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Essential insights from Hacker News discussions

Show HN: Doxx – Terminal .docx viewer inspired by Glow

Original Article

Hacker News Discussion

The Hacker News discussion about the "doxx" project reveals several key themes and opinions from users.

Project Name and Connotations

A significant portion of the conversation revolves around the project's name, "doxx," and its unfortunate homonymy with "doxxing," the act of exposing private personal information. Many users expressed concern that this association could lead to negative perceptions and hinder adoption.

  • Negative Associations: "treetalker" initiated this concern by stating, "The name causes miscues and carries negative connotations, though, on account of its homonym verb (doxxing)." "Tmpod" echoed this sentiment, suggesting, "Might be worth looking into renaming the project, to prevent situations like that for both maintainers and users."
  • Intentional Wordplay vs. Misinterpretation: The project maintainer, "w108bmg," defended the name as intentional wordplay, explaining, "It's 100% intentional wordplay! 'Doxxing' documents by exposing their contents in the terminal instead of keeping them locked in Microsoft Word. The whole project is about 'liberation from Office' so the pun felt perfect." However, this explanation was met with skepticism. "rafram" cautioned, "If you keep having to explain why the name isn’t offensive/distasteful, it probably is (at least to a meaningful portion of the population)." "leptons" was particularly direct, stating, "Out of all the names this could have had, 'doxx' is probably the absolute worst. 'Wordplay' doesn't excuse bad taste." "alpaca128" further argued, "Exposing contents is called a leak. Doxxing is exposure of a person's identity/address etc. There is no wordplay here that actually fits what this tool does. This is just a very misleading name."
  • Alternative Name Suggestions: Users proposed alternative names, such as "docc" ("nine_k") and "mdocx" ("16bytes").
  • Minimizing the Issue: A smaller group felt the name issue was overblown. "KomoD" stated, "This is such a non-issue, it's just a name. If someone asks about it 'It's a tool to view docx files', end of conversation." They compared it to other command-line tools with potentially negative-sounding names like git, kill, slack, and fsck.

Use Cases and Functionality

Users discussed the practical applications of the tool, its potential benefits over existing solutions, and desired features.

  • Law Practice and Document Review: "treetalker" initially saw value for law practices, noting a preference for plain text over Word for handling "legal citations and quotations." This sentiment was expanded by "btown," who, as a non-lawyer, found the idea of "a fully scriptable <50ms switch time between documents" appealing for large-scale document review, even with AI assistance.
  • Terminal-Based Document Interaction: The core utility of interacting with documents directly in the terminal was appreciated. "zipping1549" expressed a general love for TUIs and the project's terminal-based nature: "Great project. I love anything TUI."
  • Comparison with Pandoc: Several users drew comparisons to the pandoc utility, which can convert various document formats. Some questioned if the new tool offered advantages over pandoc. "firesteelrain" asked if the tool could replicate pandoc -t plain file.docx | grep "pattern". The maintainer, "w108bmg," suggested it could, with potentially better table structure and no intermediate conversion. "koolba" noted that "pandoc output markdown" was also an option.
  • Feature Requests: Users expressed interest in features such as improved copy-paste functionality ("w108bmg" noted they were working on this), interaction with Track Changes and comments ("3eb7988a1663"), extraction of document metadata and hidden text elements ("3eb7988a1663"), and image support using protocols like Kitty or sixel ("porridgeraisin").
  • Broader Document Support: There was a desire for similar tools to handle other file formats, especially PDF files ("greazy"). "ivanjermakov" and "zvr" discussed pandoc's limitations with PDF conversion.

Technical Implementation and Alternatives

Discussions also touched upon the technical aspects of the project, deployment, and potential integrations.

  • Performance and Responsiveness: "zvr" praised the project's "speed and responsiveness."
  • Installation and Deployment: "pylotlight" questioned if installation was limited to source with git. "politelemon" suggested a Docker image for easier deployment. "majkinetor" expressed a hope for Windows releases.
  • AI Integration Concerns: The planned AI integration raised concerns about privacy and corporate IT policy. "zvr" requested that AI integration be optional or a separate project, stating, "Having the functionality of sending the contents of a document to any external service will be a red flag and block adoption of this tool in many environments." "stavros" agreed, noting that "any online functionality in a cli tool would make our security team ban a tool."
  • Debugging and Development Tools: "piker" offered suggestions for related development tools, including the OOXML-Validator and a VS Code extension for OOXML viewing, and mentioned the importance of supporting older .doc files with tools like antiword.
  • Data Structure and Styles: "piker" also pointed out that "styles play an important role in numbering that doesn't seem to be picked up here," suggesting a need to apply styles before calculating numbering levels.

User Experience and Development Philosophy

Users shared their personal preferences and opinions on the project's development and overall user experience.

  • TUI Preference: A strong preference for terminal user interfaces was evident, with comments like "I love anything TUI" ("zipping1549").
  • Refreshing Departure from Chatbots: The project was seen as a positive development in a landscape often dominated by chatbots: "It's refreshing to see something that isn't another chatbot" ("BrouteMinou").
  • Onboarding Documentation: The claude.md file within the repository was praised by "btbuildem" as a "well-organized summary of the project" that serves as "a pretty great onboarding document for collaborators."
  • Privacy Concerns in Collaborative Environments: "_def" brought up a tangential but related point about the discomfort of "viewing a document in google docs and it's visible that a coworker is (or could) also viewing it, and seeing your cursor etc." This highlights a broader theme of privacy and transparency in digital document interaction.