Give HN: Free project/startup idea. Please make this. | Hacker News Reader

Give HN: Free project/startup idea. Please make this.

madebyloren.com

16 pointsguynamedloren28 comments

Google Reader doesn't seem ugly to me. It does what it's supposed to: let me read feeds without too much clutter. I'd get rid of a bit of junk, but it basically does what it's supposed to, and does it in the real world, when there are times I only want to read certain feeds, when I want to mark stuff as read, and so on and so forth, and so need various buttons and settings.

I agree. I love the Google Reader UI, which is simple, easy to use, and has keyboard shortcuts.

The only thing I'd like changed is to have "j" take you onto the next item even if said item is in a different feed.

For that I press [Space], it changes to the next feed (or folder). If the article is open (and too long) just press [Enter] and then [Space] will have that effect.

When the next one is a folder (i dont usually read by folders) you can use Shift+N (next feed) and Shift+O (Open feed).

Now that I think about it, shortcuts in Reader and Gmail are extremely useful.

Yeah - it's shifting folders that's the problem - I wish that "j" would take me to the next item, even in other folders, rather than having to switch to using shift-n,shift-o.

Exactly, the Google Reader does its job pretty well and the most important thing is that if I read something at work, I don't have to skip the same post at home. Google Reader and native clients that integrates to it like Reeder are fantastic.

Yes, RSS readers need some innovation, but No, the UI in that article isn't the answer. It's pretty horrid (1).

I would hope the new generation of RSS readers would rethink some stuff. And be social, not added-on-later-social like Google Reader.

Something like this? http://poorbuthappy.com/ease/archives/2010/09/10/4765/time-f...

(1) I use the words pretty and horrid together on purpose here.

Actually I like requests like this (and this one in particular). There's probably a rather large crowd around that follows the 'learning new things makes you smarter' mantra and this is a very neat (small in scope, design already ~done~) idea to (ab)use it as a 'learn yourself some X' project.

I know that I'll brush up my nearly non-existant node.js/jquery skills by creating this, even if it ends up in the bin.

I don't like the design. It wastes precious space for nothing. Helvetireader is nice though: http://helvetireader.com/ or Fever: http://feedafever.com/

Okay, Helvetireader wins hands down. Best I've seen, and it's slapped directly onto Google Reader so that's always a good thing. Where were all these good alternatives when I asked HN last time?

For Safari there's a great extension that reskins Google Reader and reclaims some wasted screen real estate:

http://mariusth.channelwood.org/SafariExtensions/

In use: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2282834/SafariReaderExtension.png

Well I guess HN sees too many submissions, and rather often posts get lost.

I think as the author, i have been looking for a long time for a magazine/bookmarks like page to use as home/newtab page and i can never settle because there is no great answer.

Anyway, I dont think his proposal is the solution, but its probably the way to go.

If anyone knows alternatives would be great to try them out

I'll tell you why most iPad apps surpass web apps in both usability and design: they're easier to make and it's easier to make money off of them.

Honest question: are they really easier to make?

I know almost nil about iPad apps. The only thing I know is that they might be coded in Objective-C... which I know nothing about. But I do know about Rails, and I know it's dead simple once you get the hang of it. It took me about 3 or 4 months to get the hang of with no real prior programming experience, and now I could definitely code an app like this in a weekend. That seems pretty damn easy to me.

> it's easier to make money off of them

well, you've got me there :)

Although it may sound unintuitive since Objective-C is indeed a bit more cumbersome vs. your average web stack: yes. I do think it is easier in a way to design/develop apps with a great UI on iOS devices.

The point is not Objective-C, but 1) Cocoa Touch comes with a very well though out UI library that you can use/subclass, and it comes with very specific interface guidelines. I think Apple did a terrific job here. Realize that not all touch devices have great interfaces (some BlackBerry apps for example). It's the iOS apps that tend to be very well designed. 2) A touch interface in general allows different UI elements to just 'work better'. Scrolling a tableview or swiping a carousel window (vs. clicking 'next page' on a website) is a more logical choice on the iPad/iPhone than on a Desktop where you interface with a mouse and keyboard.

I know almost nil about iPad apps. The only thing I know is that they might be coded in Objective-C.

