Simple PDF to PNG Server
Infrastructure
document conversion server
SHOW HN2019
How HN took it
6 positive, 12 neutral or asking, 0 mixed, 12 critical, out of 30 comments about the project. Thread score -0.15.
Privacy: 1 for, 4 againstExecution: 1 for, 2 againstIdea: 1 for, 2 againstPerformance: 0 for, 2 againstDocs: 0 for, 2 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Good design argument for server-side conversion to protect clients from file exploits
From 1 comment
That's a great point. I typically don't like using remote resources for stuff that I can do locally. But for iffy pdfs, it's a good tradeoff. Edit: Nice to see the PDF capability…
mirimir on HN
Minimalist design
From 1 comment
I like the minimalism.
andrewstuart on HN
Objections
Uploading files to a random-looking URL is a privacy and security risk
From 2 comments
Before I upload and download a file from a random Show HN with URLs like "secretpage-canneverbefound" and "very-secure-manifest-convert", I'd like to see some source code.…
jermaustin1 on HNYeah, let's just upload our files to a page that's called "secretpage-canneverbefound.html", and with no info other than the 5 word title on HN. -_-
bluetidepro on HN
Multicore ImageMagick will not scale well under concurrent load
From 1 comment
ImageMagick with "multicore" support won't speed things up the moment number of concurrent requests touches the number of cores you have. And in digital ocean's case you have…
z92 on HN
No warning that files are sent to the server
From 1 comment
No but a mention this is happening serverside and you are actually copying the file to the server kind of notice or message would be correct imho
mobilemidget on HN
Requests
Publish source code
From 1 comment
Before I upload and download a file from a random Show HN with URLs like "secretpage-canneverbefound" and "very-secure-manifest-convert", I'd like to see some source code.…
jermaustin1 on HN
Package as a Docker image
From 2 comments
Package it as a docker image and you can then run it on cloud.run (Might be expensive though). Disclaimer: I work for Google Cloud.
yegle on HNHave you considered making this open source and distribute as a container image that people can self-build/deploy/host on a serverless platform, like a Google Cloud Run? For…
alpb on HN
Support SVG input
From 1 comment
Does it support SVG?
7777fps on HN
Questions
Does it use Ghostscript and what is the license
From 1 comment
Does this use ghostscript? Was looking into doing this a while back but wasn't sure if I'd have to get a license from Artifex to use it in a SaaS app.
4ver on HN
How does it hold up under heavy traffic
From 1 comment
hmm, OK, I didn't know that. Thanks that's useful :) Be interesting to see how your demo site holds up under HN front page traffic - I know Imagemagic is used a lot for random…
marcus_holmes on HN
Alternatives named
PDF.js client-side rendering
From 2 comments
With superb open source, cross platform libraries like pdfium available to the public, why won't I just do this on the client?
devxpy on HNI used PDF.js in a side project for comparing pdfs and it worked quite well. It runs completely client side, so I can build the site with a static site generator and html:…
redman25 on HN
pdfium
From 1 comment
With superb open source, cross platform libraries like pdfium available to the public, why won't I just do this on the client?
devxpy on HN
Existing free online conversion sites
From 1 comment
It seems like there are free sites that do that already.
sanjeetsuhag on HN