
Show HN: Hacky – Hacker News app for Mac - eliaskg
http://www.hackyapp.com
======
eliaskg
Hi, app developer here. I hope some of you may like my little app. To prevent
too much ranting here are some quick answers to possible questions:

Q: The Hacker News website provides much more functionality than your app.

A: That's right. The app isn't made to replace the Hacker News website. It's
made for frequent readers like me who want a quick and friendly-on-the-eye way
to access the stories.

Q: I want your app but I don't want to pay for it.

A: No problem, Hacky is open source! Just get a copy of the source on GitHub
and build it on your machine.

Q: Why are you then charging money for it in the first place?

A: Personally I like getting my apps via Mac App Store. It means easy updating
and restoring. Unfortunately providing an app in the MAS isn't free for the
developer as he has to purchase a Developer Certificate from Apple.
(Additionally a developer likes to buy a beer from time to time)

Relevant Links:

Website: <http://www.hackyapp.com>

Mac App Store:
[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hacky/id584949645?ls=1&m...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hacky/id584949645?ls=1&mt=12)

GitHub: <https://github.com/eliaskg/Hacky>

Edit: Here, have some Promo Codes:

    
    
      NPLEWFH4PT6X
      XNLHAXHPA3FN
      FRAAR3RL797W
      MHLW7MH9EYYP
      KPM36X9KY4EN

~~~
yuchi
I love the application. The thing I love most is your "license".

I thought to distribute some app in the same way too: "can you build it? It's
free if you don't want to pay for it."

~~~
reidrac
Yes, it's a good idea and I like it too. It's OSS but you may pay for the
convenience of getting the app perfectly packaged for your OS.

Other OSS projects use that model (I can think of Todo.txt Android app, for
example).

But I'm not sure that it works exactly like "can you build it? It's free if
you don't want to pay for it". OSS is about distribution. Anybody can build
your app and distribute it legally (in this case Hacky is LGPL, it wouldn't be
too difficult to comply with the license), even do it for a fee.

It's more paying for "the extras" straight to the developers. Call it support,
iTunes, packaging, or just making things easier for people that don't want or
don't have the time to get the hands dirty.

~~~
DeepDuh
I like the model too and you got me thinking. Is there any standard licence
model where you allow people to have and use the source but not to
redistribute it "as is"?

~~~
micampe
That sounds like what Microsoft did (and got slammed for) with their Shared
Source license.

------
adhipg
I love the fact that the 'screenshot' on the website is a real-time
representation of the Hacker News front page at that point of time. Nice!

~~~
nlh
Didn't notice that until you pointed it out, but indeed - that is a terrific
little bit of functionality on the website.

Nicely done OP - I'm sure that's one of the many little details you worked
hard on and it's appreciated.

------
danpalmer
Nice app. Just a few UI and code comments.

The titlebar is too big in my opinion. I'm writing an app with a thicker than
usual titlebar and had a look around a number of apps before deciding on the
exact height. I found the best height to be 36px. This allows for nicely a
nicely spaced title and traffic lights, but isn't too large. Clear for Mac
goes for a titlebar a bit bigger than this, but Hacky is far larger.

The bottom bar seems like it's only there to place the "Mark all as read"
button. Could this button be instead placed on the titlebar? If not, I think
it's the wrong type of button to use in this context. I believe the correct
button style is "Round Textured" as listed in Interface Builder.

Despite these two comments, I actually really like the user interface. It
looks good and is generally well thought out.

A few comments on the project, it might be worth using CocoaPods. This is
entirely up to you, but I know for a fact that INAppStoreWindow and
AFNetworking are in the database, and it might make handling dependency
updates easier. Not using CocoaPods isn't necessarily a bad thing at all
though.

Having had a quick look at the code, and having compiled it, there are a lot
of compiler warnings! A few can be fixed just be configuring the project
correctly, adding frameworks that AFNetworking wants for additional
functionality, etc, but a few issues surrounding your mixed use of instance
variables and properties that will generate their own.

There is also an issue with declaring a method as taking NSUInteger pointers,
and yet using it for normal NSUIntegers, and then assigning to NSUInteger
properties. It works, but it's an easy fix and pointer issues can be annoying
to debug later on if they start to cause errors.

~~~
eliaskg
Awesome feedback! It's noted and will be investigated as soon as I have time
;)

------
e1ven
Nice Idea! Purchased in the MAS.

Since you seem to want to make it better, Let me give you a few suggestions. I
like where you're going, but get the sense you want to improve it, so in that
spirit-

It feels more like an RSS reader than a dedicated app. Because it doesn't have
deep API integration (or even write support), there's not much that I get that
I don't get with a dedicated HN RSS reader.

