Show HN: I Designed this HN Mac App – Should I develop it? | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: I Designed this HN Mac App – Should I develop it?

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I don't have a strong opinion on whether you should build it or not (I have a Mac but won't use it, which has almost nothing to do with whether it's a good idea or not), but here's some other admittedly unsolicited advice (and of course I recognize that you may know all of this already):

Remember that most people who think it's a bad idea won't respond, and people who do respond are doing so because they're interested, or think they are. So there's some bias to account for. And secondly people who say they want something can't really be trusted; it costs nothing to upvote you and people are really quick to say "yes, I'd buy/use that" and though they certainly mean it at the time, it's very often turns out to be untrue when it's actually time to download and install it.

Of course, it might work anyway; I'm just saying that I doubt that asking HN whether you should code it is a good predictor.

Thanks for the advice. I follow what you are saying.

Reason I'm doing this is, that I come up with a lot of projects and it's hard to know which of them people will actually like.

I'm putting out a feeler here, to see wether people are even interested. It seems so :-).

Holger, your design has the same issue as every other HN app - it trades condensed view for spacing and typography. The brilliance of HN's native design is an ability to see 20-30 stories per screenful. This is a must have. Otherwise it turns into Designer News [1] :)

Secondly, an app that is merely an alternative view of HN webpage is not terribly interesting. It should really offer something else. For example, an ability to track/follow other users, ability to pick up stories from /new page that might of an interest to me, track my account stats, track replies to my comments and submissions, etc.

If you are going to sink your time in this project, make damn sure there'll be (paid) downloads at the end of the road.

[1] https://news.layervault.com

Thanks for the constructive criticism... always very welcome :-).

This is not a finished version of the design either. I've been fiddling with it the last 2 days to see if people would be interested.

Sounds like great inputs. Love the idea of tracking replies (why doesn't HN already do that?) and following users.

I find it kind of amusing that Hacker News is better designed than Designer News.

I'd argue that "better designed" is subjective here. Hacker News is optimised for high content density. Designer News has lower content density, but there's more space between posts (and visual signposts in the form of "badges") which makes the front-page easier to scan. I appreciate both approaches.

While "better designed" is definitely subjective, I find that HN reads easier and is more visually appealing. Personally, HN feels superior on an aesthetic as well as functional level - many of DN's design techniques feel kind of cliched or tacky.

So does anyone happen to have an invite code for designer news?

If you do, please make it configurable to be a normal app as well as a menu bar app. I don't like menu bar apps that do not actually need to display some sort of persistent notification or control, and there may be others who feel the same way.

Also, we generally shy from "yes" and "love it" type replies here; you can probably assume that 1 upvote = 1 yes.

Thanks for the input. I'll definitely consider that. Shouldn't be too hard.

There is a ready component (http://www.cocoacontrols.com/platforms/mac-os-x/controls/obm...) that you can use to create a menu bar application which can be dragged out to be a regular window. Just remember to keep states and stuff.

> you can probably assume that 1 upvote = 1 yes

I upvoted the post, but I wouldn't use this if it was built.

I wouldn't use it because I prefer to interact the web with my web browser, which is always open, already on my desktop, and I enjoy polling HN to refresh it. Tab-management feels different to me than window-management, and I like my current way of organizing HN content from within my browser.

That said, I think it's a very cool design demo, and I think the author deserves feedback from HN.

I wouldn't use an alternative HN story reader on OS X. I like the cramped web interface too much.

However I do like (and make![1]) passive alert menubar apps. Make one of those for HN and I would use it (and submit pull requests). Alert for new thread replies, karma, etc.

[1] Shameless plug for Reddit Notifier, on the Mac App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/reddit-notifier-mac-os-x-men...

Nice one. I'll definitely look into that. Thanks for the tip.

In fact, if you want to do the icons/design and find an acceptable HN API, I could get it working with the Reddit Notifier source pretty easily. Shoot me an email if interested.

You asked: in my opinion no. The market has already largely abandoned RSS readers and I don't see single site and magazine apps having a fighting chance.

What about general utility apps, other than RSS readers?

Looks nice but I don't think I would ever use something like this. 70% of the time I'm on a browser so I prefer to just come to the website. A good app for iPad would be good since tapping the tiny HN links on there is terrible.

I can see where you're coming from. I've had that feeling myself (still kind of have it). Think it will change if I develop this app though :-).

I'm a bit tired of tapping between browser screens and always going into HN. I'm too much of an addict for those extra steps :-).

There's a decent iPhone/iPad app called news:yc in the App Store already.

Seems useful.

Not too pretty though :-).

I use HackerNode, a brilliant app.

Nice one. What do you like about that one? Seems like there's a lot of people who've downloaded it.

@holgersindbaek: I love the quick browsing and general feel of it. I have to admit though, I rarely exit the front page listing & links or use it for anything else than checking up on what's going on in the world.

News:yc is a "decent" Hn app but it is not the perfect package, it lacks a lot in design fundamentals to create a great user experience.

