An alternative, if you already use your own static site generator (SSG) like Hugo, is Frontmatter (https://frontmatter.codes/), a VSCode(ium) plugin that gives you a CMS/Content Management System over your SSG.

Similar use case to PRSS.

So, reading between the lines, it's a desktop app that makes a static website and it then checks the build output (not the source with a build command) into a GitHub repository for hosting?

Is it your own static website builder or did you consider using an existing one?

What type of model are you going for here? I can't see anything about pricing, but I see text encouraging users to "reach out to support".

• volted

  today at 8:01 AM

  You got it right! It's a Static Site Generator with Github Pages integration.

  I was previously using WordPress and thought something that runs on my desktop with a pleasant UI could be better. I had some thoughts on how the interface should be and the features that would be cool to have.

  Regarding the model, there are addons for purchase within the app (for example, different editors, scheduled AI-assisted blogging, etc). But all are fully optional and will remain that way. There's also a new "book-style" theme that folks can purchase, but the free ones are very professional also. I encourage users to reach out to Support because it's the early feedback phase and the key is to understand what are folks impressions with the product and any features they would really like to have.

  So overall, the goal is UX and Developer Experience first, and further on there will be improvements and new offerings based on people's needs. Thank you for your feedback!

Looks interesting from the screenshots. However after downloading on Mac, I get

"Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, open '/Applications/PRSS Site Creator.app/Contents/Resources/static_themes/slate/manifest.json'"

and

"Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, scandir '/Applications/PRSS Site Creator.app/Contents/Resources/static_themes'"

errors.

Also, just a bit of feedback, your developer name on the app store is a bit sketchy <random digits> Canada Inc.

• volted

  today at 3:07 AM

  Thanks for the bug report yuppiepuppie! Will roll out a fix for that one asap. By the way the app is available on Windows, MacOS and Linux, so all feedback across platforms is very welcome!

  About the developer name, we tried to get Apple to use our "doing business as" name, but no dice. But thanks, it's very important to know what the first impressions are, to remove friction as much possible.

Kudos to PRSS Site Creator, I like the idea and I installed it on my mac. As soon as the app starts I get this error, Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, scandir '/Applications/PRSS Site Creator.app/Contents/Resources/static_themes' how can I fix it? thanks

• 8mobile

  today at 4:54 AM

  If I go ahead and create a post I get "Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, open '/Applications/PRSS Site Creator.app/Contents/Resources/static_themes/slate/manifest.json'"

  • volted

    today at 5:53 AM

    Oh man, that's embarrassing. Is this with the Mac App Store (MAS) version, or the standalone MacOS "Universal" (dmg) one? Looking into it, I will push a new build soon.

    Update: I pushed a new UX build, hopefully that addresses it, but otherwise let me know! I added the support email in my profile.

    I actually cannot see the issue in my Mac Mini with the App Store build. So any more details would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!

    • JimDabell

      today at 7:50 AM

      I saw the same problem in the Mac App Store build. I don’t have any `static_themes` directory in the app bundle at all.

      There’s also something really weird going on with the window. When I have your application open and I hit ⌘Q to quit, it minimises. Bringing it back to the foreground doesn’t have a menu bar; the Finder menu bar is visible. Then after a while, the window goes away but I see it’s in the menubar. Don’t play silly games like this please.

      When I chose to download the Mac universal build from your website using Safari, a new blank tab opened and nothing happened. I closed the tab, returned to the original page, and saw a permission prompt asking to download from your website.

      The manual download version does have the `static_themes` directory.

      For what it’s worth, I don’t like downloading DMGs manually. In order of preference: Mac App Store Homebrew manual download.

      • volted

        today at 8:26 AM

        Thank you for this feedback! I pushed an update to prss.co to prevent a new page from displaying when direct download is chosen.

        Regarding the static_themes missing, you are correct.. I will submit a new store build for this one! Hopefully folks are not having issues that prevent them from loading the app, and not consistently.

        On the topic of window state, the goal of dismissing the app to "Tray" is to lessen the perf hit of startup cycles, for example when the configuration is fetched (which contains the theme list, bought addons and so on) and to support the Autoblogger addon (which, when enabled by the user, can be configured to create posts at a schedule). I do send an OS notification right away (something to the effect of "PRSS is still running in Tray"), but I agree that the UX is not perfect yet. Based on your feedback I will explore better ways to support these scenarios. Thank you!

        By the way, as you keep exploring the app. Please do continue to send your feedback on here or the email attached in my profile page. Feedback like yours is really appreciated, I generally get very vague feedback in Feedback forms. Thanks again.

        • JimDabell

          today at 8:43 AM

          > the goal of dismissing the app to "Tray" is to lessen the perf hit of startup cycles

          Thi is something that is normally done by asking the user first.

          > I do send an OS notification right away

          This isn’t effective because when your application is run for the first time, it doesn’t have permission to send notifications. So when the user tries to quit for the first time, they won’t be told it’s still running, they’ll get asked to receive notifications. You should use something other than notifications for this.

“PRSS” is a bit of an impenetrable name. I assumed it was some kind of variant of RSS at first, and I was looking to see what a PRSS site was. But it’s just a brand name, right? It’s “the site creator called PRSS”, not “a creator for PRSS sites”?

• volted

  today at 8:35 AM

  Naming things is truly hard! It's indeed the site creator called PRSS.

  Before PRSS, I used WordPress and thought the concept of creating sites could be simplified and improved. "Press" was vague, so PRSS Site Creator was the alternative that came to mind, and for which shorter domains were available!

  But I do agree that "PRSS" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. I hope that the "Site Creator" part of the name combined with good user recommendations can help with visibility on search engines.

  • JimDabell

    today at 8:44 AM

    I think having it in all caps is what is making it confusable with RSS. Maybe Prss would work better?

This seemed like something I came across in r/WordPress discussion on Reddit. The problem here is that it's only for Mac, while we have a cross-platform solution.

• volted

  today at 3:20 AM

  PRSS indeed is available on Windows, MacOS and Linux! However I spend most of the time on Windows, so bugs on the other platforms sometimes are caught later on.

  Will keep a closer eye on all versions, any startup bugs are a no-no. Hope you get to try it and share your feedback!

  • todotask2

    today at 8:40 AM

    Typo, I mean Mac and Windows, didn't realise Linux is hidden in the drop down list.