Tips: An Open‑Source Static Text Management Platform for Front‑End Development

Tips is a static‑text management platform designed to solve the pain point where front‑end developers need to modify a few lines of UI text and are forced to go through a full release process (local test, test‑env, pre‑release, production). The platform enables quick, in‑place editing of prompt messages and page content without the overhead of a full deployment.

Background : Front‑end engineers often encounter situations where a minor wording change requires a half‑hour of testing and deployment, even though the change is trivial. This wastes time and effort.

What is Tips : Tips provides a web‑based management system and a JavaScript SDK that can be embedded in third‑party pages. It supports internationalization and offers UI components for editing prompt texts directly on the page.

Key Capabilities :

Prompt text editing: Authorized users see a toggle button in the lower‑right corner, which reveals an edit button to modify prompt messages instantly.

Page content editing: Similar to prompt editing but requires a publish step; changes are visible in the offline environment until published.

Internationalization: Demo includes Chinese and English versions that can be switched via a button.

Architecture : The system is divided into four modules:

SDK : Packaged as a JavaScript file, embedded in third‑party platforms to fetch and display text, scan HTML for special attributes, and provide an edit UI based on user permissions.

Web‑Server : Provides RESTful CRUD APIs for text data.

Web‑UI : Management console where platform administrators can configure third‑party integrations, manage texts, and control permissions.

MongoDB : Stores all text information for the integrated platforms.

Detailed Design :

SDK obtains the system name and current user, retrieves text data, scans the page for elements with special attributes, and renders prompts, tooltips, or page texts according to the current language.

Permission checks determine whether the edit toggle is shown; edits to prompt texts take effect immediately, while page‑level texts become effective after publishing.

Web‑Server implements endpoints for adding, updating, deleting, and querying text entries, as well as managing service and text information.

Web‑UI offers visual operations for service management, text management, and permission configuration.

Advantages :

Time‑saving: Eliminates the approval and deployment steps for simple text fixes, enabling second‑level fixes.

Empowerment: Allows non‑technical staff (product, operations, legal) to modify content directly through a visual interface, reducing communication overhead and freeing developers.

Summary : Tips is already deployed in multiple internal platforms at Didi, addressing daily text‑modification needs. The project is open‑source on GitHub – try the github demo and leave comments for further discussion.

GitHub project page: https://github.com/didi/Tips