Hacker News Reader for iPad
markfayngersh.com
markfayngersh.com
- Is that Marker Felt for the Y in the icon?!
- The use of modal views bothers me; it doesn't completely hide the splitview column, but, you can't select anything in it anymore as a result.
- The large emphasis on Instapaper makes it feel like the app is a glorified RSS reader meant to funnel you away from the app itself and consume the content elsewhere.
- When you do view a story in-app, its just a UIWebView that opens the HN page; nothing different than using Safari.
- Using a single line on the UILabel that has to be scrolled (instead of sizing it to fit, or just having multiple lines) seems like a hassle to find out the title of the story.
- Why does the full URL of the story matter? Regular HN does fine without it.
As an aside: Why aren't any of the HN iPhone/iPad/* platform apps open source? Seems like a no brainer to let anyone else submit patches. And from first hand experience, open source in the App Store does sell.
Fair enough, removed pricing and will post source code up on github. You made a substantial argument Zev. I was just hoping to make a bit as a fund-raiser for this event in school, but perhaps I'll leave that to some future game :)
Reformat the text to fit the iPad's screen completely.
Doesn't seem like too much of a hassle. Some titles are really long and scaling the size would create very small fonts.
Its not much of a hassle. But, its still a hassle. And an unnecessary one. UILabel has a numberOfLines property. Please use it; the iPad has a nice, big screen.
Does it hurt?
Does it help? Many of the best iPhone and iPad UI's are about removing extraneous content. Just because you can have something on screen doesn't mean that it needs to be on there.
Fair enough, removed pricing and will post source code up on github.
No, no, no! Open source doesn't mean it has to be free! You can be open source and still charge for the application. I work on Mobile Colloquy; our source is available under a BSD license, yet on the App Store for $2.
FWIW, I bought a copy of the app. And I'll be taking a look at the source and have a few (probably small as I'm slightly busy with finals) patches in a fork at some point this weekend, at latest! :)
The sidebar back button is a nice touch. One suggestion I would make though is to do something else with the page curl when clicking the "view" button. It's a nice effect but having the page curl remain visible makes it seem like you can just click the exposed page curl to go back and bring the native app back into view. Sine this doesn't actually do anything it's a bit awkward to keep hitting it instead of remembering to hit the sidebar back button.
For example, it seems silly to have the headlines (the most important info), crammed into the small bar on the left, with the huge space on the right used for displaying one headline and a menu. This is a waste of space.
First, stop sorting the articles list by alphabetical order of title. this sort makes absolutely no sense and makes in next to impossible to find new articles.
Second, have some way of showing which articles have already been read. in iPhone apps vie written in the past I've typically changed the font style in the sidebar article listing. for example, once an article has been "read" change the font color in the sidebar to a "grayed out" style vs the regular black font color.
With the way the current app sorts by alphabetical order plus no way of visually knowing which articles have already been read, it's nearly impossible to use the app well to keep up on new submissions on Hacker News
Another example, to reply to you I had to find your comment in the mysteriously small text, double tap zoom, pinch zoom, reposition, and then I could finally hit the microscopic "reply" link.
It is a persistent itch that the site itself does not address. Some people do things with style sheets or HTML rewriters, some do it with an app. I'd do width sensitive CSS with the media type selectors if it were my site.
But beyond the clicking, I think the reason I like the native HN app on my phone is because it makes better use of the pixels. On the web page there are great swathes of pixels that are not contributing. I'm not as sensitive on the ipad, but paid my $3 because the author promised an iPad upgrade, and HN on a small screen could be $3 better.
This one is nit very good though (I am using it right now).
It doesn't feel very well thought out. Instead of having articles always stay in the list I would rather them disappear after I read them unless I mark it as a favorite or comment on it.
Also, what is this weird back button?
Likely an attempt at copying Instapaper's pagination; see "Pagination tap zones" on http://blog.instapaper.com/post/545408126