8 ms·
Show HN: Hacker News desktop app made with Electron and Node
- NuSkooler 11y agoIf it's Electron & Node, why is it OS X specific?
- ksmithbaylor 11y agoJust downloaded! I love it. The only thing I was going to say was I wish it had the ability to resize the window and save the size for each time it opened...then I realized you were one step ahead of me and had done exactly that! Very impressive, and a fantastic example of React and Electron. I'm definitely bookmarking this to come back and learn from the codebase later.
- mobiuscog 11y ago> Download the latest build for your platform from releases. Cool !! Oh.. Mac only right now.
- jingweno 11y agoWe're working on the Windows and Linux builds. Or if you can't wait, just clone the repo and run `npm start`: https://github.com/jingweno/hacker-menu#development https://github.com/jingweno/hacker-menu#development
- sigmonsays 11y agothere is some irony here... by saying this and then "We are working on Windows and Linux versions. " is not exactly fair. The entire purpose of electron is to "Build cross platform desktop apps with web technologies" so by stating that and failing to release other platforms is quite silly
- SeanAnderson 11y agoCan the non-Mac users have some screenshots? I dug around the GitHub repo and the website, but didn't see any.
- giancarlostoro 11y agoSee https://hackermenu.io/ https://hackermenu.io/ their homepage has a screenshot, looks just like that on openSUSE for me.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- dombili 11y agoHere you go: 1- http://i.imgur.com/5WjIJ5M.png http://i.imgur.com/5WjIJ5M.png 2- http://i.imgur.com/A1VHspL.png http://i.imgur.com/A1VHspL.png This is about it. When you click on any link, it takes you to the website itself.
- tommyd 11y agoLooks great - in all honesty I probably won't use it day to day as I waste enough time checking HN, although perhaps it would be a less distracting way to check it. Source code looks nice and clean, look forward to digging into it!
- giancarlostoro 11y agoI really like it, runs well under openSUSE (you have to download the repo and follow the instructions under "Development" in the readme). Hope to see it's functionality expand further. Edit: One thing I would change is maybe make the overall border a more noticeable darker color, I keep getting confused as to where the borders are for when resizing it, and maybe a way of dragging and dropping the window (that is more obvious if it is there, I haven't figured out how to move the window without using what I assume to be KDE specific features).
- lokywin 11y agoThanks giancarlostoro. That is great feedback. Let's gather more responses from others, and we will make the change. We want this to be super easy to you to use.
- lokywin 11y agobtw, I am glad it works well for you under openSUSE. You have made a excellent example for others to start using it, w/o waiting for a build for a specific platform. We will get there. We are working a build for Windows version.
- achairapart 11y agoLooks cool. But... 100+Mb for a notification app?
- Artemis2 11y agoThat's Node (V8) and Electron (Chromium and all its dependencies) for you.
- kuschku 11y agoMaybe, just maybe, we should just bundle Node and Electron into a package, install that as a shared library (similar to the way .NET and Java are installed) and then just ship, in the installer, a tool that downloads those if not already installed? Would save a lot of memory and time for everyone.
- mmastrac 11y agoElectron is moving pretty quickly (and breaking APIs) at this point so you'd end up with just as many versions of the shared library as you would copies in applications.
- kuschku 11y agoBreaking APIs is not generally good either. But if a single newsreader contains more code than a full PlayStation game, you know something’s wrong. This is just Wirth’s Law in action.
- slimsag 11y agoThe very fact that we 'do not break APIs' is one of the reasons that this newsreader is 100+ MB. If Google Chrome wasn't 4,490,488 lines of code designed across years of development to, well, _support old web APIs_ -- then it would likely be much smaller. :)
- 11y ago
- Osiris 11y agoThis tool reminds me of a feature in the Vivaldi browser called Web Panels: https://vivaldi.net/en-US/blogs/teamblog/item/50-snapshot-1-0-264-3-private-mode-and-improved-web-panels https://vivaldi.net/en-US/blogs/teamblog/item/50-snapshot-1-... You can have a sidebar in your browser with it's own webpage displayed, so you can have Hacker News open no matter what tab you're viewing.
- shwetank 11y agoAnd the sidebar extension for Opera for Hacker News (using Dharmesh Patel's app) https://addons.opera.com/en/extensions/details/hackernews-sidebar/?display=en https://addons.opera.com/en/extensions/details/hackernews-si...
- jedireza 11y agoThanks! I'd like to dismiss and/or mark as read for stories I'm not interested in.
- lokywin 11y agoThanks for sharing your thought. We talked about this and are going to implement it.
- denzil_correa 11y agoI have installed this and I agree with other users here - I like it. I can check it whenever I want to and it's non obtrusive.
- wsterling 11y agoBecause I need to get less work done? It does look great.
- lokywin 11y agoHaha. I find myself keep watching the menu bar for updates, then click on the news item. Glad you think it looks good. Feedbacks are welcomed.
