

Show HN: My first Android app - Hacker News reader - mikeevans
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.evans.hackernews

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LVB
Good start, though the feature I've found essential in this type of
application is being able to share an article via a long press on the main
page. I send dozens of articles to Pocket every day that way.

~~~
incision
>I send dozens of articles to Pocket every day that way.

Exactly.

A HN app with a "share to pocket" (configurable for other share targets of
course) one-tap link on articles would be my new main app over night.

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veeti
Two problems with rotation:

1) The article list scrolling position is reset.

2) On my Nexus 7, going from landscape to portrait while viewing comments
closes the comments.

~~~
RossM
Rotation issues are usually to do with the activity being recreated (i.e.
onCreate is called again) as the screen size has changed. There is a config to
disable this however:
[http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/resources/runtime-...](http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/resources/runtime-
changes.html)

~~~
veeti
If you mean configChanges, I would strongly recommend against it because it is
a bad practice and it probably wouldn't work in this case anyway (no activity
recreation = no multi-panel layout on a 7-inch landscape screen).

~~~
RossM
Ah, sorry I haven't done Android dev in a while; would a better way be yock's
onSaveInstanceState/onRestoreInstanceState then?

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veeti
Yes, something like that in combination with carrying over the existing list
data with an retained fragment.

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BrokenPipe
Why does it need permission to read my identify? Sorry, uninstalled.

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mikeevans
Do you mean Read phone state or Access network state? Those are for the Ads
and Analytics.

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BrokenPipe
It requires two permissions:

-Phone calls Read phone status and identity

-Network communication Full network access

I can understand the latter, in particular if in android you can't specify
exactly what hosts you need to access but the former I can't understand, or
better, I can't stand. I do not want to give every app my identity, not for
ads, not for money.

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astoltzf
The app looks excellent; the best design for an Android HN app I have seen to
date. Unlike others, I haven't experienced any crashing issues.

I only have one small piece of input: A night-mode (white on black) for the
main menu and comments would be an excellent addition.

~~~
vibragiel
+1 to the "night mode", which is very relevant to users with AMOLED screens.

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eonwe
Quick impressions:

Smoother scrolling of comments than in most of the Hacker News readers for
Android that I've tried. I actually wonder why scrolling is so bad in most of
the Android applications? Is it because of the misuse of the ListView or what?

Could perhaps show some indication when changing between front page, ask, etc.
Currently selecting another view does nothing until the results are loaded and
then the page changes instantly underneath.

Crashed after a few minutes of use when pressing the key for registration (I
submitted the crash report).

Seems like a good start, the ads are quite irritating though :).

~~~
mikeevans
I'm not sure why scrolling tends to be bad in some applications. Perhaps they
aren't recycling views properly or something.

I'm working on adding that indicator, as well as logging in/replying.

I wasn't sure if I should even use ads, but I could take them out. And thanks
for the crash report!

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bjonathan
Very nice ! The app crash when i want to login or "remove the ads" (android
4.2.1 / Galaxy Nexus GSM)

I am currently using this one :
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.glebpopov....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.glebpopov.hackernews)
but yours is good enough to consider a switch :)

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benregn
Nice app! If you are going to keep the ads (I'd rather pay something like $1),
please show them on the frontpage compared to when I'm reading the article.
Also it would be nice if it would not reload the frontpage every time I come
back from reading an article.

~~~
mikeevans
You can remove the ads with an in-app purchase (although it looks like that
part is crashing for some people) because I didn't want to have a Free/Pro
app. Thanks for the feedback though!

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miloco
Awesome, works really nicely on my Nexus 4. I'll definitely be using it from
now on. The comment view looks a lot like my 'Reddit Now' app so that's
probably why I like it so much! The transition between comments and the
article is a nice touch too. 5* from me.

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tubbzor
Is the source code available on github by chance? I've recently started
delving into android and would love to study/contribute to this app if
possible.

Regardless, really an excellent job overall with it.

~~~
mikeevans
No, at least not yet. Thanks though, it's good to finally get something out
there!

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thiderman
Looks very nice; way better than most of the other HN apps I've tried (and
I've probably tried all of them by now).

Unless something stops working, you'll have a purchase from me pretty soon!
Good job!

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rodolphoarruda
There is a box in the page which says: "This app is not compatible with your
Samsung GT-S5830C." I wonder why it isn't. I didn't know there were version
specific Android apps.

~~~
mikeevans
It's not specifically targeting your device, it's Android 4.0+ only right now.
Android 2.X support is coming soon.

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so898
Great App!! However, I still like my iOS application Hacker Pulse... BTW, this
is really the best hacker news application I have ever used on my XT535.

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agscala
This looks awesome, but I'm sad that it requires android 4.x. I blame the
phone manufacturer/carrier for never updating my phone (still stuck on 2.3)

~~~
mikeevans
Part of the next release should be backporting it for 2.X, I just wanted to
get something out and gather feedback. I didn't forget you!

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KJBweb
Great app!

Managed to make it crash though sent a report through to help you debug it.

Good work though, well done :)

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seanponeil
Great app! An indicator when refreshing would be nice, but overall this is
definitely the best HN reader out there.

~~~
mikeevans
Thanks! A loading indicator is definitely on my to-do list.

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pspeter3
If I pay to remove adds from my phone, will they be removed from my tablet and
all future installs?

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mikeevans
Yep. The purchase is tied to your Google account.

~~~
pspeter3
Awesome thanks

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jpgunter
I like the app, but shouldn't the default view of an article be the article,
not the comments?

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jvandyke
That's awesome, Mike. Well done!

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dikanggu
Great App! How much time did you spend on writing the app?

~~~
mikeevans
Thanks! I spent a few weeks on it. It's my goal in 2013 to actually finish
projects that I start :)

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gkumartvm
Good App. Are you planning to make the app open source ?

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pjmlp
Great work.

Sadly I am still on 2.2 :(

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ancanta
seems nice, too bad I don't have 4.0+ to check it.

One question : How web scraping is done ?

