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Comments (154)

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  gnyman
  Funny how I made almost exactly the same but for maps.I needed a way to share a link to a map, with drawings and the ability for the receiver to see their own location on the map.Annotated screenshots solves the first but not the second.Vibe engineered this, with many of the same ideas as OP.Took an evening. Just in time apps for one specific use case is a thing.And because it's so cheap to make and can be hosted cheaply with no backend, it can be given away for free.https://nyman.re/mapdraw/#l=60.172108%2C24.941458&z=16&d=LU8...
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  maxloh
  Per the spec [0], a URL can hold at least 8,000 characters.> It is RECOMMENDED that all senders and recipients support, at a minimum, URIs with lengths of 8000 octets in protocol elements. Note that this implies some structures and on-wire representations (for example, the request line in HTTP/1.1) will necessarily be larger in some cases.Mainstream browsers support at least 64,000 characters [1], and Chrome supports up to 2MB [2].[0]: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9110#section-4.1-5[1]: https://stackoverflow.com/a/417184/[2]: https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/HEAD/docs/s...
• roxolotl
  Was just working on something similar this morning. As an fyi you can avoid the string replacing in the base64 string by using `.toBase64({ alphabet: "base64url" })` and `fromBase64({ alphabet: "base64url"})`.https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Refe...
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  101008
  I am thinking from a piracy perspective. If I share a link that contains a book, what can be done from DCMA or legal regulators? They can't ask the server (textarea.my) to remove the link because it doesn't exist.They can't track every website with the link and ask to be removed, either.Could they ask textarea.my to not parse the link and thus, not display the content? Could textarea.my refuse?
• gabrielsroka
  I did something similar with a spreadsheet years ago. It's lkudgy, but it works. You have to tab away from the input box and refresh the page, iirc.https://gabrielsroka.github.io/webpages/calc.htm#a1:=Rate=3.... https://gabrielsroka.github.io/webpages/calc.htm#a1:=Rate=3.875;a2:=Years=30;a3:=NPer=Years*12;a4:=PV=644000;a5:=Pmt=Math.round(Math.pmt(Rate/12/100,NPer,PV)*100+1)/100;rows:5;cols:1 More examples https://gabrielsroka.github.io/webpages/It's about 130 js loc
• qingcharles
  Here's one I took from somewhere and optimized that is just a bookmarklet, so there's nothing remote:data:text/html,<title>Notepad</title><textarea autofocus spellcheck=0 style="position:fixed;inset:0;padding:1em;border:0;font:monospace">Your text actually survives a reboot in Chrome.Can anyone think of a way to store the textarea value in the URL? I tried using JS to set a # but it's nonsensical in this context.Edit: here's the best I could do:data:text/html,<title>Notepad</title><textarea id=t autofocus spellcheck=0 style=position:fixed;inset:0;padding:2em;border:0;font:monospace></textarea><a id=s style=position:fixed;top:10px;right:10px>Right-click Open to save...</a><script>[,P,S]=location.href.slice(15).match(/(.<textarea[^>]>)[^]?(<\/textarea>.)/),t.oninput=U=_=>s.href='data:text/html,'+P+encodeURIComponent(t.value.replace(/&/g,'&amp;').replace(/<\/textarea/g,'&lt;/textarea'))+S,U()</script>
• growt
  I recently build a small framework to create JavaScript apps that use this kind of URL sharing and therefore don’t require a backend: https://github.com/grothkopp/lost.js
• danhite
  caveat emptor re long hashtag techniques on (ipad) safari ...you may think safari has no effective url limit (i.e. very high) but if you ever treat a url within the url bar as editable you are at risk to be silently truncated to 4096 bytes (eg select a character in the url bar and replace it)also re-testing potential ~buffer limits in various ways on ipadOS 26.2 safari just now slowed my safari ui down to a crawleg after saving example.com with ~20k #hashtag to reading list -- each keystroke in this reply was taking several seconds, so I had to force quit safari and retype to post this warning
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  rfl890
  You claim no tracking, and yet there's a Cloudflare Web Analytics beacon placed at the bottom of the page (thankfully filtered out by uBlock Origin)
• ooxoo
  The performance issues may be due to using `text-wrap-style: pretty`. Try switching the value to `stable`. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference/P...