Do you mind laying out your specific concerns? I'm not the developer of news:yc but I use it every day and like it a lot, and I think the user experience is fine and have never felt hampered or awkward using it.

It's also open source, so you can help improve it (if that's your kind of thing)! https://github.com/Xuzz/newsyc

If there was just an un-upvote button, browsing HN on mobile wouldn't be so risky :P

Yes! So many times I've accidentally upvoted people but unfortunately I can't retract the vote.

I think it's cool, but there are a couple issues:

- You display the number '8' in your demo -- what does this represent? Stories are frequently added to HN

- You provide a lot of functionality in the Menu tool (vote, comment), but you don't provide the actual content -- presumably this is opened in a browser? If you look at Spotlight, it provides a preview, though this is probably not readable enough

- It seems to me that keeping simple is important; for example, keeping to a single rectangle like Spotlight could be a good UI pattern; having multiple rectangles that are locked in places feels very klunky

That said, I think designing this could be very fun and a great learning experience. Someone once told me that the the reason to create tools is to help yourself; if this tool ends up being fun and useful for you to use, you have succeeded (a lot of others call this "dogfooding", though I think that has a bit of a negative ring to it).

Some tips regarding engineering:

- this could be a useful GitHub project to get started with NSStatusItems (i.e. menubar apps), if you haven't already seen it -- https://github.com/shpakovski/Popup

- it might be very very effective to use Python, at least for prototyping, especially for scraping information from HN; in particular, I am thinking of BeautifulSoup, though similar packages may exist for ObjC; to integrate Python into your app, you can either use something like PyObjc or directly bundle in a python interpreter and read output from it...

Good luck!

Thanks for the feedback.

The number eight signifies that there's 8 stories on the frontpage that you haven't read yet.

You also read the story itself in the browser (I don't wanna go back and forth from the browser). You can see that "functionality" if you click on "web view".

Thanks for the tip :-).

If you can add some smart filtering, e.g. by topic, source website etc, this would be even more valuable to me. Also ability to add to evernote / chrome bookmarks / pocket directly from the app

Last but not least, the HN community is great, but I would design it to support other new sources, if I could get all my content in one location, with filtering, and web preview, I would be a bit happier. (why not google reader? not sure actually, but fact is it's just not doing the job, neither flipboard, or any news aggregator that I know to date feels to me like the perfect solution, but that's just me).

So I'm not sure you'll be able to make a living solely from this app, but I will consider it if it really helps me organize my reading, and save me time.

Edit:

1. Forgot to mention the design looks great!

2. Note that not far ago someone posted here a Mac HN app (currently down, here is the cached version: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...)

Here is the HN discussion on it, I think this will help you decide.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5170182

Interesting. Thanks for the feedback :-).

Looks great. I'd be happy to pay $2-$3 for it. Pocket/Instapaper integration would be great i.e. one click and it's saved to read later

The Pocket browser widget already injects it's own links into HN, the exact reason I removed the thing.

I love the look of the interface (web and comment view). That said, being a reader of HN, I like to use the "open web" as opposed to apps. I know a good percentage of the population here share my views. And while this may not necessarily describe you're app, it shows the sentiment: http://xkcd.com/1174/

But I'm confused when you call this a Mac app. Does that mean it would be for say, my macbook air, which I really have no need for it. or perhaps my iPad/iPhone, which, even though I have the HN page bookmarked as an app, I'm more readily willing to try out the "app", simply because the interface needs enhancing.

edit: All that said, definitely still build it. If only even for yourself, your portfolio, and the learning experience.

That xkcd (truth) is about about as annoying as those Facebook links where "xyz has read this story on NYTimes", you click the link cos it kinda looks interesting and it directs you to "add this Facebook app" to read the story.

Seriously, no. I'm not giving you access to my info just to read a story.

I know where you are coming from. I also like to use the open web, but it bugs me when I end up with opening 5-10 tabs each time I go into HN and have to navigate around between them and close them again.

It is for the Mac and not for the iPhone/iPad (might come later).

If you have no need for it, it's probably not for you. Hehe.

>> but it bugs me when I end up with opening 5-10 tabs each time I go into HN

haha, too true. I'm a bit of a tabaholic I suppose. It's nothing to have 10-20 tabs in a window, with separate windows open for different stuff (HN window, work window, mail/FB window..) Heck, I'll stumble across tabs I meant to read last week or last month all the time...

I'm the same way: I look at the list of stories, open all the ones that look interesting in new tabs, and do the same with the comments for them as well. Then, I have a nice queue of six to twelve tabs to peruse.

I think one improvement you can make in this design is to make it easy to distinguish different types of posts. There are posts that are news, some are blog posts, some are showcases, others may just be job listings. Currently its not always so clear on HN.

Awesome idea. Thanks!

Does it really live in the menu bar? It's hard enough to fight all the notifications and distractions at work as it is. I would be more likely to use a full screen app (the exact opposite of a menu bar item) for rare, but focused reading sessions.

