
Show HN: Hacker News reader for Android - eduardn
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.eduardn.hnapp
======
eduardn
Some time ago I started to build a simple and clean Hacker News reader for
Android because I find the current solutions kind of messy. I've used
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.premii.hn](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.premii.hn)
for a while, because it was really clean, but the sharing functionality didn't
work as I expected so I started looking for alternatives but ended up building
my own.

It still misses some things (like collapsible comments) but I'm working on
them. Let me know what you think and what would you like to see in a hacker
news reader application.

~~~
s9w
Random feedback:

\- No other way to switch to comments other than triple dot menu?

\- yes, collapsable comments!

\- comments waste a lot of space with whitespace. I like the time formatting
on them though

\- Maybe add an (optional?) domain hint like on HN?

~~~
eduardn
Thanks!

1\. At the time, sharing seemed like a more important action than comments,
but I guess I was wrong. Will switch sharing with comments in a future update
:)

3\. I will work on the comments design in the next update, I too am not
pleased with the current solution.

4\. Do you think that would be helpful? Is there a reason you want a domain
hint?

~~~
cmdrfred
I like domain hints so I know the site isn't behind a paywall etc. Also some
sites will catch my interest more such as krebsonsecurity.com

------
brudgers
I know that there's a market for Hacker News reader apps and I wish you every
success with your launch.

Yet, I can't see why I wouldn't continue to use a general purpose web browser
[Firefox on Android, IE on Windows Phone]. There's no additional permissions.
Forward and Back and favorites and scrolling and all the bits and pieces of HN
just work the same way as on my laptop or desktop. Can someone please
enlighten me?

~~~
paulirish
Side note: I use
[http://cheeaun.github.io/hackerweb/](http://cheeaun.github.io/hackerweb/)
multiple times a day and love it.

But as to the bigger issue here:

The maintainer of Hacker News website appears to be obstinate when provided
suggestions, help and development time: [links] The current status is the
developer has applied a viewport to a table-based layout and saw that it
failed. This table-based layout has been in place since 2007, and I don't
believe there have been any efforts by the owners to update it.

I, and many others from the community, have volunteered code and time to
upgrade the website but these contributions have been rejected by kogir.

[links]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7330107](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7330107)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7985687](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7985687)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9480325](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9480325)

[https://github.com/HackerNews/HN](https://github.com/HackerNews/HN) used to
be open for reporting issues, but it has been deleted.

~~~
danieltillett
Does anyone know why this is? It seems to be almost the opposite of the whole
HN community approach.

~~~
markdown
The dev is pulling a Gruber. (Ref: refusing to update or handoff Markdown to
volunteers)

~~~
danieltillett
I am more interested in the why? There must be a reason other than ego.

------
pmontra
I can see 10 posts at once on my 4" phone on the HN home page, only 6 in the
app. This is a cons for the app. The number of lines of comments is about the
same, but a little more in the browser.

As a browser I suggest Opera because it reflows text after the double tap for
zooming in (Android, no idea if it's available for iOS and/or it has the same
feature there). It's a really nice feature on most sites, much more on HN.
Given how good HN is on Opera (I mean it) I don't think I'll use the app,
still it looks good. The image previews are a nice idea.

------
ryandetzel
Where is the open in an external browser feature? Why don't developers do
this, it's so frustrating and I end up having to email my self the link and
the open it up.

~~~
barbs
The app I use has this feature. It's a little bit hidden (you have to long-
press on a story) but it's there.

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.manuelmaly...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.manuelmaly.hn)

On that note, what does the OP app offer that this app doesn't, apart from an
up-to-date design? It seems to have far less functionality (you can't even log
in to upvote stories/comments).

------
morsch
I've been using HN reader apps[0] daily for a long time now, so I thought I'd
pitch in. I wouldn't use an app if the HN comments experience on mobile wasn't
pure agony.

— Consequently the comments are the central requirement, they need to work
well and should be conveniently reachable.

— Being able to share the HN story (ie. using the Android share function) is
important to me; I sometimes prefer just the URL and sometimes appreciate
title+URL combination, having the choice would be nice.

— The ability to share an individual comment (by URL) would be huge.

— Mobile connections are fickle, when the connection fails because I'm in a
subway, I'd like a big "retry" button or something to that end.

— I'm happy with my browser and I need a convenient way to open the article in
it. I don't care if there's an article reader built-in just as long as I can
completely ignore it.

— Early on I tried logging in with some reader apps, back then it did not work
and I haven't tried in a while; I write comments so rarely on mobile that I'm
happy to fall back to the browser to do it.

— Open sourcing a HN reader app seems like an obvious choice.

