How I built a Hacker News mobile web app
cheeaun.com
cheeaun.com
People that lack this expectation replace it with the naive thought that there is a single library out there that can do it all for them, and they spend countless time finding it as opposed to breaking up a problem into smaller pieces and attacking each one.
You've consolidated many interesting techniques here, and it's a valuable resource not only in philosophy, but in general hackery.
Are you planning to flesh out the app more, say to allow users to login, comment, upvote?
Having said that, I still applaud the guy taking the time and ploughing in so much effort into something that he wanted to do. I appreciate the true hacker spirit in striving to create a webapp that looks and feels totally native. Kudos to the OP.
Edit: it scrolls to top if you tap the navbar. The anim is a bit wonky, but it works.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hackernode/id473882597
I pushed an update today which grey out visited links and fixes some bugs for the iPad interface.It should be approved in a day or two.
- The design could use some tweaks. (Poor icons in the home screen, not vertically aligned title bar text, ugly "comments" title bar that scrolls with you, inconsistent orange color (click a link and you see the bottom bar is a different color to the top bar), puke color in the "pull to refresh", has a very non-native feel with the custom list view, awkward arrow that is low res in pull to refresh)
- No comment indentation so everything is difficult to follow in the comments
- No ability to login and comment?
- Awkward click regions on the list view. It should only allow you to press on one or two buttons, but instead I can press on the timestamp, the comments, the title or the background. It should be clearer
It's really quick, though, and that's lovely. Keep at it!
Login and comment will take some time, but I will try and see what I can do about the colors (especially the puke color on the drag refresh header!).
Thanks for the feedback!.Also please do check it out on the iPad.Thats where I have spent a lot of time.
However HackerNode is built on top of another library called three20 which I have forked and I have open sourced my fork at https://github.com/nodemaker/three20
Or am I overlooking something?
To be honest I cant seem to make up my mind on a good user interface for upvoting and commenting on a mobile device.
Except: There does not seem to be a way to post comments or to vote. Is there something I am overlooking?
You've done an interesting thing, pushing CSS3 to replicate the iOS interface. But, why replicate the iOS UI in a web app? Web apps are supposed to be platform-neutral; a native interface shouldn't be part of that, in my opinion. Wouldn't a mobile-friendly stylesheet make more sense?
I tried the app in mobile Firefox, no luck. I tried it mobile Opera, no go. Also, I don't understand why anyone would use Apple's native interface graphics on purpose for a web app. I get why native dev it makes things easier to build than custom icons etc, but on the web, you are not on Apple's leash no more, be free!
https://developer.apple.com/library/safari/#documentation/ap...
> Tapping on links will launch Mobile Safari, which jumps
> out of your standalone app. There's a way to prevent that
> and make it load inside the standalone app, but since the
> toolbar is gone, there's no Back button and you can't go back.
However, if he's just developing for iOS, why not create a new web app in Dashcode?
Conversations between individuals are de-emphasized in exchange for content and a variety of ideas. I think the effect is good.
Not ideal, but it's still better than either remembering to check the discussion itself.
HN is a side project. And what matters most about HN is content, not formatting. So this sort of thing is two steps removed from top priority.
By the way, one of the main reasons I bought an iPad stems from the fact that HN comments were so hard to read on my iPod Touch. And I'm a student who doesn't have a lot of money to buy every latest Apple gadget. So it is pretty important to me. ;-)