

Right. Also, I just saw that that's how it works anyway. :)

[Jan-Christoph Borchardt]

The public address is so that people who do not use the app or don’t
have remoteStorage see what is going on, what you publicly share.
There’s no hosting involved, just showing the contents of your public
remoteStorage category.

[elf Pavlik]

Excerpts from shybyte's message of 2012-05-28 11:12:06 +0000:

> It's missing a lot of features and contains probably a lots of bugs, but
> nevertheless please have a look at the first alpha-version of my app:
> http://shared-stuff.github.com

very impressed with you firs alpha!
looking forward to help with hacking on it more :)

~ elf pavlik ~

[Hugo Roy]

Le lundi 28 mai 2012 à 15:58 +0200, Jan-Christoph Borchardt a écrit :
>
> Yeah! Cheers from the hackfest, we already registered! Check all our
> stuff:
>
> Martin: http://shared-stuff.github.com/#/invitation/xma...@5apps.com
> Niklas: http://shared-stuff.github.com/#/invitation/n...@heahdk.net
> Pavlik:
> http://shared-stuff.github.com/#/invitation/elf-p...@5apps.com
> Luis: http://shared-stuff.github.com/#/invitation/reis...@5apps.com
> Felix: http://shared-stuff.github.com/#/invitation/mrf...@5apps.com
> Garret: http://shared-stuff.github.com/#/invitation/gal...@5apps.com
> Jacob:
> http://shared-stuff.github.com/#/invitation/jacobp...@5apps.com
> Me: http://shared-stuff.github.com/#/invitation/j...@5apps.com

Hugo:
http://shared-stuff.github.com/#/invitation/hu...@owncube.com/6AuAtQHaMQ3zh0U2QOB6z
--
Hugo Roy
French Coordinator, FSFE chat: hu...@jabber.fsfe.org
www.fsfe.org/about/roy mobile: +336 08 74 13 41

[shybyte]

thank you!

[shybyte]

Thank you all!

Wow, impressive list of alpha-testers! Now I feel a bit under pressure ...  But that's a good one :-)

Thank you for your suggestions. I thought already about some of them, but it's always great to have a lot of outer input's (especially for prioritization). 

Some features are missing, because I thought in the beginning not about public profiles but only secret URLs for close friends (I even thought about encryption). Then e.g. it's not needed to add locations, as I generally know where my friends live. 

Some other (obviously looking) features like publicizing friends must also be done very carefully in respect for privacy. (E.g. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/6213590/Gay-men-can-be-identified-by-their-Facebook-friends.html)

Additional and quite generally I think an social unhosted app like mine can easily scale to 20 friends, but having 1000  (public) friends can be a really problem (searching,filtering). A lot of local caching can help, but it will always be inferior to server based approaches. 

But I guess that would deserve it's own general topic.

Thank's for the entries in the issue tracker. I will continue app specific discussion there!

Cheers, Marco

(I'm not in IRC, somehow chatting real time over the internet has never appealed to me.)

Am Montag, 28. Mai 2012 15:58:37 UTC+2 schrieb Jan-Christoph Borchardt:

Yeah! Cheers from the hackfest, we already registered! Check all our stuff:

Martin: http://shared-stuff.github.com/#/invitation/xmartin@5apps.com
Niklas: http://shared-stuff.github.com/#/invitation/nil@heahdk.net
Pavlik: http://shared-stuff.github.com/#/invitation/elf-pavlik@5apps.com
Luis: http://shared-stuff.github.com/#/invitation/reisewitz@5apps.com
Felix: http://shared-stuff.github.com/#/invitation/mrflix@5apps.com
Garret: http://shared-stuff.github.com/#/invitation/galfert@5apps.com
Jacob: http://shared-stuff.github.com/#/invitation/jacobpersson@5apps.com

[Melvin Carvalho]

On 28 May 2012 13:12, shybyte <shy...@googlemail.com> wrote:

Hello,

I'm currently working on an app called "Shared Stuff": an unhosted app made for sharing of real world stuff with your friends.

Imagine you need an electric drill but don't want to buy one for the 2 holes you drill in one year. With Shared Stuff you can easily see who of your friends you can ask. You can also find inspirations for good books in your friend's list or discover an old unused sega game console for a fun retro gaming party ...

It's missing a lot of features and contains probably a lots of bugs, but nevertheless please have a look at the first alpha-version of my app:

http://shared-stuff.github.com

To start with me and my shared stuff in your friends list, go to this URL:

http://shared-stuff.github.com/#/invitation/shy...@owncube.com

Nice idea.

Any reason for the # in the URL?
 

[shybyte]

Am Dienstag, 29. Mai 2012 10:03:39 UTC+2 schrieb melvincarvalho:

Nice idea

thanks! 

 

Any reason for the # in the URL?

I'ts a pure client side javaScript application. It's basically one index.html file that is (nearly) never reloaded. 

The "#" is used for pure client side bookmarks and history.

More on this:

http://blog.mgm-tp.com/2011/10/must-know-url-hashtechniques-for-ajax-applications/

Cheers, Marco

[Melvin Carvalho]

On 29 May 2012 10:08, shybyte <shy...@googlemail.com> wrote:

Am Dienstag, 29. Mai 2012 10:03:39 UTC+2 schrieb melvincarvalho:

Nice idea

thanks! 

