

Show HN: Nuesbyte v2 - rbrcurtis
http://nuesbyte.com?

======
rbrcurtis
A month or so ago 7hundredand77 posted nuesbyte here, and many of you liked it
but it had some significant problems. I offered to help him with it, and today
we'd like to show it to you all again.

Since then we've rewritten the entire thing in client side js with a nodejs
REST API backend, added google reader imports, kb shortcuts, ssl, and a whole
bunch of other features.

Let us know what you think of the updated site.

Here's the original post: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5471928>

Thanks, Ryan

~~~
hamburglar
At first glance, it looks great. UI is slightly confusing at first, but
nothing I can't get past. Most importantly, it has the primary feature I want
in a reader: I can open it up on my phone and read articles in slap-spacebar-
to-continue mode until I fall asleep. One-finger operation FTW. Haven't seen
this from anyone besides Google Reader yet. Also love the vi-style keyboard
nav (j/k for next/prev).

One slight complaint: on the desktop, I'd kill the article-expanding animation
for navigating through a feed. Instead of a nice clean i'm-scrolling-through-
articles feeling, you get this weird jittery i'm-scrolling-through-articles-
that-are-expanding-and-collapsing thing where the unexpanded portion of the
feed below your current article dances up and down. Even on a feed like HN
where the expansion/contraction is fairly minimal (or perhaps particularly on
a feed like that), the list ends up doing this strange up-and-down convulsion
that's very unpolished-looking and distracting.

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ruswick
I vehemently dislike how they don't inform you that this is a paid service
until after you've signed up. I signed up, but was unwilling to pay for the
service (it doesn't seem novel enough to warrant use over like HN and Feedly,
which constitute the bulk of my reading; and also I have no money).

Due to their disingenuousness, they have my email despite the fact that this
is a product which I have no intention of using.

Transparency is important, and this sort of obfuscatory bullshit is not ok.
Tell people what the product is before taking their information.

~~~
hamburglar
This is a paid site? I've signed up for it and it seems great, but so far I
haven't seen any indication that there is anything to pay for.

~~~
asperous
I think it was free, and then it became paid, and now it's free again.

Freemium might be better. Or suggested article advertizement on the right?
They pretty much do that already.

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shared4you
Some bugs & gotchas for me:

* Select Layout -> Small. But it is not remembered across all feeds. I have to change it for each.

* Click RSS on menu bar. Then under "My Feeds", click the '+' icon on one of the feeds. Doesn't do anything.

* Select one of the feeds, say "Digg Top Stories". Select Layout -> Small. Now why is that text in orange (Digg Top Stories) shown below title of _every_ feed? I already know that from the top menu bar. Similarly, the time "10 hours ago". I would prefer to hide these two things until I expand the article. It feels like too much text-noise. Just let me glance the headlines in one line.

* How can I move feeds to a different folder? Drag-n-drop doesn't seem to work.

* The UI is mobile-unfriendly. Open the site on Firefox for mobile and just pinch-zoom to see what happens.

That said, sincere thanks for all the effort you guys have put in!

~~~
rbrcurtis
sorry, let me respond to your points item by item.

layout will save if you create an account.

I guess we overlooked the + icon. Create an account, goto "RSS" and you can
select groups and then select feeds to go into each group just by selecting
feeds.

Point 3 is great. The small layout doesnt need that feed link on every item.

to move a feed into a folder, goto RSS, select or create the folder, then
select the feed. Or, assuming you've created an account, click on the feed on
the left bar, then hover over options in the header, groups, and select the
group or create a new one.

We're away that its mobile unfriendly; creating a mobile site is our next
initiative.

~~~
rayk
You might want to display some kind of prompt to the user, when they change a
setting, to tell them they should create an account. Probably would also help
your conversion rates too.

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lmgftp
The quick add feed functionality is annoying because it requires that my
cursor stay in the box horizontally until I hit "Add Feed" after the "Add Feed
url" textbox pops up. So I have to play maze to get there. (I don't mind, just
pointing this out).

Also the "add feed" button in "discover" and "my feeds" doesn't seem to like
me, I click it and nothing happens. However the "quick add" bar up top does
(with the maze caveat, see prev. paragraph).

Edited to Add: Also does it not play nice with some FeedBurner RSS? I am
attempting to add (I made an account, this seems nice guys!)
"<http://feeds.feedburner.com/schneier/fulltext>, but it won't take it.

