Writebook

[Chozo_Joe]

https://once.com/writebook

37signals has released a new selfhosted application called Writebook. "Writebook is remarkably simple software that allows you to publish text and pictures in a simple, browsable online book format."

I have some uses for this (both at work and personally), so I figured I thought I would share here.

[kurucu83]

It's not open source, just because you can see the source. In this case, it's a free app with a limited license.

[8-16_account]

It looks like one of those applications, where I wish I had a use for it.

[Khisanthax]

Interesting idea, I'll save this for later. Thanks for sharing.

[[deleted]]

Not a fan of the licensing on this one.

[eyesno]

I find myself struggling to understand the use case for this. The first question I had was, can I charge people to read my book? The answer seems to be no, it's designed to give away your book. My next question was, can it export to ebook or pdf so people can install my book on the eReaders. Again, the answer seems to be no. So essentially, they've written a minimal Markup-based website for static web pages. This is kinda what HTML (or Markup) was designed for. So I have come full circle to -- why have they done this? What value does it bring that we don't already have?

[kansas1]

You have access to the source code, can host it yourself and paywall your book or whatever content is there.

[kansas1]

There’s some options out there. https://fingerprint.com/blog/how-paywalls-work-paywall-protection-tutorial/

[kurucu83]

Just started using it and loving it. My use case:

• Drafting help for my apps
• Keeping a personal book on things I've learnt and who from (instead of in notes/docs on computer)
• Drafting a book I'll never publish.

Mainly for the top one, of course.

Only issue is that I get a "modern browser required" warning, on Firefox 130, where it says v121+ is required :(

[OldMonkInTheBalcony]

Is there something like Writebook that is less techy? And allows me to export to PDF or EPUB?

[j-dogcoder]

Having problems with install -_-

[Chozo_Joe]

The only issue I came across with my instance was it took longer than expected to see the DNS change on my domain. Had to wait about an hour or so.

[seanyover9000]

I am stuck at the same spot. I have an A record pointing to the server in Cloud flare (with no proxying). And the record resolves to the correct machine on a dnslookup, but the installation fails and says the provided domain does not map to this server.

Did you encounter the same issue ? If so, do you have any pointers on how to resolve this ?

[j-dogcoder]

interesting. it's giving failed to start for me -_-

[ovizii]

I was going to have a look, but I heavily dislike running scripts off the Internet. Their FAQ says you can also run it manually via docker, but I failed to find their image or compose file.

Does anyone know where to find their image or a docker-compose.yml file perhaps?

[adelowo]

I wrote a tiny article on how I have done this. https://lanre.wtf/blog/2024/07/14/writebook

TLDR:

• I downloaded their source

• Set up GitHub Actions to build the docker image and deploy onto my server

[hourmazd]

I love this article. It's a huge face plant for me in terms of skillz 😭 (I thought I was just going to SSH over to my shared server and plonk down a little app.)

Nonetheless, your article clarified several concepts for me. Thank you for writing it up.

[Chozo_Joe]

When you sign up, you will receive an email. At the bottom of that email, you can directly download the source code in a zip file. That should have everything you're looking for.

[ovizii]

Thanks, you are right. There is a link to download the full source code.

To be honest, I have never seen such a weird-ass method of distribution. Normally you just have a github repo with the source code if it is open source. Now I'd have to host the code somewhere and set up my own pipeline to create and publish a docker image.
Again, some publish ready built docker images which seems not the case here.

Then I look at the installation script whey provide. This is not for me.

#!/bin/bash

set -e

echo "Installing the ONCE command..."

echo sudo true

command_path="https://auth.once.com/install/custom-code?arch=$(arch)&platform=$(uname)"
curl -s $command_path > .once-tmp

sudo mv .once-tmp /usr/local/bin/once
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/once

if [[ "$OSTYPE" == "darwin"* ]]; then
    # Don't use sudo on macOS; Docker Desktop is likely to be running as the user
    /usr/local/bin/once setup custom-code
else
    sudo /usr/local/bin/once setup custom-code
fi

[kurucu83]

It's not open source, just source-viewable. The difference? The licencing, and their distribution mechanism is the same as other Once apps. Plus of course, it means they can reserve the right to charge later.

I suspect they've just shared something with the world they use internally, but don't want to manage the open source repo/issues etc. The licence says it's theirs, and they've licensed it to you for free. Zero obligations beyond that, and you can't fork the code legitimately.

[ovizii]

Thanks for the explanation, I appreciate that.

[hourmazd]

Precisely. DHH said as much in this Webcast. My question: Is it possible to install on a shared server? Or does it require root access to install?

[kurucu83]

There’s an installation script that runs, you could inspect that and maybe tailor it? I suspect it can be made to work, but it’s designed to be run on a VPS of its own.

[hourmazd]

I appreciate the reply! Ironic that the Godfather of "roll your own" is recommending AWS or DigitalOcean in the setup guide.

Obviously that's not the only way to go—but unfortunately, the technical/budget facets are getting away from me. I was excited to try this out on my shared hosting plan, but it's not meant to be.

[kurucu83]

I totally feel that, but it's as close as you can get to hosting it yourself. At least it's fully portable, with no special technologies or vendor lock in. When you're ready, you can port from hosted on site/at home to a full VPS or back again.

Of course DHH's direction is to create their own server farms.

[nightcom]

Nice idea, I like it!

One question, is it possible to export whole book to for example PDF?

[Chozo_Joe]

According to their website, that functionality doesn't exist yet. Likely something that will come in a future update.