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Sneak Peek! Nutshell, or, “Expandable Explanations”
🕑 Added 2021-08-24 11:00:04 +0000 UTC[Patreon's still paused; you won't be charged until further notice]
Howdy! I prototyped this a year ago, but then I went on burnout-hiatus. But last week, I re-designed & polished it up so that you can get a sneak peek:
🥜 Nutshell! (or, “Expandable Explanations”) 🥜
👷(work in progress, sneak peek) 👷
Why I've wanted this tool for so long: I like sharing what I've learned, but sometimes I'm learning stuff that's not beginner-level, but I want my writing to stay accessible to all levels. Re-explaining the basics each time would be a pain (and boring to those who already know it), but "go click this link to catch up on X" would break the flow of reading (and waste time, if you only need to know some of X, not all of it).
Hence: expandable explanations! Don't know a thing? Click it, and you'll learn just-in-time, not just-in-case. (Don't know a thing inside that thing? Keep on expanding that explanation!)
The best part? It works across pages, websites, and authors. The bestest part? Blog posts from the past already work with Nutshell! (it just scrapes sites for sections of text to embed) This way, any explanations anyone writes in the future – or have already written in the past – can be cross-embedded like a big ol' potluck dinner.
It's not ready for public use yet, but for now, you can play with writing your own articles with Nutshells: (demo linked above)
Finally, a personal point – this is all part of Possible Plan #2 For What To Do Once I Come Back From Burnout-Hiatus. (Plan #1 is the queer/furry lewd Patreon. Which is still going! Thank you to the 30+ pervs who've signed up so far.)
Plan #2 is "just become a blogger". Well, a blog with Nutshell's expandable explanations, some interactive diagrams, and hopefully Spaced Repetition with Andy Matuschak's Orbit. But other than that, I become just a good ol' fashioned blogger.
(And there's so many mini-explanations I'd love to blog about, with high re-use value via Nutshell. High school algebra! Causal inference! Systems biology! Etc.)
The two big reasons for my burnout were 1) not being with people I care about, and 2) the work no longer being fun. Becoming "a blogger" would let me work way, way less (freeing up time for people & hobbies), and each blog post can be a low-cost exploration into a new thing.
I've had that plan years ago, but my biggest turn-off was that it'd feel like "one damn thing after another", each blog post another disposable disconnected distraction on the internet. But hopefully, with Nutshell, each blog post's explanations can be re-used not just by future me, but by everyone.
(Well, it's either that or the furry lewds. Or both.)
Anyway, play around with Nutshell, try writing something in it, and let me know HONESTLY what you think so far, and what you'd personally want to use it for!
Deez Nuts,
~ Nicky Case
Comments
Pierre Thierry
This is absolutely brillant!
David Allison
This is absolutely incredible! I've been trying it out, and it's fantastic for writing technical documentation for developers. I'd love to use & test this when it's in beta
Juukii
You might find this project interesting https://peblproject.org/index.html < it's an open source spec for interactive ebooks. I think they are trying to figure out some similar things :)
Benoit Doidic
The recursive interlinking reminds me of the Fighting Game Glossary: https://glossary.infil.net I just love ways of organizing ideas. Looking forward to Nutshell.
Chris K
Hahaha! ya. right. just read on. i guess the fact, that this has not occurred to me might say "something" about my brain :D
yves.
Gotcha. Tumblr allows.... something, but I'm no coder; still, if it gets implemented for real, I'm confident someone will test it there! Thanks!
Nicky Case
Thanks for this feedback & these suggestions, Chris! I especially like the idea of "zipping it up"; even though one *could* just keep scrolling past the bubble to read on, the neat-freak in me also wants to clean it up when done.
Nicky Case
It'll work even without Markdown! Unfortunately -- and this does limit it -- it won't work on blogs where you can't add your own JavaScript. So, no for Patreon & Medium & Substack. I *think* Tumblr may still allow adding s? I know Wordpress & Ghost does.
Nicky Case
Thanks for that bug report, Eric! I have... no idea why that would happen. Cross-browser debugging is the worst.
Chris K
I wonder how it would work on a full-scale website, like wikipedia. do you have an example for us next time? Also I wonder if it made sense to have a button at the bottom of the rabbit hole to zip it all back up and go back to reading the main article. currently, i cannot middle-click the nuts to open them into a separate tab for later reading. I think i would like that. cheers!
Dave Pickett
I played around and really enjoyed it. Definitely would use this in my blog articles as I also tend to write about moderately complicated subjects for a broad audience of mixed experience. Integrating simple explanations into the flow of a long text has definitely been a pain point.
Snake Dog
Honestly this is amazing. I don't know what else to say besides that. Great job. :)
Eric Willisson
TIL Patreon comments support inline HTML.
Eric Willisson
I am so excited by this. I have had something like it in mind for years! (I wish I'd ever produced anything to show I was thinking about it, but I think I always got overwhelmed by the UI.) It seems like you cracked it! The only weird thing is that on the demo page (but not the instructions page), on Chrome for Android, when I tap a Nutshell link, the rest of the text in that section gets much bigger, like it's all <h1> text. The Nutshell link stays the same size.
yves.
I love this, and I'm curious how it'd work for people who aren't used to Markdown. When you say blogs, does it work on Patreon and Tumblr? Thanks for the innovation!!
Nicky Case
Thank you! Will PM you when a beta-version is ready for testing :)
Nicky Case
Shoot, link fixed! (If site still doesn't look updated, try this link directly: https://ncase.me/nutshell-wip/try/ )
Nicky Case
Yup, Telescopic Text was one of the big inspirations! (The other one was some blog that, when it linked to other pages on its blog, let you preview the other page on hover. I think Wikipedia does that now, too, but it's not recursive)
Nicky Case
Shoot! Alright, I pushed up a fix. (If the site is still showing the old link, due to caching, here's the link directly: https://ncase.me/nutshell-wip/try/ )
Nicky Case
Ah shoot! You're right, that's the correct link! I pushed up the fix, thanks for catching that.
Work on Climate
Wow!! Love the UX behind expandables!! Great work, Nicky!! - Cass
Christine Capra
Love this! Can't wait to try it out! (when that broken link gets fixed)
Aeryn Light
This is an amazing concept, I can't wait to see how it develops!
Lynn
Would actually love to see this :)
Joshua T Kalis
I like the idea of Nutshell and had an idea for you. Take it or not. You could create a way for readers to select text/topics they'd like to learn more about and those could become a backlog of topics to write about. Making the selected text/topics visible to other readers would allow your audience to crowdsource voting for the most valuable things to dive into. Just a "Yes and" for your consideration. Hope the hiatus is going well.
Danny Hansen
I like this. It would make many things easier
Benoit Doidic
This reminded me of a tool I saw a while back named Telescopic Text. It is similar to Nutshell, and you can try it out through a web-based editor. Here is a sample short story about drinking tea: https://www.telescopictext.org/text/KPx0nlXlKTciC
marko
"Try Nutshell" link no work
Robin Roschlau
This is really cool! There's a broken link though, I think - the "Let's Try Nutshell!" link goes to [https://ncase.me/try], which leads to a 404. I think that link should be [https://ncase.me/nutshell-wip/try/], right?
Adrian Kant
omg I would absolutely love to use Netshell for my own site! If you need beta testers I’d be happy to help 🙂
