4 ms·

Tell HN: Hacker News Watch

29 points by Maro 17y ago

http://hnwatch.scalien.com Demo account: demo/demo Hacker News Watch monitors submissions so you don't miss out on topics, comments and commenters relevant to you. You add keywords (like a Google search) which are saved as permanent searches. Hacker News submissions and linked pages are monitored for your keywords. Results are delivered to your browser in real-time via a Google Reader type interface. It's a release-early-release-often type release, so it's still rough around the edges (eg. broken on IEx.x). We'll work on features/bugs based on your feedback. About the project: When we released Keyspace, our replicated key-value store, we would gladly have payed $10/mo. for a service to monitor the real-time web for comments about us, so we can quickly react and make connections. The existing sites ("social media monitoring") are not very good, so we started building our own. HNWatch is a HN-only toy version of this more general product, which is also our primary use-case for Keyspace development. Hacker News Watch has been OK'd by pg.

inchirierimasni 17y ago
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Maro 17y ago
Clickable link: http://hnwatch.scalien.com http://hnwatch.scalien.com
- dejv 17y ago
  and you can also use guest/guest as a dummy login
  - Maro 17y ago
    Right now we don't support multiple sessions a la Gmail, except the demo/demo user, which is read-only, hence this is not an issue. If you open a new session with the same user (eg. in another browser) the previous one will be logged out. If people use the guest/guest they will keep kicking each other out.
old-gregg 17y ago
I'm on this page: http://hnwatch.scalien.com/welcome.html http://hnwatch.scalien.com/welcome.html First, it won't let me use "old-gregg", then I use "oldgregg", I click "Register and Login" and nothing happens. Edit: hitting enter on that form works. I guess the bug is that you don't re-enable submit after a user corrects his input.
- Maro 17y ago
  Thanks, we're fixing it.
- RossM 17y ago
  "And this is as close as you can get to Baileys before your eyes get wet."
profquail 17y ago
I think you need to add something on the front page there that lets people know that they need to register (and not just enter their HN username/password).
- Maro 17y ago
  Good point, I added a message.
  - profquail 17y ago
    You might want to fix the formatting a bit on it. I just check it on my laptop (1024x768 resolution) and with FireFox 3.5 maximized, it's cut off and won't let me scroll to read the second line. There's a web developer plugin for Firefox that will let you resize the browser to common resolutions so you can see how the site will look on various screen sizes (and let you tweak your CSS so it works on all of them).
    - Maro 17y ago
      Thanks, fixed that interface bug.
- tuukkah 17y ago
  I wish people didn't enter their usernames and passwords on other web sites, whether the sites ask for it or not.
ashishk 17y ago
Keystrokes would be great. I use the "j" and "k" keys on google reader to go up/down. Allowing me to export topic feeds to RSS (and into google reader) would also be helpful.
- Maro 17y ago
  J and K keys now work.
- Maro 17y ago
  Thanks for the feedback. Keys and RSS are next in the task queue.
d0mine 17y ago
An alternate solution is to use http://searchyc.com http://searchyc.com and your favorite RSS reader e.g., http://rss.searchyc.com/searchyc?sort=by_date http://rss.searchyc.com/searchyc?sort=by_date
jeroen 17y ago
(demo account) When I go to Watches > Feynman I see 5 matches. The third has "python" highlighted 4 times, but I don't see any mention of "feynman". That's confusing. I'd rather not have "python" highlighted, since that is not in my selection at that time, even though it is in the global selection. Otherwise it looks nice, but it goes against how I use HN. Lots of interesting things here don't match my "official" list of interests.
- Maro 17y ago
  Thanks for the feedback. Our snippet generator kinda sucks at the moment, but we're working on it.
- agazso 17y ago
  Just an idea: if you add "hacker news" as a keyword, you will get all the articles, and if you add your interests then the articles will be organized as well.
credo 17y ago
Hi, I think you'll lose a lot of potential users (like me) because your site requires registration. Depending on your plans for the site, this may not be a big deal. However, can you explain the reasoning behind requiring registration
- Maro 17y ago
  So we can keep your keywords apart from other user's keywords. I'm not sure what you mean!
  - credo 17y ago
    What I meant (and said) is that many users will not use the site because it requires registration.
    - Maro 17y ago
      The site stores "permanent searches" per user and displays the results to the user after logging in on a Google Reader-like interface. Can you explain what's wrong with this? Perhaps you're saying we should let you define searches and export them as RSS so you can add them to your existing feeder?
tzury 17y ago
IMO http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=808534 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=808534 should be filed under Java and not Python