- rtz12 11y agoI would bet that my newsreader uses booth less RAM and less disk space. This is what feeds were invented for. Why should I install that much bloat just for reading HN?
- hiou 11y agoYou must be a lot of fun at parties.
- OJFord 11y agoWhy should you? Okay, don't. If OP gave you free beer would you spit it out over him and say it's too bitter?
- rtz12 11y agoThat's a pretty bad metaphor. I am refusing OP's free beer, because I don't drink beer. I also question the need of giving away free alcohol. Instead, I take the free glass of water from the next guy.
- notNow 11y agoI say take the beer and chill man. No need for the -ve vibe. Cheers
- Killswitch 11y agoYou should hit me up sometime. I'd love to party with you. /s
- danso 11y agoI don't care how massive the app is compared to just web browsing...it's always great when people show off not just the product, but the open source code. Thanks!
- jingweno 11y agoGlad you like we open source it :)
- jolivero 11y agonice.
- binaryanomaly 11y agoGreat app. Would be cool if it could be installed via homebrew and use an existing node installation. Anyway, keep up the good work ;)
- tedmiston 11y agoThis is really great. I like that it remembers read stories, even across sessions.
- qyv 11y agoNot particularly directed at OP, I haven't tried or even downloaded the app. But am I the only one that when I see 'Node' and 'Desktop' in a headline immediately think 'this may be really nice but it is just gonna be to big for what it does'? And, as a followup, what is the appeal of using Node for desktop dev?
- sarc 11y agoThe advantages would include shared tooling, a cross-platform GUI, and the ability for end-users to modify the code. Regarding size, it appears to be around 100 MB, so you could have 20971 separate installations of it before filling up a 2 TB drive. Memory usage could be an issue, but whether that matters will depend on your audience the app. In this case, the aim is toward HN, so it doesn't seem like an issue.
- e12e 11y agoWhile I hope flash drives will come down in price, who has a 2TB flash drive right now? My entire desktop OS, with at least three web browsers, multiple sdks/compilers etc take up a grand total of 15GB. Granted, that'd still leave room for 150 "apps" in the same space (note that I actually only have 3GB free, though). Still, 100 MB for what is essentially high-level code? It's absurd. [ed: Not directed at op, as such, just how silly the general node ecosystem is currently]
- kibibu 11y agoOn the flip side, that's 10 full installations of Doom, which is my standard measure of software size.
- danneu 11y agoYou get to use a similar kit that you're already using for webdev. For example, the only time I've maintained a proficiency in both a webdev stack and a native kit was when I was paid to work on both full-time. Node's main appeal to me is a similar consolidation: using one language. At least until I find out I'm immortal.
- outworlder 11y ago
- mrmondo 11y agoWell done on making this, but I have to say that I'm sure I'm not the only person that's not interested in installing node on their desktop.
- rhys91 11y agoThis looks interesting but the first thing I noticed was that the 'H' in your logo isn't centred and it hurts my brain.
- sarc 11y agoIn case it's helpful, hacker-menu$ node install module.js:338 throw err; ^ Error: Cannot find module 'hacker-menu/install' at Function.Module._resolveFilename (module.js:336:15) at Function.Module._load (module.js:278:25) at Function.Module.runMain (module.js:501:10) at startup (node.js:129:16) at node.js:814:3
- e12e 11y agoFrom: https://hackermenu.io/ https://hackermenu.io/ "Do you have the habit of jumping to comments before reading an article? We got you covered. Comment is just one click away. So is vote." I did a quick browse and search of the source on github for "comment", "vote" and "login". How do you handle logging in/submitting comments/votes? Just present the regular hn login inside the app, and use the hn site? I thought there was some TOS/gentlman's agreement that APIs only had read access to stories, and one needed/should use the hn page for comments/votes? Perhaps I'm mistaken? I suppose there's no rule against making a custom browser though -- while a bit heavy handed, I suppose there's really no difference between wrapping node+electron and enhancing the UI/UX with greasmonkey -- I suppose the main issue is to behave closely enough to a regular web visitor, so as not to put undue strain on the service, not demand that every visitor actually uses a general purpose browser...?
- adamzerner 11y agoThat's a pretty cool idea... but do people really want more HN? My impression is that most people want to read it once or twice a day, but are driven to it more often than that as attempts at procrastination. So this seems like it'd be a net loss for most users.
- jingweno 11y agoThat's exactly the idea of Hacker Menu. You could check the news anytime by just clicking it, but it's not distracting
- adamzerner 11y agoBut it's tempting. My hypothesis is that it's too tempting.
- lokywin 11y agoYou should watch for the menu icon to change to dark color then :). Thanks for sharing your thoughts. btw
- adamzerner 11y agoSure thing :)
- RvdMeer 11y agoCan you add the 'save to pocket' as well, that would great.
- juhq 11y agoUgh provide high quality screenshots, both on project readme in github and on the website as well. Currently the website has skewed image of the thing and then cropped round images of the thing.
- cpursley 11y agoUgh, quit complaining and put in a pull request. It's open source and a side-project, after all.