I have to say that for fast iteration and explorative development, Ruby has it over Objective-C. I say this even though I very much like Objective-C and the iOS SDK.

Objective-C is like C++, but with a (IMO) better attempt to bolt the late-binding goodness of Smalltalk as the Object Oriented part, instead of the more complicated machinery of C++. The iOS SDK is like the best of Object Oriented Design from the early 90's, powered by an elegant message passing infrastructure, allowing clean implementations of patterns. Unfortunately, there is still a lot of stiffness from its statically typed roots. Iterative development is slower than for a dynamic language. It's very good, and I think XCode is a top-notch IDE. I even have an SSD for the purpose of making the Edit-Compile-Debug cycle as fast as possible. Despite this, investigating runtime behavior is still 2 to 3 times slower than in a dynamic language, refactoring is more work because there is more syntax and more repetition of entity names in different files, and there is more need to know how everything is laid out up front.

I'm facing this situation right now with converting my little calendar app to use a paged UIScrollView. You have to know a lot of how the UIScrollView works up front. I was able to get it to do the "Page Transitions" from month to month just by changing the data underlying my view. Now that I want to switch between different calendars with a sideways swipe, I have to create multiple views to do that, which involves yet more data refactoring. I had already refactored to support an array of multiple calendar objects in my view. Now I need to have multiple views with one calendar each. In a dynamic environment, I would be done already even without knowing this up front.

> it's easier to make money off of them

Look at the history of technology. This almost always trumps the more elegant technology. An ecosystem which rewards developers with money or some other satisfaction results in a virtuous cycle which results in more value created for the technology, which in turn makes it easier to create even more value and get rewarded.

EDIT: Another example. Look at the code it takes to increment a Date by 1 month. That is, I want to go from day N of month M to day N of month (M+1). It seems simple, but there's a bit going on there. In Ruby, this is one statement. In Objective-C with the iOS SDK, this involves three objects. To be fair, the iOS version is more powerful and flexible, which will let your code run correctly, even if you do something far-out like suddenly switch to a lunar calendar. 99%+ of developers won't ever benefit from that.

Honest question: are they really easier to make?

I was using some hyperbole to get a discussion going, but unfortunately this item has dropped off the homepage.

What I meant: Making a basic prototype for a GUI app is perhaps easier in the browser, but IMHO the whole road[1] to a finished application is easier for an iOS app.

[1] front-end, back-end, payments, distribution, multiple browsers / OS problems

Are you really a guy whose name is Loren?

Sorry; had to ask.

Yes, really. =]

If I were you, I'd be amused.

On one hand, I'd think about changing my name. On the other hand, you turned it into a strength, which is really awesome. (Username "guynamedloren"; website screams "Made by Loren"; etc. It gets you noticed, thus turning a "weakness" into a strength.)

What's his weakness? I'm not following.

The (American?) public school system. The fact that most people are shallow. His parents. Take your pick.

Admittedly, childhood was tough. I never really felt like I fit in and I'm sure my stupid girl name was a big part of it. When I was 16 I had really long hair and I was even confused for a girl on several different occasions.

But I've embraced the uniqueness. I've never once considered changing my name, even when I was younger and was made fun of daily. To make things worse, my sister's name is Brett (well really it's Brett-Ashley, but she goes by Brett) - which is most commonly a guys name.

Now I'm 22 and the jokes still come every so often, but I brush them off without thinking twice. I've built up a pretty strong sense of self over the years. Introductions are kind of funny, though... usually they go something like this:

- "Hi, I'm Loren" - "Warren?" - "No. Loren. Like the girl. But I'm a guy."

.. and the ice breaks :)

Did you ever ask your parents why they named you and your sister like that?

Yep. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sun_Also_Rises

Nice design. Well thought out. Although in the image provided, too much screen real estate is taken taken away from the actual RSS content, in my opinion.

Just not sure what the benefit is for the developer.

Thanks! Yeah, you're right about the real estate. I was tired and rushed when I threw the design together (quite the whirlwind of a week/weekend!). RSS could use a whole lot more space, with significantly smaller bookmarks at the top. It's just a concept mockup :)

> Just not sure what the benefit is for the developer.

Enhanced skillset, of course. The best kind of benefits.

http://www.shouldiworkforfree.com/clean.html

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