No matter how good a product is, if you cannot attract people in 10 seconds, you will continue walking in the dark.
After I made a confusing introduction about Document Node on the Kickstarter page, I’ve been trying to explain what Document Node does clearly to a new friend in 10 seconds.
My business card is a perfect place to do this experiment. The goal is to make a pitch and convince people in 10 seconds before the business card is thrown into rubbish bin.
Do you want to try and see if you can understand it in 10 seconds?
Ready? Go!
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, …, 9.5, 10!
Did you get it?
Oh, man!
Why Document Node?
When you need a website, what would you do?
First of all, you need to prepare your content. You may use Microsoft Word or a Markdown editor. And then you need to convert it into HTML pages and put into a web server.
Alternatively, you can spend hours to find a content management system from hundreds of options, such as WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Confluence, you name it.
A few months later, you find the system you choose is so hard to use that you have to find a replacement. So you spend hours and hours again exploring new options until you are frustrated and want to give up.
Is there on earth a tool to generate high-quality websites from plain text files in real-time and show it to the world?
Yes, we have. Document Node is born for the mission to simplify the toolchain from writing to online publishing.
Using Document Node, the only thing you need to manage is a folder containing plain text files. Document Node will generate different kind of websites from the plain text folder and syncs changes in real-time.
What Document Node offers?
Document Node provides a truly native and lightweight desktop application written in C++, for Mac, Windows, and Linux.
The DMG file size for Mac edition is as small as 12.9 MB.
Distraction-free writing experience
Document Node offers a professional grade of writing experience.
In the editor-only typewriter mode, you can fully concentrate on your writing, no one can interrupt your current thinking.
Real-time preview and website generating
You can preview your writing in real-time side by side. By pressing the “Run” button, your Markdown project will instantly be run as a beautiful, fully functional website, with live-reload.
From zero configuration to 100% control, Document Node will present websites to you in the simplest way.
Fast refactoring, control the big picture
No particular folder structure needs to follow in Document Node. You are free to arrange your Markdown files most appropriately as you like.
You can refactor almost anything in Document Node, namely moving files and folders around and reordering them, via a simple drag-and-drop. It’s also easy to move sections around within one Markdown file by drag-and-drop on its headings outline.
Most importantly, all changes will be updated on your local website in milliseconds automatically, thanks to the live-reload feature.
One click away to publish your masterpiece
When you want to make your website public, just click the “Publish” button, and your masterpiece will be available at https://[your_site].documentnode.io in seconds.
In future versions, your public websites can also be automatically updated if you tell Document Node the location of your plain text files, for example, in GitHub, Dropbox or Google Drive.
Summary
From writing to publishing, Document Node eliminates all the hassles. Only one simple thing you need to do - writing in plain text files and put them into a folder.
Just use one lightweight application instead of a complex toolchain.