29 points by Maro 17y ago

inchirierimasni 17y ago

Thank you so much for writing such an informative post. Its no doubt a useful one. <a href="http://www.rentcar.ro&#62 http://www.rentcar.ro> Rent a car</a>

Maro 17y ago

Clickable link: http://hnwatch.scalien.com http://hnwatch.scalien.com

dejv 17y ago
and you can also use guest/guest as a dummy login
- Maro 17y ago
  Right now we don't support multiple sessions a la Gmail, except the demo/demo user, which is read-only, hence this is not an issue. If you open a new session with the same user (eg. in another browser) the previous one will be logged out. If people use the guest/guest they will keep kicking each other out.

old-gregg 17y ago

I'm on this page: http://hnwatch.scalien.com/welcome.html http://hnwatch.scalien.com/welcome.html First, it won't let me use "old-gregg", then I use "oldgregg", I click "Register and Login" and nothing happens. Edit: hitting enter on that form works. I guess the bug is that you don't re-enable submit after a user corrects his input.

Maro 17y ago
Thanks, we're fixing it.
RossM 17y ago
"And this is as close as you can get to Baileys before your eyes get wet."

profquail 17y ago

I think you need to add something on the front page there that lets people know that they need to register (and not just enter their HN username/password).

Maro 17y ago
Good point, I added a message.
- profquail 17y ago
  You might want to fix the formatting a bit on it. I just check it on my laptop (1024x768 resolution) and with FireFox 3.5 maximized, it's cut off and won't let me scroll to read the second line. There's a web developer plugin for Firefox that will let you resize the browser to common resolutions so you can see how the site will look on various screen sizes (and let you tweak your CSS so it works on all of them).
  - Maro 17y ago
    Thanks, fixed that interface bug.
tuukkah 17y ago
I wish people didn't enter their usernames and passwords on other web sites, whether the sites ask for it or not.

ashishk 17y ago

Keystrokes would be great. I use the "j" and "k" keys on google reader to go up/down. Allowing me to export topic feeds to RSS (and into google reader) would also be helpful.

Maro 17y ago
J and K keys now work.
Maro 17y ago
Thanks for the feedback. Keys and RSS are next in the task queue.

d0mine 17y ago

An alternate solution is to use http://searchyc.com http://searchyc.com and your favorite RSS reader e.g., http://rss.searchyc.com/searchyc?sort=by_date http://rss.searchyc.com/searchyc?sort=by_date

jeroen 17y ago

(demo account) When I go to Watches > Feynman I see 5 matches. The third has "python" highlighted 4 times, but I don't see any mention of "feynman". That's confusing. I'd rather not have "python" highlighted, since that is not in my selection at that time, even though it is in the global selection. Otherwise it looks nice, but it goes against how I use HN. Lots of interesting things here don't match my "official" list of interests.

Maro 17y ago
Thanks for the feedback. Our snippet generator kinda sucks at the moment, but we're working on it.
agazso 17y ago
Just an idea: if you add "hacker news" as a keyword, you will get all the articles, and if you add your interests then the articles will be organized as well.

credo 17y ago

Hi, I think you'll lose a lot of potential users (like me) because your site requires registration. Depending on your plans for the site, this may not be a big deal. However, can you explain the reasoning behind requiring registration

Maro 17y ago
So we can keep your keywords apart from other user's keywords. I'm not sure what you mean!
- credo 17y ago
  What I meant (and said) is that many users will not use the site because it requires registration.
  - Maro 17y ago
    The site stores "permanent searches" per user and displays the results to the user after logging in on a Google Reader-like interface. Can you explain what's wrong with this? Perhaps you're saying we should let you define searches and export them as RSS so you can add them to your existing feeder?

tzury 17y ago

IMO http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=808534 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=808534 should be filed under Java and not Python