

Hacker News app for Android (with login, voting, and commenting) - jazzychad
http://etc.jazzychad.net/hnandroid.html

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rudd
Cool, I'm using it to write this. Seems to work well enough. I wish there was
a light theme, as I'm not really a fan of the light grey on black. Also,the
voting doesn't seem to work correctly. I voted up this story, then quit the
app and re-launched it, and it said I hadn't voted. Trying to vote it up again
though failed, as the vote had indeed gone through.

~~~
jazzychad
That's correct... I'm using the ihackernews.com API at the moment, so your
votes aren't reflected in the data I get from there if you reload the
app/page. If/when I use an html parser to fetch all the data directly from
new.ycombinator this bug will be fixed. For now, if the number of points
changes after you vote, it means the vote went through successfully.

~~~
rudd
Maybe keep a list of my votes in the application cache and check against that
as well as the ihackernews API? Same with my comments, too. I would really
enjoy if it appeared to have read-your-writes consistency.

~~~
jazzychad
Yes, that's probably what I'll do in the interim. I'll have to figure out how
to do these checks efficiently. Scrolling lists in Android is already clunky
due to the way rows are rendered, so I'll need to make sure to not make it
worse by checking the entire 'already-voted-list' for each row.

~~~
kefs
Check out the following video from io2010 regarding optimizing your
listviews..

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDBM6wVEO70>

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danshapiro
Feature request: offline operation and background sync, so I can read HN
offline. Presumably voting/commenting wouldn't work while offline. Of course,
if you're going down that rabbit hole, you also want to prefetch and cache the
content of the links.

~~~
Reclix
This was going to be my comment - I often do my on-phone reading on the
subway/elevator - would be great to have an app that worked when I don't have
cell phone service.

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kroc
Why. Why are we doing this? Why do people go and write this stuff when there
is already the web. That doesn’t require an app store. It can use the same
code as the actual website (imagine that).

Why are we running so fast in the wrong direction?

~~~
colkassad
The web still sucks for phones. The formatting is better in apps and it runs
faster than the browser. I don't have to double tap text to bring it to human
readable size or deal with lag when scrolling. Until phone browsers and/or web
sites catch up, apps such as this provide a lot of relief.

~~~
StavrosK
I half agree, half disagree with you. The web doesn't suck for phones, the
websites suck for phones. If websites use a fluid layout or a mobile layout,
nobody has to write an app for them. Posterous is great to read on mobiles due
to their theme.

I hope more companies start using those tricks that let websites resize
gracefully on any size screen, so you don't even need a mobile theme. Your
layout just adjusts gracefully to the screen.

~~~
colkassad
Sorry, by "web" I meant websites. Mobile layouts are nice when they are
implemented correctly. The worst case is when a mobile version routes your
request to a default landing page rather than the requested article or
whatever or strips out functionality that exists in the regular version.

I expect that things will only improve as more people access the web via
mobile devices. I think I use my phone more than a standard computer these
days.

~~~
StavrosK
Yes, I think we're agreeing, but, to clarify, I meant that it's not websites
in general (as in, the technology) that sucks, but particular websites (most
of them) which haven't correctly implemented mobile-friendly versions.

We _are_ agreeing, though, yes.

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PStamatiou
Haha I love how my cofounder and I have different side projects on HN at the
same time: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2139690>

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fakelvis
Very nice. My favourite of the apps so far and a first use makes me think I'll
keep this for more than a day (unlike many of the others).

Particularly: the positioning of the voting buttons and the simple main screen
that is easy to intuit.

I was actually unlikely to grab my phone and try this but the huge QR code at
the top of your page made it too easy to miss. A nice little touch that I wish
every app maker would use.

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quattrofan
Nice, but it needs the option to move to SD card.

~~~
zmmmmm
At least it is small. Reddit is Fun is ~2MB with no Move to SD support (not to
mention broken in many various ways).

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Onyma
Liking the UI updates from the previous version. Would be nice to be able to
change the default tap action.

~~~
gavinbaker
I'd prefer it lighter as well

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auxbuss
QR code fails here in UK: "Not Found: The requested item could not be found."

Downloaded from the Market but I can't find the login! The new menu gives me
Post x2, Comments x2, Refresh, and About.

There's no version number in About, so can't provide any info.

~~~
jazzychad
ah, that is a different app by the same name... try searching the market for
"com.jazzychad.hn"

~~~
auxbuss
No matches :(

QRs have always worked for me. Any idea why yours isn't?

I tried the links on your page on the phone too, same result 404 and a Not
Found.

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btipling
Doesn't fit the Galaxy Tab Dimensions. Did you hardcode the max height and
width values?

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grannyg00se
Fun project. But what's the advantage over a browser bookmark that links to
news.ycombinator.com ?

One of the great things about Hacker News is the simple web interface that is
easy for most handheld browsers to deal with.

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Osiris
Unfortunately, my HN account uses OpenID to login, so I can't login with this
app as it only allows for standard username/password accounts. Is there any
way to assign a regular password to my account?

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yatsyk
FYI, there are three other android clients: <http://hnresources.com/apps/> and
your already added to the list

~~~
jazzychad
Cool, thanks. Yes I know there are other android clients, but the ones I found
on the Market had lots of reviews saying that login, voting, and commenting
were missing (and I wanted a layout more similar to the website). So I wrote
my own client as an exercise and decided to publish it.

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unicornporn
i'm in sweden, i can not access it via the market.

~~~
jazzychad
send me an email, i'll send you a direct link.

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rmc
The download on Android devices is 404ing for me.

~~~
herdrick
Same for me.

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chopsueyar
Good work. I like the spartan utilitarianism.

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mickael1
Very clean interface. Are there any plans to have an ajustable font size in a
future release?

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oldstrangers
I've been using HNDroid for months with no complaints.

Checking this one out now.

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mshafrir
Can you add an option to autoload via viewtext.org when a post is clicked?

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quinndupont
Any know about an iOS Hacker News app? That would be swell.