• nake13
  I built a very similar experiment about 10 days ago and shared it here (the post is in Chinese):https://x.com/nake13/status/2000401664923324439My focus was on finding a good text→URL-slug compression strategy. I used ChatGPT-5.2-Pro mainly to explore and compare different compression approaches and trade-offs.
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  levmiseri
  I really like this from a privacy point of view. So much so that I'm thinking about adding a purely URL-storage solution as an option in my https://kraa.io editor.
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  surrTurr
  shameless plug: i built something very similar but nobody cared: https://github.com/AlexW00/Buffertab
• nickweb
  Think you've inadvertently found a way to provide extra tests for mobile devices.The Crime and Punishment one consistently crashes Brave mobile for me. I assume it's the length of the URL - and seen another commentator say the same for chrome mobile (sure they both use the same codebase so likely an upstream issue).
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  ctenb
  I made something similar once, specifically targetted for guitar tablature https://tabviewer.app/ To make links shorter for sharing with others, I use a shortlink service. Pasting URLs of thousands of characters long can be problematic
• samcollins
  Nice! I made a similar thing but the html for the text editor fits in a data uri, so it can be a bookmark or new tab page for taking quick noteshttps://gist.github.com/smcllns/8b727361ce4cf55cbc017faaefbb...
• ciccionamente
  I used the same principle to let people write their own emergency notes in a secure way: https://weexpire.org
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  meander_water
  Cool project, but loading "Crime and Punishment" crashed my mobile browser.I don't think urls were built for that kind of punishment.
• AltruisticGapHN
  I love this. Great little html page to refresh on Javascript.For fun I put it in chatgpt and asked if there are bugs.It warned about fromBase64() and toBase64() not existing in main browsers. It is supported but is indeed a new "baseline 2025"feature. It suggested more compatible code using two small functions to convert characters manually."deflate-raw is not consistently supported." It suggested using 'deflate' instead.
• okaleniuk
  I exploit the similar idea for teaching: https://lnkd.in/gsySKda4Students are lazy, in a good way, so they are more likely to run things on their own and play with interactive bits if the whole lecture is just one link.
• khalby786
  let's not forget the og itty.bitty.site [0][0]: http://about.bitty.site/
• coder543
  I remember another one that was popular years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17459204
• greggman65
  I have something tangentially similar here: https://jsgist.orgIf you click save you get the option to use a URL.The problem with a URL every edit is a new URL. So you send the URL to a friend, then fix a typo, they need a new URL.The other problem is of course the space limit.
• medv
  In case you missed it: it is possible to style textarea via CSS and share it.- https://textarea.my/#TYuxDcIwEEWpmeKUCiSIJQoKU0KFRBUWOGwnWDi...
• codazoda
  Nice! I love this.I built Ponder in the same vein. It, however, has 10 files. I did not use the URL, did not have double the fun, and now I’m sad.https://github.com/codazoda/ponder
• wwarren
  Amazing. The crime and punishment example crashed my iPhone’s Google Chrome when I tap the URL haha
• chuckadams
  TypeScript playground does effectively the same thing for shared links, though it doesn't live-update as you type.
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  zX41ZdbW
  I've implemented the same idea a few years ago: https://pastila.nl/
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  frizlab
  > Respects light/dark modeNot really… using js to change the CSS on the go is not a good practice. Why does it matter? Because of the “dark mode” browser extensions. They often use the presence of @media query (or other standard CSS means of setting dark mode colors), and if it’s the JS that changes the colors we often get partial Dark Mode, which does not work at all.
• valgaze
  Brings this to mind: https://hashify.me/IyBUaXRsZQ==
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  zkmon
  Why store in the URL and make it bloated? Isn't storing in local storage enough?
• marcuskaz
  I have a similar one using localStorage https://github.com/mkaz/browser-pad
• planb
  A few weeks ago I vibe coded a guitar tab editor just because I wanted to share a quick tab in a chat group with my band. When the first prototype already worked great, I just couldn’t stop to add features so that it now even has mouseover chord diagrams and copy and paste.The sharing works just like here, by encoding the tab itself in the url.https://github.com/planbnet/guitartabs
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  urbandw311er
  Neat. But why would you auto-set the title from markdown heading syntax when it doesn’t support markdown? (Or any rich text in fact)
• spacedoutman
  Seems like we have all built something similar.hopefully mine can stand out with all the extra features i have managed to cram in
• mishrapravin441
  Very nice exploration of URL-as-state. The approach is elegant, but the mobile crashes highlight how hostile real-world URL handling still is once links leave the browser.