[0] This one, currently, it's adequate:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rickylaish...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rickylaishram.hackernews)

------
skypanther
I've been using your HN reader for a couple of months. I've tried about a
dozen different readers and yours is probably the best one out there. Thanks
for a great app!

If you're looking for input, look to the store comments. The number one
comment is also my biggest complaint -- I want an option to open links in my
external browser not your (limited) integrated browser. At minimum, improve
CSS handling in the integrated browser .. support at least bold and italic
text. Photo captions, quotes, etc. end up indistinguishable from article
content because everything is rendered in the same style.

A smaller, though annoying issue is that waking the app from the background
restarts it. Say I'm reading an article, get a call or otherwise background
the app with that article still open. If I try to come back to it more than a
few seconds later, the app restarts and I'm back to the article list.

And a minor bug, I've selected the blue theme. When the app starts, it shows
the UI in orange (default) for a moment then switches to blue.

BTW, in your intro here you say the app is missing collapsible comments, but
they are in the app and even in your screenshots on the store. This is a great
feature and one I use regularly.

If you add the external browser option and fix the wake-from-background issue,
I'd happily pay a buck or two for the app (or a pro version).

~~~
eduardn
I am pretty sure you did not read the intro carefully :)

The app posted there is not mine, it's one that I've used but wasn't good for
me anymore so I decided to build my own.

------
hrbrtglm
Sorry for the off topic as I think I will comment on the OS rather than the
app. I don't own any Android device, so maybe it seems all natural once you
use one but the UX is so strange.

I can grasp the meaning of some icons, a cross for closing, an arrow to go
back or forward, but the ones sitting on the lower taskbar ??? What the hell
could be the meaning of a triangle, a circle and a square ?

~~~
csandreasen
Those UX elements are actually part of the OS and appear in every app. The
triangle is "back", the circle is "home" (essentially the same thing as the
circle button on iOS), and the square button opens the list of recent apps.

~~~
hrbrtglm
Thanks for the explanation.

May I ask a few questions : \- what the "Back" triangle is for when there is a
back arrow on the top left of the app, doest it perform the same action ? \-
As the "circle" is home, I guess there is no way to hide this taskbar as you
could not go back to home screen, right ?

~~~
eduardn
There is a difference between them, actually. The one at the top is "up" and
the one at the bottom is "back".

For example if you have a list of items and you click on one, then on that
item you have related items and you click on one, the up button will take you
to list where as the back button will take you to the previous item.

And you're right, you can not hide the taskbar.

You can find more information here:
[http://developer.android.com/design/patterns/navigation.html](http://developer.android.com/design/patterns/navigation.html)

~~~
hrbrtglm
I got it now.

I followed the link you provided and it seems the previous android version had
different taskbar icons, which I found a bit easier to understand.

Still, Android and iOS do not help much with discoverability in my opinion,
and the newest the version, the worst it is. What's next, heptagon for sending
email and decagon for contacts ? I feel so old :(

------
Splendor
Nice work. My suggestion would be to add a screenshot of the comments.

I spend most of my time on HN reading comments so I'd like to be able to
preview how your app handles them before I install the app. I'd like to be
able to see at a glance whether you support expanding and collapsing nested
comments, how you display the nesting, etc.

~~~
eduardn
There is a screenshot with comments (last picture), but thanks for the
feedback :)

~~~
Lukeas14
The way threading works in any app that displays comments has a huge affect on
how much I'm going to enjoy using it. So I personally would prefer to see a
comment screenshot that shows how threading works in the app. The current
screenshot only shows a single comment.

------
nicois
Long press on an article should bring up options such as 'mark read to here'
and 'mark read to bottom' and probably some sort of starring feature, similar
to RSS readers. I other to do a first pass to triage the entries and then deep
dive when I have more time.

------
samlewis
Looks good, but would be great if it was possible to have a share button for
the comments pages too.

Are you going to open source this? Would be keen to help out if so.

------
Mandatum
I'm a big fan of "One", however it's "reader" for some of the supported news
sources is atrocious (ala Reddit).

------
m52go
Side question: is there a responsive version of the HN homepage? I thought I
saw it posted here a couple of months ago.

~~~
barbs
Was it this?

[http://hckrnews.com/](http://hckrnews.com/)

------
salehk
I love it! Awesome work dude :)

------
yitchelle
Nice touch that the stories in your screenshot are from the last few days.

------
SuperKlaus
Took almost a minute for me to load.

------
dmritard96
nice work. now if you could just also clone google reader :p

------
abimaelmartell
*yet another

~~~
abawany
Indeed - f-droid (f-droid.org - open-source builds for Android) has a couple
from what I can tell. I use this one:
[https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdfilter=hn&fdid=com....](https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdfilter=hn&fdid=com.manuelmaly.hn)