Sure, go on. The hardest part, designing it, is already done! Take a look at HNKit an news:yc https://github.com/Xuzz/newsyc for a head start.

Thanks. I'll take a look at it.

I've already taken a look at some other HN examples (there's a lot of open source ones out there), but not sure if I will go with any of those. Might start from scratch.

I would try it out. I'm also going to take this opportunity to make a shameless plug: answering the question, "Should I build this?" is precisely the goal of LaunchSky.com.

Nice one. Just signed up. When are you launching? Looking forward to seeing how the platform will work.

Thanks! We plan to go live with our beta in 3-4 weeks, and we're already accepting pitches from our beta list. Email me at info@launchsky.com and I'll send you a beta invite.

You should absolutely develop it. It doesn't matter if anyone will use it or other's opinions about it. Here's the deal, from your own post, you have plenty of time on your hands and you could learn a lot from developing this application. It's also yet another project for your resume. Try developing it in something you aren't familiar with, backbone or flask or sinatra, etc.

Make a web app that has HN Item list on the left column. Right column displays the story/link but also allow quickly switching between that and the HN comments section.

I'd throw money at you.

I don't need/want a mac app for reading stuff that's available on the web. That just makes me bounce between 1 extra app/window if I want to read/learn more about a certain subject.

Guess I can count you out then.

Thanks for the feedback.

I briefly experimented with HN in a discreet RSS reader (Feeds App), and I won't let it on my computer outside the browser again as it was too distracting. I also don't keep any of the iPhone apps for HN I've tried around for that reason. Your designs look nice, though.

Thanks for the compliments.

What made you think it was too distracting? Could you see the updates all the time?

Yes, HN became ever-present unless I closed the program. And if I did, why have it? When it's in the browser, it's much more optional and I can work all day if I like without seeing any reminders of it.

Ok, so I upvoted it. I like the idea.

But, my Mac is retired for a long time now and, if you really make a Mac app, I won't be able to use it.

You should consider... ummm... air? This way we can all enjoy your app.

You should develop it if you want it. But I would not count on making much money or impact with it. Not that many people read Hacker News, and most of them are just fine reading it in a browser.

I understand why people are tempted to build apps around HN...we're all builders, and we spend a lot of time here. But that doesn't mean it's a good business decision.

In general, 3rd party apps for reading a website are a bad idea. They compete directly against the content resource upon which they are totally dependent. See: the fate of Twitter apps.

I LOVE how you presented your design. I got it right away. Very slick. I don't think I would use this because it might kill my productivity more than going to HN already does.

Looks useful. I have a suggestion, keep the width of the webpage and the comments view the same. This way the buttons remain in the same place when switching back and forth.

This is awesome: actually taking the time to poll your intended customers to see whether it's even worth building the app, rather than building first and finding out later.

I don't think you're going to get many nays on here, we like HN and that app looks slick.

I just think it a tad redundant since browsers/website are pretty much native...

I've been thinking about that as well. We'll see if it's the case.

Think the app could be really nice though and save me some time when I feed my HN addiction. I always find myself opening 5-7 tabs each time I go into HN. Then I have to navigate between them, close the ones I haven't read and such. Can become tedious.

With this app, I'll also have a constant overview of how much of the frontpage I haven't read :-).

Looks great, Holger! Have you seen http://www.guidefreitas.com/hacker-news-menu-tab-app ?

Nice one. Like the functionality of having all the posts in the topbar. It's really convenient.

I'd like to read the posts in the app as well though. Don't wanna go back and forth from the browser.

I also want a better view for comments. HN design can become a bit messy :-).

Tangent: scrolling is horrible on my gnexus. I have no idea where I am on the site, and every time I scroll up or down I find myself lost somewhere else.

I will give you a different angle. Do you want to develop it for fun/fame/experience or for profit? If the former you should do it.

I think a great feature would be the ability to filter articles by points (i.e. only posts greater than 100 points, etc)

Nice idea.

Do you often wish that you could do that on HN?

http://news.ycombinator.com/over?points=100

You designed an iOS app, not a Mac app. That it happens to live in the menubar doesn't actually mean very much ;)

What do you mean that I designed an iOS app?

Looks great, HN wrapped in sex, love it!

I would much rather want a responsive version, so I don't have to download an app to look at HN.

You should develop that, for sure.

Thanks guys. Let me know if there are any other features or such that you would?!

Looks like a great project.

Yes please! :)

What tool did you use to design this?

Photoshop.

There is no reason not to. "Should I develop it" always has the answer "yes".

Well, if there is no interest in it, and you could be working on something else. You need to weight these decisions.

it is impossible to tell interest until the project is built. Who, having heard the premise of Twitter in 2005, would have said "Oh yeah, that sounds exactly like something I want"?

The Twitter equivalent would be asking Twitter users if they'd use TweetDeck given only mockups of the app.

nope

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