Show HN: Bigwords.page – Turn any screen into a sign. The URL is the app

This reminds me of at a previous job people would leave their laptops unlocked. Security threatened people with yubikeys. So I used that opportunity to create https://butts.netlify.app so that any time someone left their laptop unlocked I’d go there and they’d be met with the word butts.

I had the idea for BIGWORDS.PAGE when I wanted to display a message on a tablet that I had remote management control over, but no physical access. Configuring it to be a kiosk browser is easy, but how do I get the browser to show my message? So I made the URL be the message.

It uses a URL fragment to configure the message. Browsers don't send URL fragments to the server, so I never see your message. There's no backend, and no storage.

All parameters are documented, so generating a message link is easy. There's also a built-in editor to make it extra easy.

https://bigwords.page/#Hello,%20HN!&bg=ff6600&fg=000000&font...

There are a few extra features like slides, animations, and countdowns and timers. QR codes too. Not too fancy, but hopefully enough to be useful.

I know the uses for this are pretty niche. But it may be one of those things that you keep as a nugget in your brain, a tool in your back pocket. Not something you use often, but when you do it makes things just a little bit easier.

It's open source (MIT), and self-hostable if that's your thing.

Let me know what you think.

This sort of incredibly simple, crisp idea is what changes the world. Great job!

Who remembers https://bigassmessage.com/

https://bigwords.page/#smol!%20!%20!%20!%20!%20!%20!%20!%20!...!

You seem to have the same bug I had when I first implemented https://screaming.saej.in/

In Firefox, scrollWidth includes spaces that extend into the margin, so it's possible for text to fit perfectly on the screen, but scrollWidth > clientWidth. Fix here https://saej.in/posts/screaming/

Hook it up to voice control so I can put an iPad in the back window of the car and tell other drivers… things.

Completely different architecture, but would be amazing if another device could control what message (or photo, embedded video) is displayed.

There's a huge industry around digital signage and I've always felt it could be replaced with a simple Chromium kiosk + auto-refreshed webpage content. There's really no need for expensive HDMI connections or custom video streams when we already have browsers.

I did something similar years ago but for live satellite imagery https://earth.wooleys.us. I wanted to show my kids hurricane/typhoon imagery live. Worked great to throw up on a chromecast and let it run.

In the make one by hand section, you probably don't need to tell people %20 is a space. If they type it in naturally, the browser should encode automatically

"Nothing else: no lists, tables, links, quotes, images or rules."

Claudish needs to be cleaned up.

I love solutions like this. Make the URL the entirety of the data needed. Awesome

Damn, you triggered my old memories of clicking one of these on some old forum: https://disco.[EPILEPSY WARNING]fleo.se/hello

The URL is the state but clearly there is an actual app here

Cool project. But why not built with php so I can simply throw it on my running web server?

I use a similar thing but designed to be as few steps as possible:

https://bigtext.k55.io/

I used to order drinks like this when the bar was full

I use to try and coordinate game nights across the world, and a url with the Unix timestamp of the event and a countdown showing how many days and hours worked quite well.

Suggestion: make it a GoogleTV / AppleTV app so users can set it up in a few clicks and transform any screen laying around into a sign.

Brilliant

I like this site because it exemplifies DOTADIW, do one thing and do it well.

I like that the fragment is basically argv for a static web app.

how to hide or change the gigantic preview when sharing on apple messages? id prefer to change it, the default is obtrusive

Love this and I already have a use for this

how to hide the Preview when sharing on messages? id prefer something more neutral.

Nice work! This is great.

Really well done, can think of a few times this would have been useful in the recent past. Would be great for conferences in particular!

Really clever! Definitely feels like positive hacker creativity. Thanks for making it open source.

this is actually awesome, i've had something similar on my todo list forever. thanks!!! https://bigwords.page/#%E2%9D%A4%EF%B8%8F

This is a new project and a great place to start.

So many fun rabbit holes from here with the different ways to get this working (and keeping displaying) on a chromecast, etc.

Site is blocked - getting an SSL warning on Firefox.

Love this. Simple idea. Nice execution.

I've used something like this on a phone to tell another car something was wrong with their vehicle.

> The URL is the app

We used to call them websites