
Show HN: HN Chat – Minimal Hacker News Chat with User Verification - zaytoun
https://www.hnchat.com/
======
danneu
Idea: Color each username based on a hash of the username.

    
    
        '#' + username.md5().take(6).join('')
    

I did it for a chat I once built, users liked it, and it helps you keep track
of who said what. Though I added some styling to keep it legible, like a 30%
white blend, a stroke, and a drop shadow.

[https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/spa/quq37nq1583x0lf/xf17fn...](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/spa/quq37nq1583x0lf/xf17fnph.png)
(not the best example since everyone happened to be shades of green)

~~~
baddox
I like the idea, although I'd probably choose a palette of, say, 30 colors,
and hash the username mod 30 to determine the color. That way all the colors
should be sufficiently contrasty.

~~~
danneu
My IRC client does this, but I find it too jarring when multiple people are
talking and they have the same color.

Sometimes it rolls a yahtzee and the three people talking all have the same
color and the same length of chars in their name.

I figure that even if the people talking luck out and have a shade of green
like in my screenshot, it's still better than if they all fell into the
identical green bucket.

~~~
evan_
It could choose two or three colors and split the name in half or thirds.

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ng-user
It'd be cool if it showed the number of anonymous users creepily watching the
conversation too.

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condescendence
Another chat app with mostly arbitrary ways to communicate? No thanks. I
understand this is for HN community, but with XMPP, ICQ derivatives, IRC, etc
I already have too many spaces to keep up with.

Its nice though, I like the profile key integration.

~~~
milankragujevic
username checks out

~~~
condescendence
Sorry about that I don't mean to shit on your project; honestly its pretty
damn cool. I like the usage of django/daphne for a single page app...it came
out nice.

I just don't see the usability cause I already have multiple
messaging/chatroom services.

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hueving
This is secretly a way for op to harvest IP addresses of usernames!
/tinfoilhat

~~~
JshWright
And then...?

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WorldMaker
Step 1. Harvest IP Addresses

Step 2. ????

Step 3. Profit

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jaytaylor
I've been idling in #hn on freenode for years now, and sadly it's consistently
been dead, activity wise. Eager to see if hnchat can change the game.

~~~
dardup
Come over to #startups

We are an international bunch of tech entrepreneurs and the channel is usually
pretty active.

~~~
qwertyuiop924
...But what if you're the rare HNer than doesn't actually _care_ about
startups?

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gregimba
still a nice group of irc people

~~~
qwertyuiop924
Well, yes, there is that. Unfortunately, IRC channels have enforced topics:
those of us who are on HN more so for the cool tech stuff, and less so for the
startups cannot contribute to the forum: This is why things like HN Chat are
useful: the enforced topics, if any, are broad enough for the HN community to
all be able to talk. Although, once again, they would do well to be more
integrated with established communications technologies (IRC, etc.).

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qwertyuiop924
Yeah, the thing is, this needs some kind of IRC bridge, with auth. If you're
an HN user, IRC is probably your usual mechanism for realtime textual
communication, and I gather many would rather use their very rich tooling
built on IRC than check another website.

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forgottenacc56
Why do you assume your preference for IRC is everyone's preference?

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qwertyuiop924
I don't. I see a lot of IRC users on HN and other forums. Slack seems semi-
common internal to orgs, but IRC seems to be by far the most active realtime
communication medium used by devs externally.

People liking IRC is a reasonable conclusion to draw.

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lvs
Nice app, but reading the unfiltered drivel of tech executives in real time is
truly more than I can handle.

~~~
visakanv
I too enjoy signalling my superiority over others!

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philbarr
The only problem you have is that people are leaving all their comments on the
chat group instead of in here... :)

~~~
ocdtrekkie
A lot of comments don't need to be here. As someone who's perennially on the
rate limit list, I'd much prefer to take lengthier discussions off of here.

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codyb
Oh gosh and it's already devolved into tabs vs spaces and two vs four, what
else should I have expected? ;-)

Nice, I'll login later and check it out!

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rastapasta42
App version for android:
[http://forty7.org/tmp/hnapp/hnchat.app.arm.apk](http://forty7.org/tmp/hnapp/hnchat.app.arm.apk)

I'm making a website tool to convert website to Android apps, so was using
this as a test.

If anyone got an x86 android device, I also generated x86 version of the app:
[http://forty7.org/tmp/hnapp/hnchat.app.x86.apk](http://forty7.org/tmp/hnapp/hnchat.app.x86.apk)

~~~
tomerv
The x86 version works well, but isn't 70MB too much for such an application?

