Hackpad

Hackpad is a web-based collaborative real-time text editor (Wikipedia).

Most Hackuarium projects used to start there. It has been announced that Hackpad is closing definitely on July 19, 2017. This page is now where we centralize our efforts to save and upload anywhere else anything (unique documentation, pictures, conversations...) valuable for this community and the history or reproductibility of any of your work in this community. Below the email sent by the creators of the service on April 21st, 2017.

Email by Hackpad founders, sent to all their users by the creators of the service on April 21st, 2017

I’m writing to let you know we’ll be shutting down Hackpad on July 19. I’m so grateful for all the enthusiasm and feedback from the Hackpad community over the last several years, and I’m excited to share what’s coming next.

That feedback has been really helpful for designing Dropbox Paper—a product inspired by the Hackpad community. With millions of docs created by teams around the world, Paper is off to an exciting start. Paper takes many of Hackpad’s best features—like instant collaboration, comments, and real-time editing—and adds a lot more, including additional security features, faster search, and more visibility for teams.

You and your team can start using Paper today. I’d love to know what you think.

You have a few options for migrating from Hackpad.

Import your pads into Paper. I built an importer that helps convert your pads to Paper docs. You’ll need to create an account or sign in to get started. Export your pads. You can export everything into a single zip folder if you’d prefer. Do nothing. Your pads will automatically be migrated to Paper on July 19. Opt out of the automatic migration. Your pads will be deleted on July 19. As a public team admin you’re responsible for importing your team’s Hackpad pads into Paper. Once the import is complete, your team can sign in or create a Dropbox account to join the pads.

While Paper does not support the Hackpad’s public workspace functionality, you can still create public Paper docs, which can be viewed by non-logged in users. For more details on public docs, you can visit the Help Center.

You can create a free Dropbox team to get started with Paper. For even more control and access to Paper’s flexible admin features, you can upgrade your team to a Dropbox Business account. Dropbox Business gives you even more insight into who’s viewing a given doc, and more control over who can view or edit the content.

We’re offering Hackpad admins a special discount on Dropbox Business. You can find the discount code in an email we sent earlier this month.

I know changes like these can be inconvenient, and I want to help make the transition as smooth as possible. Visit Dropbox to learn more about Paper, or stop by the Help Center for more details about transitioning from Hackpad.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact us at hackpad@dropbox.com.

Igor Kofman, Hackpad founder and Dropbox Paper lead

Our recommandation

• Since Paper, the new product the Hackpad team was bought to built into Dropbox, does not offer the same flexibility in the old Hackpad, we do recommand to stop using it, the way we used to (i.e. collaborative, agile, temporary notes).
• Dropbox is a cool product. You might want to check if they align with your values re: e.g. privacy as a company, however.
• Do export all your pads as soon as you can (do not wait for July!), and transform them, ideally into either:
  • a fully working Markdown Document, you could upload on Github
  • a fully working wiki page right here

The most important thing is: please do not let some precious open science we co-built together either be lost, or get locked in some proprietary scheme that will complicate licensing/liberating again stuff even more. By becoming an Hackuarium member, you agreed to make everything in your power to keep wathever your work on inside this community free and openly accessible for anyone to teach, larn or get inspired. Now is a cool reminder to work on it together once more.

You don't know how/what to do AT ALL? Let's work on it together during next Open Hackuarium.