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Show HN: GitHub File Watcher – get notified when files change in a GitHub repo

github-file-watcher.com

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Re: Show HN: GitHub File Watcher – get notified when files change in a GitHub repo

#11

Post by krallin »

pearjuice wrote: post #9

Using "github" in your domain name limits you to github (many other repository services exist) and makes you a potential target for trademark claims. Also, I think you are onto something. Git remotes are mostly passive, where you have to pull to see whether there are any updates. There is no subscription model to get notified of changes. You have to actively pull to find out what is new. You should try to make this a…

These are great points; thanks for your feedback! :)

I'm trying to validate whether there's any interest in something this, so I definitely cut a lot of corners (e.g. the app doesn't maintain a copy of the repository — it just uses the GitHub API). Also using GitHub in the name might not have been the best idea.. though! ;)

I agree with you regarding the usefulness of watching arbitrary repositories. There's already git-notifier [0] that does pretty much this, but you have to set it up for yourself and it has to be configured using a text file.

[0]: http://www.icir.org/robin/git-notifier/

Re: Show HN: GitHub File Watcher – get notified when files change in a GitHub repo

#12

Post by zwischenzug »

I wrote a more generic solution to this kind of problem recently, which I run as a service:

https://github.com/ianmiell/alert-on-change/blob/master/READ...

It's probably more suited for the programming types.

For example, you can do a 'raw' GitHub request to determine when a particular file has changed.

Re: Show HN: GitHub File Watcher – get notified when files change in a GitHub repo

#13

Post by zwischenzug »

pearjuice wrote: post #9

Using "github" in your domain name limits you to github (many other repository services exist) and makes you a potential target for trademark claims. Also, I think you are onto something. Git remotes are mostly passive, where you have to pull to see whether there are any updates. There is no subscription model to get notified of changes. You have to actively pull to find out what is new. You should try to make this a…

See my comment above re:

https://github.com/ianmiell/alert-on-change/blob/master/READ...

Re: Show HN: GitHub File Watcher – get notified when files change in a GitHub repo

#15

Post by winstonyw »

dang wrote: post #3
avitzurel wrote: post #2

This was posted a day ago. Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10690114

Yes, on HN reposts do not count as a dupe if the story hasn't had significant attention yet. In fact we invited the submitter to repost this one, which we sometimes do when a story seems like it would interest the community and deserves a second chance at attention.

Hmm, so I guess there's some sort of manual curation going on for what's interesting and can be posted again? Is there a criteria for such curation? Karma? Past posts? Past comments? Social influence? Who the OP really is? Will the OP also be advised on a better timing to post the link again so that it would have a better chance of getting attention?

Re: Show HN: GitHub File Watcher – get notified when files change in a GitHub repo

#16

Post by DanBC »

winstonyw wrote: post #15
dang wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, on HN reposts do not count as a dupe if the story hasn't had significant attention yet. In fact we invited the submitter to repost this one, which we sometimes do when a story seems like it would interest the community and deserves a second chance at attention.

Hmm, so I guess there's some sort of manual curation going on for what's interesting and can be posted again? Is there a criteria for such curation? Karma? Past posts? Past comments? Social influence? Who the OP really is? Will the OP also be advised on a better timing to post the link again so that it would have a better chance of getting attention?

It seems the reposting is only about how interesting the submission is.

I think a resubmitted post gets a small karma bump (1 or 2 points) to help it. But after that it's up to the community to vote.

Re: Show HN: GitHub File Watcher – get notified when files change in a GitHub repo

#17

Post by krallin »

winstonyw wrote: post #15
dang wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, on HN reposts do not count as a dupe if the story hasn't had significant attention yet. In fact we invited the submitter to repost this one, which we sometimes do when a story seems like it would interest the community and deserves a second chance at attention.

Hmm, so I guess there's some sort of manual curation going on for what's interesting and can be posted again? Is there a criteria for such curation? Karma? Past posts? Past comments? Social influence? Who the OP really is? Will the OP also be advised on a better timing to post the link again so that it would have a better chance of getting attention?

Here's the email I got inviting me to re-post the story. That's all I know : )

  Hi there,

  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10690114 looks good, but didn't
  get much attention. Would you care to repost it? You can do so
  here: https://news.ycombinator.com/repost?id=10690114.

  Please use the same account (krallin), title, and URL. When these match,
  the software will give the repost an upvote from the mods, plus we'll
  help make sure it doesn't get flagged.

  This is part of an experiment in giving good HN submissions multiple
  chances at the front page. If you have any questions, let us know. And
  if you don't want these emails, sorry! Tell us and we won't do it again.

  Thanks for posting good things to Hacker News,
  Daniel

Re: Show HN: GitHub File Watcher – get notified when files change in a GitHub repo

#19

Post by krallin »

fenollp wrote: post #14

What about you know… using Git?

I made this mainly to scratch my own itch :).

It's slightly more convenient for me to get a notification than to periodically pull repositories and check them for changes, but I understand that might not be the case for everyone!

Re: Show HN: GitHub File Watcher – get notified when files change in a GitHub repo

#20

Post by hudell »

Very useful!

I write plugins for RpgMaker and a lot of the people who use them are regular users who don't know how to use GitHub. Some of them had asked for a way they could get notifications every time I update a plugin, this will be very useful for that.

Can I request a feature? Would be nice to have a way I could pass the repository and file names on the query string, so I can put a link where people only need to inform their email and submit to start receiving notifications for that.

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