• nchmy
  Crashes my mobile chromium browsers when I try to open crime and punishment.Firefox seems to work.
• ljlolel
  I love this.Now if you bootstrap the app code into the url too then you can have a minimal kernel to run any machine in url.Then you can also make a Quine somehow.
• billforsternz
  This is very interesting, very refreshing, very simple and clever, very well done, very everything good. Bravo and thank you.
• Sayyidalijufri
  First I think it's still loading because it's only whitebut when I hit the keyboard I can see my it's is already loadedGood job!
• jerrygoyal
  I too built a one (text is stored in localstorage)https://gourav.io/devtools/notepad
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  bdcravens
  I keep this in the bookmark bar for the times I need a place to paste a quick bit of text (but it doesn't persist):data:text/html, <html contenteditable>
• mixedmath
  I wrote a similar app when mathbin was shutting down. It allows about 1500 characters of mathjax-displayed notes. [1][1]: https://davidlowryduda.com/mathshare/
• thelastgallon
  I wonder if this can be paired with a local URL shortener? Chaining this with a local URL shortener can mean access to any doc with a single letter (or very letters).
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  pglevy
  Thanks for sharing! I tried a similar content-in-url approach for a family grocery list app but I couldn't get the url that short. (It worked but it was a bit cumbersome sharing over Whatsapp.) Will see what I can learn from this!
• huhtenberg
  In Firefox, https://textarea.my shows up as as a completely static non-actionable white page. Just white, with default cursor. No errors on the console.
• Yash16
  I like this because most of the time I need random stuff—numbers, quick searches, or ideas—and this helps instantly.
• ngc6677
  also here https://space-element.pages.dev/#data=eyJ2YWx1ZSI6IvCTgoAg8J...
• sltkr
  Something similar by Eric Wastl (of Advent of Code fame): https://topaz.github.io/paste/
• qbane
  Just started making my own recently with CodeMirror 6 during holidays. No saving function for now: https://qbane.github.io/cgm
• cantalopes
  I feel this is more of a fun toy project because if i used it every day my browser history cache and browser performance would get annihilated
• WhyIsItAlwaysHN
  My own plug, translate between SQL dialects, state stored in URL so you can share it:https://sqlscope.netlify.app/
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  reconnecting
  Are <head>, <body>, and </html> missing intentionally?Safari 15.6.1: Unhandled Promise Rejection: ReferenceError: Can't find variable: CompressionStream
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  nvahalik
  Love your other tools, btw!
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  nemtsv
  I think a couple of days ago I stumbled upon your editor in corp Google intranets when I was looking for internal tool to pretty print some json, small world :)
• jaysonelliot
  546,229 character-length URL for the Crime and Punishment example.Half a megabyte for a URL. That certainly is a thing.
• theoa
  This hack has completely disrupted my afternoon! Perhaps even forever after.
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  xeonmc
  Can you make it monospace by default, so that this can be used as a code snippet bin?
• edgars_xx
  love it, funny enough, I had similar idea pop into my head some weeks ago, just to be able to store quick notes and favorite them in my browser for later
• dachris
  The compression is nice, you can fit very long (low-entropy ;-) messages in there - this one is 9k characters:https://textarea.my/#7cGBAAAAAMMgzfmTHORVAQAAAAAAAADAuwE=
• srexrg
  this is indeed minimalistic :)
• LordDragonfang
  It would be neat if ctrl+s offered to download the textarea to a .txt file.
• desireco42
  The only thing missing is markdown and few themes. I think this is awesome idea for sharing. Love what you did with it.
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  sublinear
  I like these kinds of projects, but adding a file export/import is inevitable. It's less about the limits of a URL and more about practicality.I also have no way to confirm that URLs aren't logged server side, so I'd never trust the claim about "no tracking". That's why these projects also end up self-hosted.
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  ThrowawayTestr
  https://textarea.my/#Cy4tsAcA
• mzelling
  Love it!
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  deafpolygon
  Can you save anything?
• rane
  Now what if it didn't pollute browser history
• thomas_tank_321
  [dead]