Show HN: We built a popular plugin-based social app using HTML5 | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: We built a popular plugin-based social app using HTML5

happening.im

49 pointssssparkkk17 comments

Hi HN, one of the app’s creators here. We wanted to show you guys Happening - an app that makes damn sure you have fun with your group of friends :)

Interesting to you guys should be that it’s a hybrid app that uses HTML5 for almost everything. Our users don’t seem to mind: it’s been downloaded almost a million times already in our (tiny!) country the Netherlands.

We’d really appreciate your feedback: please join the special ‘HNers’ group by visiting https://happening.im/t/ARHMUENYF - or take a crack at developing your own plugin on https://platform.happening.im . Thanks!

It would be nice to have a public group that I could try out without having to sign up. I wanted to checkout the HN group but I don't want to go through the hassle of signing up.

We wouldn't have a way of reaching you to tell you about things that happened in the group. Also, it would result in a lot of anonymous users joining the HN-group. Or would you be fine with us just asking for your name?

I like the concept a lot. I feel like it needs a bit more polish but I can't put my finger on what it is. Maybe there is too much color or the interface is too busy. Try adding some padding.

Yeah it's a busy app for sure; lots of things to do (did you take a look at the plugin store?) and discover - and I agree: some of it could use some more love with regard to design.

We wanted a playful look for the app, hence its colorfulness. Maybe we took it a little too far?

I think the 'too far' is simply the sample image you are using for 'Besties'. Five friends laying on the ground covered in colorful paint and making silly faces says "we are having an extremely fun time at this event" but doesn't make me think "I feel like playing games on my phone" ... it makes me think "I want to go outside and enjoy real life".

If you used a much more toned-down image of some friends having fun together, maybe simply holding their phones by their sides and laughing at something, it would make me feel more at ease that this app knows its place in my world.

"did you take a look at the plugin store?"

There is no link to any plugin store from your website.

The plugin store can currently only be viewed from within the app.

Cool to see howmuch you guys have grown. I'm from Belgium and it became a mini hype here ~1.5y ago. What's your current DAU nowadays? And do you run any underlying framework?

I really like your document explaining when and when not to develop apps for happening: https://platform.happening.im/docs/introduction.html#when-to...

Nicely animated "Loading...".

( Firefox user here, with messages like "The Application Cache API (AppCache) is deprecated and will be removed at a future date. Please consider using ServiceWorker for offline support." in the console when trying to load the site. Chrome is fine. )

We have primarily focused on our iOS/Android apps. That's where 99% of our funnel takes place.

Because everything was already built with HTML5 (or actually: WebKit's HTML5), we got Chrome/Safari support almost for free and that's why the web version exists.

Getting firefox and IE to behave is something that still needs some attention. Thanks for trying out!

This is really interesting. It actually reminds me a lot of the chinese messaging app weChat.

Accidentally, weChat announced their app platform yesterday, which allows developers to develop apps run inside weChat messenger.

Cool to see you're still at it!

I think I wrote one of the few first real third party plugins when this was hot in Holland last year.

HTML5 for the frontend, right? Backend?

Happening Plugins use Javascript (or Coffeescript compiled to Javascript) for backend logic with simple APIs for Push notifications/HTTP calls/Timers/group management (see for instance https://platform.happening.im/docs/server-app.html#app-data, or the server.coffee code on the platform page). This server-side javascript runs in custom V8 instances and calls out to the core Happening backend (which is implemented in PHP/Go/C++).

Wonderful concise description of your tech stack. Thanks for sharing! Love it when people actually describe this on HN

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