Take a look at Envelope for Reddit for an example of how you might do a deeper
integration. Beyond adding posting support, you could also build on the fact
that it's a client-app, and add additional local-only feature, such as
killfiles or filters, etc.

Low-hanging fruit would be to display comments inline, rather than just
linking off to the website, and letting you read/reply/post to individual
threads.

GL, I hope you keep going with it.

------
jschuur
Looks great. I have a suggestion though: Beyond individually marking stories
as read and the 'mark all as read' button, also offer a quick way to breeze
through the list and mark lots of them as read. By 'read', I mean 'don't show
them to me again next time'. I usually narrow down 5-8 articles from the home
page I want to read and know that I don't care about the others.

Or, introduce a 'star' system where I can create a list of articles I want to
check out later. I may not actually want to send them to Instapaper, so
keeping a local 'to read' list via starring articles would come in handy.

Ideally, that should be synced to my iCloud account, since I read from
multiple Macbooks.

~~~
jschuur
I just compiled a build and tried it out. It looks like marking something as
read right now just affects the dot icon next to a story with no way to filter
out read stories, even after a refresh.

Having different hotkeys for mark as read and unread was a little confusing. I
would just have Command M toggle between the two. Then you can use the up/down
arrow keys to navigate the stories and then quickly mark them. If you
accidentally mark the wrong story, you don't need to find Shift to undo that.

------
jschuur
A few more ideas:

\- Growl/Notification center notices for new stories (optionally configurable
by a certain points threshold).

\- Subscribe to certain topics (keyword based searches). Only get notified
when certain topics have stories.

\- Ignore stories by user.

\- Search (both locally and offer to use hnsearch.com)

\- List new submissions (separate tab?).

\- Comments/open hotkeys (previously mentioned here, I see).

\- Minimize to Mac OS menu with an icon indicating new stories (follows your
notification threshold and/or topic subscriptions).

\- Tab to monitor your own submissions.

~~~
gorekee
> Subscribe to certain topics

Love the idea.

> List new submissions (separate tab?).

Or sort by new submissions.

\- restore app position and size

------
dewey
The site looks a bit weird on a retina display btw.

<http://i.imgur.com/efSh1hv.jpg>

~~~
eliaskg
Thanks for the info! Should be fixed. Chrome (somehow) handeled the media
queries differently.

~~~
yuchi
You could also fix the top corners, if watch closer the pieces overflow the
radius ;)

------
kaolinite
This post made my day. I've been after a Hacker News app for Mac for ages now.

Edit: have now bought it, it's fantastic. Really glad you made it open-source
too. Are there any plans to integrate comments, upvoting, etc?

Edit 2: One more thing: it would be great if the app would show the number of
unread stories even when closed. Reminders.app does this.

------
TamDenholm
I love the live hacker news feed on the front page, nice touch.

~~~
eliaskg
Thanks! Glad, someone noticed ;)

~~~
interpol_p
It freaked me out for a second as I went to check the HN website and back to
your screenshot.

------
rdl
I just bought this -- it's really nice.

Maybe you'd consider doing a free app store version with ads, combined with a
$2.99 (reslly, should be more like $5-10 once you add more features) version?

Random feature ideas:

Filtering based on keywords or a tagging system or poster id.

Doing something which tracks your own comments would be nice. i.e. if you
upvote or comment on a story, it somehow marks it in Hacky as well and keeps
tracking.

Also, "show new comments since I last read the article" might be nice.

I guess this might go against the "simple, doesn't need to be logged in"
design philosophy so far.

------
joren
Great little app. Love the duo of Github and the Mac App Store. I also love my
apps straight from the app store.

Maybe something little to add to the app are more key-bindings. I'm used to be
able to open an url from Twitter apps just by using the right arrow. This
would be great to be added to your app. With or without the option to open the
website in the background.

------
randomsearch
Bought it... needs a bit more functionality, but it's a good start!

I'd be fascinated to hear how many downloads you got through the app store and
other sources after this post. i.e. are such 'niche' apps sustainable,
financially? And what percentage of people liked the convenience of the app
store, or wanted to contribute, such that they actually bought the app?

RS

------
lobster_johnson
As a fellow Cocoa dev, may I ask why you're using PXListView? AppKit has a
view-based table view now (since 10.7?) that covers the same feature set.

Moreover, PX has not been maintained since 2011, and there is a bunch of
issues and pull requests that are being ignored. There are some forks that fix
things, but no canonical one.

