Show HN: Vapor – A notepad that fades away as you type

30 dduplex 19 9/4/2025, 9:16:28 AM enda.sh ↗

Hello HN,

I made this simple notepad for writing down whatever comes to mind. The goal is to force you to not get hung up on what you’ve already written. There’s no formatting, you can’t edit what you’ve typed, you can’t select text or move your caret around. There’s no backspace, delete, undo/redo, or paste. You can’t even see any words except the one you’re currently typing, and when you’re done with it, it fades away.

The text is all still there, just invisible. You can save everything you’ve written as a .txt if you want, or just empty your thoughts and let them disappear forever.

The idea was to encourage myself to do more stream-of-consciousness writing. I tend to edit while I write. This forces me to just keep moving forward, and I’ve found it very helpful so far. I was going to build this into my other writing tool, Drift, but I didn’t think it fit with the idea of the project, so I just made it its own thing. I’m calling it Vapor for now.

Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

Comments (19)

vishrajiv · 47m ago

This is great! It’s the perfect implementation of stream-of-consciousness journaling, especially when you need to get your emotions out on the page. My college English professor used to recommend putting a towel over your laptop to encourage a flow state when writing. This is easier :) Will bookmark this and try it the next few times when I journal. Great job!

jasonjmcghee · 3h ago

Any inspiration from https://enso.sonnet.io?

I'm a big fan of everything Rafał Pastuszak does.

They also recently announced a public beta of a rewrite of that product

https://untested.sonnet.io/notes/new-enso-first-public-beta/

Oh - looks like it's been on HN too. Some good discussions...

New version: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44421776

Original: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38025073

smusamashah · 2h ago

Domain name reminded of Edna which was a show hn here https://edna.arslexis.io/#inbox

caminanteblanco · 4h ago

I love the idea, but at least on android the text scrolls backwards as some people have already noticed. Also, my keyboard thinks that wrvy word needs to be capitalized for some reason so I'm typing backwards all caps. And with he no editing, if it was set up in a way that let my phone at least autocorrect my typos, I think that would go a long way to making this more usable.

But kudos for getting something out there, and I'm really excited to get to use it on my laptop where I'm sure it works better.

jjj123 · 4h ago

What’s the reasoning for no backspace? I understand not allowing edits before the current word but I am a very clumsy typer, and this made me pretty frustrated when every other word had a typo.

jrowen · 4h ago

It may not be for you, then (and I don't think it's for me, either), but that seems consistent with the idea. You're supposed to let go of any kind of editing and just go go go. You can edit it later.

inanutshellus · 3h ago

Just let go bud. Type with your eyes closed, if that helps.

Get the idea written down before it gets lost in the "oops, i misspelled that wait... what was I going to say?" trap.

I find it to be a clever tool for those of us fastidious types that fixate on accuracy and end up failing to complete the larger goal.

treetalker · 3h ago

Great name.

I accidentally reloaded the page on my phone, thus losing all my (meaningless, auto-complete generated) text. So maybe an auto-save would be better?

Years ago there was a lightweight app for the then-current version of Mac OS X called Grandview. When invoked, it would fill your screen with a background color and you would see only a huge version of the single word you were currently typing. (I don't remember, but I think it might have displayed the entirety of the last sentence after you ended it too.) It also deactivated your backspace key so you could only keep typing. That was peak focused writing, and it was an awesome app. I miss it, and similar, small apps that did one thing incredibly well.

magic_hamster · 2h ago

If this was Windows or Linux you could probably keep using it until the heat-death of the universe. One thing Apple does incredibly poorly is supporting their old software. To me it's a form of instability. You just can't trust any long term process on a mac (well, unless you completely forgo updating your OS).

ssawa · 3h ago

This is so super delightful. I explored a similar space when I was first learning piano and was enjoying how freeing it is to have the melodies and mistakes sort of drift into the air.

In case the work proves useful to your endeavors: https://github.com/cj-dimaggio/transient-words

ap_21 · 4h ago

I love the idea! It just creates a very minimalistic feeling and helps my mind not get overwhelmed with big chunks of text. However, the no-edits thing is a bit frustrating personally. A solution would be to allow edits as long as the text is visible, plus increase the timeline the text stays in the view (the pace in the homepage is ideal i feel).

beardyw · 1d ago

Well ... On my Android phone it just types backward in capitals! Like

EB OT TON RO EB OT

And I had to type that in here because it won't select for copy. Not what I was hoping for!

dduplex · 1d ago

Aw, sorry to hear that. I remember encountering that bug a while back and was happy when I figured out a way to squash it. Admittedly I tested this app in browsers on Linux, Mac, and on an iPhone, but not Android. So I'll get a hold of an Android device and figure out a way to re-squash the backwards bug. Thanks for the heads up.

slonik · 12h ago

I love this idea. Did you also think about showing the whole line or paragraph instead of just the current word?

zenethian · 3h ago

I can't seem to enter spaces at all.

cvaambikapur · 1d ago

wow i really liked it can you add wind sound as it fades away?

krthr · 1d ago

I like the idea!

KebabKanaken · 3h ago

Cool story bro

MO-379 · 4h ago

Would still like to correct mistakes instead of re-writing words again, make the last two or three words editable i guess ? idk... you want to make money ? how ?

very fun idea.