Devbook is a search engine for developers that helps them to find the resources they need and answer their questions faster. Fast, accessible right from a code editor, and fully controllable with just a keyboard.
Hey PH community! π
@valentatomas and I started building Devbook when we realized how much time we spend on googling and going through different websites when coding. Current general internet search engines weren't made for developers but they're a tool that every developer is using almost every day. We felt like we are sometimes losing hours per week searching on the internet. That's why decided to build a search engine for developers. Starting with Stack Overflow and official documentation.
We are both developers and have been working together for more than 11 years. With Devbook, our productivity has increased. It's now also easier to stay in the coding flow because we don't have to leave our IDEs and go to the browser so much. We just hit a shortcut to show Devbook, get what we need and go back to coding. 10x faster than going to a browser.
This is how Devbook works π
Devbook is a desktop app that works similarly to Spotlight on macOS. You hit a global shortcut and can start searching in Stack Overflow and docs right away. Since Devbook appears as an overlay on top of an app you're using right now, you don't have to leave your editor at all.
Devbook can be fully controlled with just a keyboard. Even copying code snippets can be without touching a mouse.
π Currently we support these docs
* Python
* Pandas
* Scikit
* PyTorch
* Jest
* Mocha
* Chai
* Golang
* Elixir
* Flask
* Django
* TypeScript
* Rust
* React
* Rails
* Ruby
* Web DOM API
* Nunjucks
* NPM
* Node.js
* HTTP
* HTML
* Docker
* NumPy
* CSS
* JavaScriptβ¨
We are continuously adding more. We are also working on a way to add docs for NPM packages, PIP packages, Rust crates, etc. A lot of exciting features are coming to Devbook this year.
π° Pricing: Free. We want Devbook to be free for solo devs. Later on, we will introduce premium plans for teams.
We would love to learn what you think so we could make Devbook better. With your feedback we can make developers better and more productive! π
- Vasek (co-founder)
@valentatomas@tylerswartz Hey Tyler, thank you! We have a lot of different feature requests for teams but the most requested ones so far are:
1) Anonymous analytics to see what are folks in the team searching for (requested by team leaders)
2) Search in organization repos
3) Search in organization docs/knowledge
4) Bookmark results and make them accessible for the whole team
5) Search in specific Slack channels like #Engineering
Anything you might find useful in a team version of Devbook?
By the way, Reddit has been one of the most helpful ways to reach out to developers and introduce them to Devbook. For example, our post to /r/python has been extremely helpful in gaining momentum - https://www.reddit.com/r/Python/... What a nice community :)
Great idea!
One quick suggestion, from being a long-time fan and user of https://devdocs.io/: it would be nice to be able to select more than one active documentation source and keep them active persistently β for example, if my stack is TypeScript on Node.js with Jest, I would probably like to search across TypeScript, JavaScript, Node.js and Jest all the time without switching sources.
For the rest, brilliant product! Love how you kept everything navigable through keyboard π€β¨οΈ
@lordofthelake Thank you, Michele. Being able to search in multiple resources (like multiple docs) is exactly what we are working on right now. We are rebuilding our search engine to support this!
@mlejva Nice! πCan I be the picky customer once again and ask if you have any plans to implement search-as-you-type as well as part of that? π That would be π₯
@lordofthelake Michele, we love picky customers :). We had that feature but weren't happy with the overall experience. We will consider implementing it in a better way and giving it a comeback π
They bailed on this app - it doesnt even work anymore. I'm pissed because I cant find ANYTHIGN that did what this did? Why they would just end such a helpful product I dont know - I wish I wouldnt have updated it, mine literally wont work at all and now when you go to their page its completely something different now a totally different app
Hey, I'm one of the creators of Devbook. I'm sorry that you are angry.
Unfortunately, we had to sunset old Devbook because we pivoted to a different product. We decided to cut our costs. We had to pay for servers and the search engine for the old Devbook. Since the app was completely free, we were covering the costs from our own pockets and it wasn't profitable.
I hope you understand. Thank you.
I'm also very pissed with the direction the developers took with the app. I don't believe there was enough care or attention towards the users. They didn't even attempt to bring up the issue to their users before they made their decision. They didn't try to raise money or monetize the app. They could've made it a donationware (like Voicemeeter) or joined forces with devdocs.io and freecodecamp.org and merged the two doc providers together. They could've upright made it a premium with a perpetual license or subscription after a certain trial period. They could've included ads. They could've developed and documented ways to self-host the app, developers would do such a thing. So yes, I am pissed off as well because I feel like there wasn't enough care and attention towards users. Aside from the Devbook (RIP), the only maintained doc browser options on Windows are Zeal, Zest, and DevDocs. Out of the 3, only DevDocs is still maintained which doesn't have a desktop app or global search keyboard shortcut. Devbook was offering something unique, it's so sad that such a product was killed by the developers. In this day and age where everyone is trying to learn how to work with AI and companies are introducing copilots, Devbook could be the best interface to use an AI. I'm just so sad and disappointed and pissed...
So just to sum it up. You are angry at us for providing a free app that 99% of the users didn't want to pay for, that's open source, and that we didn't even fundraise to keep going with a project that we didn't want to work on? Am I getting that correctly?
> I feel like there wasn't enough care and attention towards users
This is just a lie.
Fork the repo and build your own version
One Year Wiser
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Helpdesk by LabiDesk