Why Document Node?

For many years, I've been finding it so hard to keep documentation up-to-date and have been rethinking a better way to do it.

Wiki systems

Using a Wiki is the traditional way to manage documentation. However, it normally takes us too much time to set up a Wiki server.

You have to find a machine in your network first, choose available ports, then set up databases, configure authentication, schedule backups, and do regular upgrades and maintenance.

Worst of all, Wiki systems provide very limited writing experience, and they also don’t encourage big refactoring on document structure.

For example, when you want to move a document to a different parent page or to another space, you need to click 5-10 times to get it done. Often, you don’t even know where to start. The same thing also happens when you just want to reorder a few document pages.

IDEs

IDEs like Intellij IDEA or VS Code etc can help with refactoring if you write documents in Markdown or similar format.

But again, it's not IDEs' job to provide a professional level of writing experience.

Another big question is, how to display your documents in a nice and clean format, so that others can easily search, view and share?

Static site generators

As you may have already thought of, tons of open source projects emerge, to help generate static websites based on Markdown files.

They are all great tools, but only resolve part of the problems too. Furthermore, it's very time-consuming to figure out the right configuration for your use case.

You have too many options on how to install these tools. You may need to install a specific version of Python in order to make it work.

Especially, you have to follow a special directory structure and check dozens of configuration items.

We need a better writing tool

With existing discrete writing tools, people cannot enjoy distraction-free and pleasant writing experience. They don't want to but have to write.

Writing is very important and should be joyful. Highly effective people deserve a high-quality, easy-to-use and all-in-one writing tool.

This is the mission of Document Node, to maximize your writing productivity and create the future of pleasant writing.

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 documentation site, with live-reload.

From zero configuration to 100% control, Document Node will present documentation websites to you in the simplest way.

Fast refactoring, control the big picture

No special folder structure needs to follow in Document Node. You are free to arrange your Markdown files in the most appropriate way 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 document by drag-and-drop on its headings outline.

Most importantly, all changes will be updated on your local documentation website in milliseconds automatically, thanks to the live-reload feature.

One click away to publish your masterpiece

When you want to make your documentation 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 documentation can also be automatically updated if you tell Document Node the location of your Markdown files, for example, in GitHub, Dropbox or Google Drive.

Where we are now

After months of hard work, as you can see from the video and screenshots, we have a real working application already, with roughly 70% of the functionality of the first version done.

With your support, we can continue our hard-work and release the first stable version of Document Node quicker. Your backing will help fund:

Development time. We want to ship the first stable version of Document Node to public by the end of April 2019.

We want to ship the first stable version of Document Node to public by the end of April 2019. Quality assurance. We have very high quality standard and want to invest more resources on testing.

We have very high quality standard and want to invest more resources on testing. User community. The future of Document Node will be driven by users' voice, so we want to build a helpful user community as a high priority. Whenever you have any questions or ideas, you can always quickly find someone to talk. We want to complete this by the end of July 2019.

Who We Are

Jiakuan (Jake) Wang

My name is Jiakuan (Jake) Wang. I'm based in Western Australia. Since 2002, I have focused on building robust and scalable enterprise applications, cloud-based services, parallel computing, and in the analyses of large-scale data-sets. I have a vast range of development experience, spanning desktop, web, and mobile application development environments.

In my early career, I worked at a publicly-funded research center developing fiscal systems. I later joined Oracle, developing a component of their enterprise product suite. I subsequently worked with Thomson Reuters, where I was in charge of a component of a high-concurrency real-time trading system.

In last 8 years, I have worked with start-ups and developed a raft of innovative software products, across a range of industries including biotech big-data analytics, music video service delivery, IP (intellectual property) data analytics, and large-scale digital content management systems.

I co-founded WiseTime in 2012, which was acquired by IPH, an Australian public company, in 2015.

Jack Xiang

Jack is based in Chongqing, China, and has been working on project design and front-end tasks.

He is a seasoned full-stack developer, familiar with C#, Java, and Python, especially proficient in HTML5/CSS, JavaScript, and SQLite.

He also founded an open source Mind Map tool - DesktopNaotu in GitHub, which has almost 800 stars now.

What People Are Saying About Document Node



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