 

Any reason for the # in the URL?

I'ts a pure client side javaScript application. It's basically one index.html file that is (nearly) never reloaded. 

The "#" is used for pure client side bookmarks and history.

I've seen # is this way has some AJAX apps, and it does help to get and running quickly, but longer term, it impedes sharability / linkability, imho. 

You might want to consider something like the html5 history API

http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/history.html

It's a much cleaner way of doing things, and will increase the interoperabilty of your app, with perhaps other like minded initiatives on the web (assuming that may be a goal).

[Michiel de Jong]

SharedStuff is great!

In response to Melvin's remark about the use of hashes in addresses,

On Tue, May 29, 2012 at 10:31 AM, Melvin Carvalho
<melvinc...@gmail.com> wrote:
> You might want to consider something like the html5 history API

What you say would work while you're clicking through the site, but
not if you're sharing a link out-of-band.

Remember these are not links to content, but to application states.
For instance,

http://shared-stuff.github.com/#/invitation/mic...@owncube.com

displays data whose canonical URL is:

https://owncube.com/apps/remoteStorage/WebDAV.php/michiel/remoteStorage/public/sharedstuff-public

you can share that content URL but it looks a bit ugly because it's
only available in JSON format, not human-readable. That's because the
data is separate from the application in our architecture.

So in general you are right, but not in this case IMO.


Cheers,
Michiel

[Melvin Carvalho]

Actually html5 history was also designed to cover this use case.  Using # in the wrong place in URLs, is generally considered an anti pattern, in terms of interoperating with the rest of the web.
 

Cheers,
Michiel

[Joar Wandborg]

Hey guys, I'm trying this out, you'll find me at http://sharedstuff.org/#/invitation/jo...@oc.joar.pagekite.me.

Cheers,

Joar

On Tuesday, May 29, 2012 3:16:21 PM UTC+2, melvincarvalho wrote:

On 29 May 2012 12:32, Michiel de Jong <mic...@unhosted.org> wrote:

SharedStuff is great!

In response to Melvin's remark about the use of hashes in addresses,

On Tue, May 29, 2012 at 10:31 AM, Melvin Carvalho
<melvinc...@gmail.com> wrote:
> You might want to consider something like the html5 history API

What you say would work while you're clicking through the site, but
not if you're sharing a link out-of-band.

Remember these are not links to content, but to application states.
For instance,

http://shared-stuff.github.com/#/invitation/michiel@owncube.com

displays data whose canonical URL is:

https://owncube.com/apps/remoteStorage/WebDAV.php/michiel/remoteStorage/public/sharedstuff-public

you can share that content URL but it looks a bit ugly because it's
only available in JSON format, not human-readable. That's because the
data is separate from the application in our architecture.

So in general you are right, but not in this case IMO.

[Ben Carrillo]

2012/5/29 Melvin Carvalho <melvinc...@gmail.com>

Actually html5 history was also designed to cover this use case.  Using # in the wrong place in URLs, is generally considered an anti pattern, in terms of interoperating with the rest of the web.

good read:

http://danwebb.net/2011/5/28/it-is-about-the-hashbangs

I agree with him, the hashbang is the new flash intro. and we got over it :p

[Melvin Carvalho]

hash anti patterns are web 2.0 siloism at it's very best

most of the time it ends up being a moot point, since most apps do not interoperate at web scale anyway

but for a tiny intersection of apps it can make a difference

[Jan Wildeboer]

On 30.05.2012 14:38, Joar Wandborg wrote:
> Hey guys, I'm trying this out, you'll find me at
> http://sharedstuff.org/#/invitation/jo...@oc.joar.pagekite.me.

And I am at

http://sharedstuff.org/#/invitation/jwild...@owncube.com

Jan

[Michiel de Jong]

Melvin, in theory you're right, but you're talking about linking apps.
I'm much more interested in linking data. :)

About that, I just tried to CNAME my Indie Web domain to owncube.com.
It almost worked, but it breaks because it doesn't support https. So
really it's TLS which is siloing us in to use
hosting-provider-specific URLs.

[Nathan Rixham]

Michiel de Jong wrote:
> Melvin, in theory you're right, but you're talking about linking apps.
> I'm much more interested in linking data. :)
>
> About that, I just tried to CNAME my Indie Web domain to owncube.com.
> It almost worked, but it breaks because it doesn't support https. So
> really it's TLS which is siloing us in to use
> hosting-provider-specific URLs.

not if you delegate auth to a provider :) I'm sure there are a couple
which have web services (Henry Story's for example), Melvin will know.

Best,

Nathan

[François Kooman]

I'm at:

http://sharedstuff.org/#/invitation/Francoi...@surfnet.nl

Regards,
François

[Markus Sabadello]

Yours doesn't seem to work, I get "userAddress seems invalid" :(
All the other ones on this thread work fine for me..

Myself, I'm http://sharedstuff.org/#/invitation/peace...@owncube.com and I have some really cool shared stuff!! :)

Well done, really cool app to show what Unhosted can be used for..

Markus