~~~
rbrcurtis
good feedback, thank you. I'll look into the feedburner issue. We're using the
feender library in nodejs which doesnt seem to recognize that as a valid feed,
but clearly it is...

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rtpg
I needed a replacement for GR and this one is nice. subscribed for now (you
have my $2).

You need to give me an option to scroll down automatically when I press
(n)ext, instead of sliding. It's frustrating because I have a lot of things to
read and I don't need to wait around for it to slide down.

EDIT: Maybe a good idea to add an inline "report bug" feature. You guys have a
lot of squirmy things happening on your page and I would be more inclined to
list them directly.

~~~
7hundredand77
we can definitely get that sorted out for you!

------
7hundredand77
The guest account is quite basic. To see/test all features, I would highly
recommend creating a trail account:

* Arrange by new / arrange by old

* View all items / view only unseen items

* Quick add feeds

* Create feed groups, discover feeds

* Like/visited tracking

* Remembered layout settings

* Google Reader Import

Hotkeys include:

* O: Open

* J: Next

* K: Previous

* U: Wide Layout

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zoran
Great. I was checking nuesbyte regularly for changes and now, i can finally
import my gr feeds. Since google announced the shutdown, this looked like the
only alternative to me. I'm excited how the reading flow will be and i hope i
will not have to code further on my own bash rss backend fetcher + php
frontend (which btw works :D)

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incision
Very nice, very clean. I like it a lot.

Could use a mobile site though, pretty problematic via Chrome on Android 4.2.2

I immediately noticed that it positively snaps - instantly responsive. I'd
love to read something about what all is going on behind the scenes.

~~~
rbrcurtis
I'll write up an article on the backend in a few days. I put a lot of thought
and time into making it as fast as possible.

We're working on a mobile site and app. Both should be out in a few weeks.

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MWil
So now that you have my email you want money?

How about you make that more clear, eh...

~~~
rbrcurtis
Yeah, sorry about that. We've gotten some feedback that we need to make the
subscription model more clear up front. Please do check out the full set of
features though.

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superchink
Are there any plans to reach out to any app developers (e.g., Reeder) to work
out an integration? I think that's a pretty key requirement: solid integration
with high quality cross platform feed reading applications.

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Acen
<http://hostr.co/file/Yw8IN8koio5t/01.png>

What am I doing wrong?

~~~
7hundredand77
Not sure, I added reddit.com/r/livesound and it seemed to work. I will look
into why the direct path doesn't capture.

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codyps
Is there a way to export my feeds should this service ever go the way of
google reader (or I decide I want to use a different one)?

~~~
rbrcurtis
if this service ever goes the way of google reader, I promise you I will
create a way to export your feeds. :)

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marcalc
It's the simplest, yet it's a powerful candidate for my Google Reader
migration IMO. :)

~~~
rbrcurtis
Glad to hear it! We're definitely open to suggestions if you have any.

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StavrosK
The name makes me OCD so hard.

~~~
shurane
i'm missing it.

~~~
StavrosK
The "nues", it just looks so wrong in English.

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Acen
How do you remove a feed from the listing?

~~~
rbrcurtis
register a new account and you'll be able to customize your feeds from an
options dropdown on the header.

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hamburglar
You really need some basic landing pages that give people the impression that
this is a legitimate service. I forwarded info to a feed provider that's
blocking your feed requests (they're a bit aggressive about abuse and want to
whitelist), and I'm sure the webmaster's next step is going to be to look at
your homepage, decide there's no way to contact you, shrug, and write you off.

This is very unfortunate, because I think nuesbyte is the best GR substitute
I've seen yet (for my desired feature set). There is just no information about
whether anything is happening with the site, who made it, future plans,
status, or anything. Each time I go looking for information I wonder if the
project has simply been abandoned.