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stockkid
I like that I can login without providing my credentials.

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huhtenberg

        Forbidden (403)
    
        CSRF verification failed. Request aborted.
    
        You are seeing this message because this HTTPS site requires 
        a 'Referer header' to be sent by your Web browser, but none 
        was sent. This header is required for security reasons, to 
        ensure that your browser is not being hijacked by third parties.
    

Erm...

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a1a
I really dig the login system!

I thought it should be vulnerable to 1\. find hash on victim's profile, 2\.
login using the hash + username

But it seems the hash is never actually submitted to the server, neither
through the login form nor later on by cookie. That is good news! The implied
hurdle is that you'll need to update the hash on each login.

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koolba
I've been saving a similar idea of getting people to authenticate with custom
text in their bios. Would be clever if the app tricked you into verifying a
third party account on keybase too.

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OoTheNigerian
Good stuff!

The "Login to chat" should link to the login page.

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adrianwaj
someone called for this on another site recently:
[http://www.newschoolers.com/forum/thread/845014/NS-MEMBER-
CH...](http://www.newschoolers.com/forum/thread/845014/NS-MEMBER-CHAT-)

\- maybe some way to have minimum karma to join, or at least a way to only see
messages according to certain metrics, eg acct age, karma, avg post karma --
or else have those users in different colors, including being invisible

\- ability to block people

\- message replying

\- toggle message storage, either for user or admin

\- pausing

\- users can make comments in another user's chat profile, with ability for
underlying user to reply

\- highlight another user's conversation, or have different conversations in
different colors

\- this might actually work for instagram, where any user can keep a chatspace
for their followers - perhaps a new url is provided upon each new photo, that
way the users have to view the underlying instagram account, and the chatspace
is cleared regularly (GramChat.)

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indirpir
`Add the following token to your HN Bio` on login screen. What means `HN Bio`
?

Sorry, for dumb question.

~~~
martin_
Looks like you figured it out, but for anyone else following along.. Click
your username and you'll be taken to a page like
[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=indirpir](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=indirpir)
where you can place your token.

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jnpatel
I'm getting a 500 from Heroku.

btw, care to share the tech stack this is using?

~~~
milankragujevic
Seems it's Python/Django/Daphne.

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mrmondo
Neat! I love it!

What's it written in and can I host something similar myself?

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symbolepro
What I liked the most is the fact that it creates a kind of hackernews oauth.
Using this mechanism, you can have something like "Login with hackernews"
apps. Cool!

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gremlinsinc
Would be nice if it had a list of top articles that drill down to open in new
window | chat (creates a private room for that article | and view
comments/threads.

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Retr0spectrum
It would be nice to have tab completion for typing usernames.

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Pyppe
HTTP 503 Service Unavailable "Request queue full."

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paulvs
I'm using this on mobile and the scroll is very sluggish, you could add this
you your scrollable div:

    
    
      -webkit-overflow-scrolling: touch;

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SparkyMcUnicorn
Aaaaand we broke it.

~~~
milankragujevic
yep. should've implemented rate limiting. and probably memcached. and not
heroku free.

~~~
zaytoun
Haha definitely a work in progress. Will fix this all soon.

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greenspot
> Add the following token to your HN bio: hnchat:p2z9iJCaT5ZXWlWp5Vua

Smart idea to verify users

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maxpert
Makes me wonder if I should modify RaspChat (yes it was posted before
[http://beta.raspchat.com](http://beta.raspchat.com) ) to actually play well
with HackerNews.

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iptables
I love this thing

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iptables
please add a mute feature, tga is annoying

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lean0278
WOW Hackers :D

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andrewclunn
But how do I downvote the chats?

