jgresula's comments

On: Python Generator Tricks

[jgresula]

Here is a great practical intro to generators: Generator Tricks for Systems Programmers - http://www.dabeaz.com/generators-uk/GeneratorsUK.pdf

On: Ask HN: Heard of any good startups?

[jgresula]

My own startup: Pdfcrowd http://pdfcrowd.com

It lets you convert HTML to PDF online - either directly in your browser or in your apps using the API.

On: Zed Shaw on C++

[jgresula]

http://www.swig.org/ automatically binds existing C++ software to other programming languages. I use it a lot to call C++ from Python and Java and I must say it is really amazing piece of software.

And there is also Boost.Python.

On: Ask HN: Any Need for Office to PDF Conversion API?

[jgresula]

A shameless plug for my project, but hopefully you might find it useful.

I run http://pdfcrowd.com which is an online service providing html to pdf API. It lets you convert a web page to pdf quite easily - have look at examples at http://pdfcrowd.com/doc/api/

On: Ask HN: How to get major bloggers write about my b...

[jgresula]

Try sites with smaller audiences to get at least some coverage. If your app is good big blogs might notice and write about it.

My personal experience: I submitted my app to MoMB - just a short email. The next day it appeared on Lifehacker (via Life Rocks).

Good luck with your venture.

On: Ask HN: please review my app - html to pdf API

[jgresula]

There is no doubt that many developers will use wkhtmltopdf.

I think that the Pdfcrowd's selling points could be 1) wide availability - only HTTP is needed so it can be used theoretically on any platform 2) no need to install any 3rd party software which makes the applications more portable 3) API bindings

On: Ask HN: please review my app - html to pdf API

[jgresula]

That's a known problem on my todo list. The colors are dulled only in Acrobat but other PDF readers render the colors correctly. Please, could you post the link to that page if possible? Thanks.

[gridspy → jgresula]

http://your.gridspy.co.nz/powertech dulled substantially.

Also, you don't support the CSS3 styling of the header text.

The fonts look super aliased.

Finally, you don't snap the rendered HTML to the nearest page, leading to a page containing only the footer.

On: Ask HN: please review my app - html to pdf API

[jgresula]

I don't know the exact status of how WebKit handles these properties. I know that at least "page-break-after: always" works since that is what I use when the user clicks the 'Insert Page Break' button in the editor (http://pdfcrowd.com/editor/).

On: Ask HN: please review my app - html to pdf API

[jgresula]

Yes, I have seen it but have not tried it yet.

[gridspy → jgresula]

Woah. A 3rd party does your entire value add and yet your hack up your own?

[jgresula → gridspy]

I did not know about this project at the time I started with pdfcrowd. But anyway, I just took my existing pdf library and integrated it with WebKit which was not that hard as one could think.

[dandelany → gridspy]

First of all, I don't know how well wkhtmltopdf works, but there are many, many solutions to the HTML-to-PDF problem, and most of them suck. It's not surprising the creator decided to put together a library from scratch, it's the special sauce for his business.

Also, the "value add" comes from the fact that wkhtmltopdf is a library, and PDFcrowd is an API.

On: Ask HN: please review my app - html to pdf API

[jgresula]

Thanks for the report. I will look into it as there should be no default HTML in the editor.