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Show HN: I developed a native macOS Hacker News client

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Re: Show HN: I developed a native macOS Hacker News client

#61

Post by rjmorris »

dheera wrote: post #54
SavantIdiot wrote: post #10

This raises a question I've always wondered: How many of you prefer to run a native app rather than the web app? Personally I hate installing things on my desktop if there is a website because it is just another thing I have to manage. (Even more so because I have multiple Windows, Mac and Linux boxes I'm bouncing around between during the day and rather just have sync'd Firefox bookmarks than have to install s/w on…

Prefer web, less chance of spyware/malware, easier to inject custom CSS, easier to inject custom JS to disable features/spying/telemetry you don't want. I use Slack's web client for this reason, I don't want it to tell the other person when I'm typing.

What do you use to prevent the Slack web client from telling other people you're typing? Searching just now, I found a Chrome extension that hasn't been updated in a couple of years, but maybe you have a better method.

Re: Show HN: I developed a native macOS Hacker News client

#62

Post by gwbas1c »

SavantIdiot wrote: post #10

This raises a question I've always wondered: How many of you prefer to run a native app rather than the web app? Personally I hate installing things on my desktop if there is a website because it is just another thing I have to manage. (Even more so because I have multiple Windows, Mac and Linux boxes I'm bouncing around between during the day and rather just have sync'd Firefox bookmarks than have to install s/w on…

Usually native

I like my apps to have an icon in the dock/taskbar, and I like being able to alt/command - tab. For web apps that I use a lot, I make an app shortcut so the app has it's own window and dock/taskbar icon.

The thing is, I really need tabs/multiple windows for some apps. (Log viewers, Jira/Asana, GitHub...) I used to use application-specific browsers for those sites, but the html engines never kept up.

I usually like electron apps... When they're correctly made. Slack's electron app works well. LastPass's electron app is missing too many features and doesn't integrate into the browser.

Re: Show HN: I developed a native macOS Hacker News client

#63

Post by toomuchtodo »

npunt wrote: post #40
pcr910303 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the feature requests! Will definitely add a text zoom feature and a ‘My Posts’ category. > Any reason you're connecting to firebase rather than storing preferences locally? All of your preferences are stored locally — the firebase connection is due to the official HN API[0] implemented on Firebase. Your HN credentials never leave the app (except for news.ycombinator.com) — it’s tucked in your keychain. [0]…

Ah thank you for the clarification! Keychain is truly the 'Mac-assed' solution isn't it? I know it's kind of a feature/property of HN to not implement notifications or other attention driving features but it'd be interesting to see this app periodically poll HN for any replies to My Posts / My Comments and generate at least sidebar number badges, if not app badges and system notifications. I'd implement a preference…

Perhaps Dan G could add additional channels for reply notifications at http://hnreplies.com/, as they're already doing the necessary reply polling.

Re: Show HN: I developed a native macOS Hacker News client

#64

Post by soheil »

goranmoomin wrote: post #42

Hello, I’m the developer. Didn’t expect a Show HN post to go into a second—chance pool — I woke up an hour ago to find that my app was trending on HN. I developed this b.c. I found that I didn’t like HN mixed with other work/school related tabs, and realized that a separate app would be great for me. I believe that apps should use the most native-like UI possible — especially Cocoa on macOS, so I aimed to be the most…

Are you planning to charge for this in the future? Seems to be getting really high traction.

Re: Show HN: I developed a native macOS Hacker News client

#65

Post by soheil »

SavantIdiot wrote: post #10

This raises a question I've always wondered: How many of you prefer to run a native app rather than the web app? Personally I hate installing things on my desktop if there is a website because it is just another thing I have to manage. (Even more so because I have multiple Windows, Mac and Linux boxes I'm bouncing around between during the day and rather just have sync'd Firefox bookmarks than have to install s/w on…

I really don't like the idea of a native app unless it's a 10x improvement. Beyond privacy concerns at install time there is also the fact that it could be phoning home and log your activity or even send your session cookie who knows where. Even if the code is open source and it can be trusted today what if tomorrow it autoupdates after a hacker seizes control of the repo?

Re: Show HN: I developed a native macOS Hacker News client

#68

Post by jbc1 »

goranmoomin wrote: post #42

Hello, I’m the developer. Didn’t expect a Show HN post to go into a second—chance pool — I woke up an hour ago to find that my app was trending on HN. I developed this b.c. I found that I didn’t like HN mixed with other work/school related tabs, and realized that a separate app would be great for me. I believe that apps should use the most native-like UI possible — especially Cocoa on macOS, so I aimed to be the most…

Look forward to trying it out, thanks!

If you find yourself in a position of not wanting a specific website mixed in with your browser tabs again but not caring enough to make another native app, check out nativefier. Quickly makes an electron wrapper for any website.

https://github.com/nativefier/nativefier

Re: Show HN: I developed a native macOS Hacker News client

#69

Post by handrous »

pcr910303 wrote: post #48
grishka wrote: post #35

Any chance for Mojave support? It currently requires Big Sur. Looks good on screenshots tho.

Unfortunately I’m not expecting to support anything lower than Big Sur. I tried supporting Catalina, and having to support an OS that I don’t use daily was hard… Sorry about that. :-(

I really wish Apple provided an easy, official way to run older versions of macOS/OSX in a VM. It'd be incredibly useful for testing, and for ensuring reliability in old build toolchains (say, for a years-old product that needs a security patch). I mean, it already has a hypervisor built in. :-/

They don't even make it particularly easy to script an installation of an older version in a VM. There are 3rd-party tools but they're usually just as complete & compatible as whoever wrote them needed them to be, and/or they're abandoned.

[EDIT] like the VM images Microsoft provides. Those are wonderful.

Re: Show HN: I developed a native macOS Hacker News client

#70

Post by harisamin »

This is great! I built a native. macOS client that I actually sold in the AppStore a while ago. It did everything was native except rendering of the article but I was just using plain web view for that part. The pain was keeping but synced with changes on HN. I still have a personal build that I use on a daily basis.

I still have the landing page up which warning, looks awful on mobile https://mackernews.com/

But congrats! I stopped selling my client and it’s starting to show age for my personal use too. Will check this out. Do you have voting and commenting working? That’s one thing I miss the most that stopped working on my client.

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