PS: Nice app, good work!

------
jmotion
This is awesome :)

Would anyone be interested in something like this for Windows? If so I'd be
willing to code it up in Adobe AIR.

~~~
yawgmoth
Sure. As far as I know[1], there are no Hacker News readers for Windows 8
('metro app').

[1] - [http://windows.microsoft.com/en-
US/windows/search#q=hacker+n...](http://windows.microsoft.com/en-
US/windows/search#q=hacker+news)

------
serencial
Great job Elias! Just purchased. It would be great if you can add a "send to
pocket" feature.

------
hnriot
I just don't see the point, it's lacking in basic features and there's nothing
wrong with a browser tab in my opinion. Best if luck, but I try not to replace
perfectly functional web pages with apps.

------
maxpert
You should have kept reader free so that people actually download the app and
keep features like commenting and ranking from app paid. Anywayz great work I
will be sticking to site itself.

------
pknerd
Lovely interface,I am mostly on browser so happy with Chrome Extension.

I wish you all the best and yes, I loved the _license_ you're offering.
Eventually it's gonna help a _developer_ anyway ;)

------
eliaskg
I wanted to say that I'm really overwhelmed by the love you guys are giving
Hacky. I actually thought it would be either ignored completely or bashed to
the ground. ;) You rock!

------
rcruzeiro
I'm going to take a look at the source but I am also buying it from the
AppStore as there is no way that I can convince myself that you don't deserve
$2.99 from me for this app.

Awesome work!

------
ville
Any screenshots of the comment screen? As that is where I spend most of the
time, would be nice to know how it works before making the decision to buy
this.

~~~
srgpqt
No comment screen in the current version ; it opens HN in your web browser
instead.

------
nkohari
Killer work! Major kudos for making it open source and releasing it on the App
Store. I think that's the perfect solution for quality niche apps like yours.

------
alexmic
You can have a beer on me! Just bought. Good work :)

------
jurist
Your app may not be intended to replace the website but it doesn't actually
work. That's the problem with your app; it isn't functional.

------
quarterto
This is great. My 1.274 pence: have the "unread" icons below the list numbers
so the alignment doesn't go all out of whack.

------
hedsht
Is there any kind of a licence model for things like this? (code is up on
github, but on sale at the mac store)

~~~
rgo
There is nothing wrong with selling open source software. On the contrary,
it's rather encouraged by the community:

<http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html>

------
daniel_nakano
I just downloaded Hacky from app store now but the app doesn't work. Are there
any problems for using in Japan.

------
slash-dot
I'd add j/k keyboard shortcuts and the ability to view comments within the
app. Otherwise great work!

------
thejerz
Beautiful app, nice work. But if you're reading hacker news this much, how do
you get anything done?

~~~
eliaskg
Just click "Mark all as read" all the time :D

------
jeffpalmer
Just purchased, nice work! This is a great minimalistic way to scan the
headlines.

------
testuserrrr
Just bought it - greetings from berlin!

I like it!

The possibility to make it horizontally smaller would be nice.

------
starburst1977
Nice work, Elias. I like it.

------
hamxiaoz
It would be better if it could stay on the menubar, like the istat menus.

------
seanconaty
Anyone know a good site to read HN on an iPhone? (Not an app.)

~~~
lukes386
Try <http://ihackernews.com/>

------
jbrooksuk
I'll happily pay for this with "Send to Pocket" included :)

------
jhadi
$2.99 for just links to site? :/

------
idan
Pretty please port this to iOS too. Please.

Please.

Please?

~~~
eliaskg
There already are really great apps for iOS.

If you want a native one, check out <https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/news-
yc/id434787119?mt=8>

If you prefer a web app take a look at <http://hackerwebapp.com>

~~~
ruswick
I would highly recommend against News:yc, if only because of it's meager
integration with read-later services. (Exclusively IP.)

Although it is, from what I've seen, the best client on iOS, it is still
inferior to and more laborious than the web experience.

~~~
rdl
What other read-later services are worth supporting? The built-in Safari thing
seems kind of lame.

~~~
ruswick
Pocket is in far wider use, and thus seems like a natural addition. Pinboard,
although a relatively unknown service, would also be appreciated.

------
cooldeal
What's up with the lack of contrast on the text?

I blame Apple for the trend, although you could tell apart sites and blogs
developed by Mac using developers by that trademark gray on white text.

<http://contrastrebellion.com/>

~~~
NickFitz
You do realise Apple's site is listed as an example of a site with good
contrast on contrastrebellion.com?

