
Show HN: Hackernews for Mac - i386
http://whimsyapps.com/hn/
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i386
I wrote Hackernews for Mac. Feel free to ask me questions :)

EDIT: Quick shout out to Grant Paul who built the fantastic newsyc app for iOS
(<http://newsyc.me>) which this is partly based on and inspired from.

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hospadam
I really like the app so far. A few feature ideas - adding a preference to
load the story or comments first. That might fit in a bit better with some
people's workflows of looking at the comments first.

Also - I found myself wanting some "read/unread" feature of the story column.
I'd love to know if I've already seen a story or not.

Keep up the good work. I assume you plan to sell this on the App Store?

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i386
Thank you :)

Seeing the comments first is a popular request so Ill try todo that one soon.

Grant Paul (of the newsyc iOS app) and I were discussing making all the
read/unread state work via iCloud so the iOS and Mac apps sync up nicely but
we haven't agreed on it just yet.

Yes, I am planning to sell this on the AppStore when its in a state I'm happy
with. I'm thinking of making it free and make Readability/Instapaper/etc
functionality an In App Purchace.

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hospadam
I think you're on to something there. I've always thought apps that are
_enhancement experiences_ of websites that are free struggle to stand on their
own. I think a free app supported by in app purchases of features the website
can't match is spot on. Keep up the good work!

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HunterV
Hey, just thought I'd take a sec to thank you for making this free. We're
faced with so many free apps nowadays that we forget all the work that goes
into it to selflessly help the community.

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dylangs1030
My first impression based on theme - good job. Now I'm going to download it.

EDIT: Just downloaded. Looking.

When will you add login sessions?

Will you incorporate no-procast?

Is there any way you can incorporate a notification system to show up in the
upper right hand corner, or even in the side panel on Mountain Lion? I know
some of the mobile apps have thread notifications.

EDIT 2: It would be great if you added poll functionality for the 300+ people.
And buttons for New and Leaderboards, etc. I'm saying all of this because I'd
use this if you made it a full featured app.

I'd _probably_ pay between $0.99 - $2.99 for an app with everything I just
said above. Especially if you could put in different widgets that have been
developed by other people (best time to submit, notifications, stats, etc.)

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i386
Thanks for the feedback! Working on threaded comments, voting, flagging and
sessions now. Not sure when I'll be done by please check back weekly for
updates :)

Never heard of no-procast. Ill check it out. Not sure what todo for the auto-
polling just yet. I can imagine that would be annoying as hell for a lot of
people so I'd make it an optional preference.

Yeah, I was thinking about pricing it around that point. Another thought I've
had here is to offer it for free and have an in app purchase for extras like
instapaper etc.

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annon
None of the pages on your site appear to be scrollable on the desktop? It
looks like you have an overflow:hidden attached to body, which will prevent
anyone from being able to scroll down if their browser is not tall enough.

~~~
i386
That doesn't sound right. What browser are you on? I've tested here on Chrome,
Safari and Firefox (but not IE). I think it looks a bit wonky on iOS but I'm
working on that.

EDIT: Found it. Thanks for the report - should be working better now.

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francispelland
Perhaps not your target market I guess, because it doesn't work for me either.

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recycledair
This is fantastic, I like it. Though, I'd love the option to configure the
stories selected in the left pane to open to comments first rather than the
story. I usually browse HN in this way. It allows me to get peoples' opinion
of the piece before hopping in and investing a bunch of time reading what
might end up as blogspam, etc.

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i386
That sounds easy enough to implement. I wanted to enforce Stories first
because a lot of people on HN don't read the full story before they comment.

Did you try the CMD+1/CMD+2 shortcuts for switching between the Story and
Comments?

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rev087
Some small usability suggestions for your roadmap:

\- When resizing the window, make the left pane width fixed.

\- Limit the resizing of the split panel so neither panel ends up with zero
width.

\- Use the share symbol that mountain lion uses instead of the word share.

\- Restore the window dimensions and position after reopening the app.

\- Highlight the current story selection in the list.

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conradev
To extend the suggestion to use the share symbol, I would also suggest using
icons for the flagging and voting buttons.

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i386
Thanks for the feedback, I just haven't had time to cook up icons yet :)

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george88b
Looks great! I will definitely use it in the future, and would pay for it. One
thing I noticed though is that when you close the window by hitting the red
circle in the top left, the app stays in the icon try but clicking the still
active icon does not reopen the window.

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i386
Thank you! Working on making the window come back when the dock icon is
clicked now :)

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nicksergeant
Awesome :)

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tiger10guy
What's wrong with the browser version?

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dotmanish
Is there a way for me to make it default to view the "Comments" tab of the
story first (instead of trying to load the story from the source)?

I sometimes judge a story by its comments first.

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i386
Someone else suggested this earlier. Its on the roadmap :)

EDIT: just pushed this. Check for updates via the Application menu or by
restarting the app.

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nicksergeant
Bug report: when you close the window of the app and then click the dock icon,
the window never re-appears (you have to quit / re-open).

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i386
Thanks mate. Working on getting a update out that fixes that :)

EDIT: Just rolled out a fix. You can check for Updates in the Application
menu.

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rev087
It's a simple "fix", but this is actually the (silly) default behaviour for
Mac apps. After closing the window you can bring it back from the Window menu
item > Main Window.

~~~
nicksergeant
Ah, thanks!

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nicksergeant
Love it. Obviously lots of work to be done, but I really like the idea of
Hacker News as an app instead of a URL I can open on a whim.

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ggasp
Great! I'd like to have a better interface to read —much like ReadKit or
Reeder.

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jvzr
Looks great! I have no other suggestion -- that was not already posted here
already -- other than handling unread comments.

I use hckrnews.com and its Google Chrome extension to keep track of comments,
and it's insanely great.

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dbyrd
Readability style page cleanup would be a good feature.

~~~
i386
Agreed. I've added that to the TODO list :)

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beshrkayali
Commenting from the app. Great so far!

Thanks :)

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swartz
Works great for me...Thanks

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raphaelcaixeta
This is awesome! Great job.

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lightyoruichi
Dude add Buffer's sharing. Awesome app so far. Loving it.

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pan69
Hmm. Mackersnews...

