7 ms·
Show HN: ClapChat – Instant messaging for HN users
- JoeCortopassi 10y agoHey everyone, todd3834 and I have been wanting this for awhile and decided to just start building it ourselves :-) The hope is it makes HN an even greater place to find people with similar ambitions so that we can build great things. This isn't meant to be the next coming of Facebook, it's just a super useful tool we like and want others to use with us. Main features we think you'll like: - frictionless signup. You don't need to manage another login combo. Works kind of like Medium's signup, but with less steps - simple. Button next to comments, easy lookup. We wanted you to not have to think about it to use it - backwords compatible. It works with people that haven't signed up yet
- todd3834 10y agoDetails on the tech stack: We are using React and friends for the front end and Programmable Chat by Twilio on the BE (https://www.twilio.com/chat https://www.twilio.com/chat) Happy to go further into details on any of that if interested. We are considering open sourcing the entire project, is that something people would be interested in?
- kovacs 10y agoWill there be stickers? An SDK for apps to run inside your chat? Social graph widgets to invite my friends to chat? A pair of glasses that I can use for hands free HN chat? An Alexa skill for chat? :-P All kidding aside congrats on your launch! Look forward to your blog posts (and maybe source) with more detail as this has been a topic of interest for me off and on over recent years.
- franciscop 10y agoI made basically the opposite; integrate HN comments into your website: https://comments.network/ https://comments.network/ You can add this HN conversation on the bottom of your landing page easily to show what people is saying about your project in context. Still in development though.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- DrScump 10y agoSome typos: "Full Integration with you (sic) HN Account" same section, last sentence: "Your (sic) welcome."
- JoeCortopassi 10y agoThanks!
- todd3834 10y agoThanks! fixed typos :)
- gexcolo 10y agoDoes it have an API?
- todd3834 10y agoThe front-end code uses an API, I suppose we could make it public. I'll make note of that, it would be cool to make it completely public.
- zaroth 10y agoJust a thought on the auto-login functionality... If I run an intercepting proxy and alter all instances of my username in the HTML response from HN servers to appear in every way to be logged in as 'dang'.... How would your extension detect the forgery?
- todd3834 10y agoGlad you asked! So here is a teaser on how it works: 1. ClapChat gives you a unique id, the extension posts the id in your profile, ClapChat independently verifies that your profile contains the correct ID so that we know you really do own the account, then we double check the ID vs the session that we gave the id to and we can validate the authorization. I'm working on a blog post that goes into much further detail and will post soon.
- todd3834 10y agoIn a way, it's kind of like validating a domain name using a TXT record.
- JoeCortopassi 10y agoBtw, we also plan on open sourcing all this. So everyone will be able to give feedback and contribute. The hope is it becomes a really useful tool for the community
- truebosko 10y agoNeat. I remember my days on Something Awful Forums and many did the same thing for various integrations. Ten years later the technique still works.
- rokhayakebe 10y agoYou should offer HN Auth As a Service/Platform so that others can easily build around it and users can easily auth into others services.
- todd3834 10y agoHere is an early diagram I made when we were exploring the idea. It's not the complete story but hopefully it communicates the general idea https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/www.clap.chat/assets/HN-auth-diagram.png https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/www.clap.chat/assets/HN-a...
- Daviey 10y agoHow does this differ from hnchat that was posted back in September, especially around user auth? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12431724 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12431724
- todd3834 10y agoVery cool! I hadn't heard of HNChat but the authentication process is very similar. I like the idea of letting user's manually add the id if they want to. I think we may make it optional to automatically handle it for you or let you do it manually. Biggest difference from my first impression of hnchat is that we built ours as a chrome extension and you participate directly on HackerNews instead of an external domain.
- JoeCortopassi 10y agoThe main difference is that this enables private messaging between users, regardless if they are signed up or not. Next time you're in a thread, you'll see a button to send a message next to their username. Click, and it will start a message without you having to leave the page. HNChat on the other hand seems to be more of a separate place to have conversations as a group. I feel like there is a place for both, they just solve different problems
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago...So, unlike HNchat, which was a live chatroom, this is like that PM system that we all want (so we can have PMs, and so people will stop posting HN messages that tell you to email them), but still don't have for a variety of reasons? I'm sold.
- JoeCortopassi 10y agoThat's the hope. Make it easy to take the conversation offline and help each other out :-)
- SonOfLilit 10y agoWhat happens if I want to PM someone but they're still not signed up for ClauChat? You should probably also answer this on your page.
- JoeCortopassi 10y agoMost people that want to be available on HN have a form of contact in their about profile, we use that to connect you out of band until they sign up, if they choose to sign up
- todd3834 10y agoWe are considering a few things. Our first pass is to use mechanical turk so that we get the email address from the profile page and send an email with the message. We want to be sure not to bother people who truly don't want to participate so we are working on a solution to make sure this doesn't turn into a way to spam HN users.
- zitterbewegung 10y agoPlease don't do this I really would want this opt in . If I were you I would disregard the message .
- todd3834 10y agoI'm very sensitive to this issue as a long time HN user I don't want to get spammed. However, as I was brainstorming this I came to this conclusion: If you put your email address in your HN profile you are opting in to people being able to reach you. ClapChat will just be a client for doing that easily and we will do everything to make sure a bot can't abuse this. For starters, you have to be authenticated to send a message so we can tell if someone is abusing the system and spamming people. Secondly, you can unsubscribe from ClapChat emails so that it will never bother you. This is something I feel we can strike a balance with, open to any feedback and ideas people have.
- 10y ago
- akoster 10y agoQuite interesting! Any thoughts for an XMPP or IRC bridge (similar to what Slack provides)?
- todd3834 10y agoThe primary focus is to get something that works well as a browser extension but since we plan to open source it there isn't any reason why the community couldn't add that. If there is demand for it then I'll be happy to work on it as well.
- ris 10y agoI'd reconsider the name - nobody wants to give each other the clap.
- Arathorn 10y agoShame this is neither FOSS nor standards-based... Matrix-based HN chat would be awesome :) (i work on matrix so am probably biased though :D)
- rickycook 10y agothey say further up that they will be open sourcing it. my first thought was the same, but the twillio chat they've used seems super simple, so potentially matrix was just too heavy for their simple needs at the moment
- todd3834 10y agoHi yes! You are correct. We just wanted to go with the most simple backend service with the least amount of maintenance that we could use for starters.
- carnivalclown 10y ago> nor standards-based... Not to be antagonistic but what difference does it make if it's not "standards based" while it works for them and does what they want it to do?
- LeanderK 10y agoserious question: why is this not open-source? I think serious tools to communicate in this community should as much open-source as possible.
- todd3834 10y agoWe plan to open source it once it is opened up to everyone.
- hawaiianbrah 10y agoOut of idle curiosity, why wait? Seems that is only delaying any improvements people might contribute.
- JoeCortopassi 10y agoTo be honest, we'd just rather have more bugs knocked out before we share. We take pride in our code just like most people
- 0XAFFE 10y agoIs this a refference to claptrap?
- todd3834 10y agoIt isn't but I wish I could say it was because that would make it much funnier.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- jonbaer 10y agoI am not sure I would use this tool on an ongoing / regular basis but for Ask HN: Who's Hiring this would be nice for instant interviews, just a thought ...
- Arinerron 10y agoAndroid app yet?
- JoeCortopassi 10y agoNo apps for android or iOS. For right now it's just a browser extension
- staticfish 10y agohit me up if you want help with this. -android dev.
- herbst 10y agoI am sure someone said this already. But in case if not. That is basically unreadable with that light gray font