Note: If you think this README is lame, try this awesome landing page.
This is one of my silly mini-projects. I create this initially to try out iOS 5 Mobile Safari's new -webkit-overflow-scrolling: touch CSS support. I need some sort of content for scrolling, so why not Hacker News' stories? I'm also trying something called Fake it 'til you make it which I make the web app looks (and feels) like a native mobile app. In this case, like a native iOS app.
As I continue developing this app, it turns out pretty good. Currently it has very basic features:
- View 'front page' stories from Hacker News.
- View individual story with all its comments, threaded.
Here are some screenshots. Click to see them in their full retina glory.
More recent screenshots can be viewed on the landing page.
Also, read my two-part blog post on how I built this web app:
- How I built the Hacker News mobile web app (HN thread)
- How I built the Hacker News mobile web app, Part 2 (HN thread)
This mobile web app primarily works on iOS 5 Mobile Safari. It uses these wonderful scripts:
- Tappable - touch-friendly tap events
- Hogan.js - logic-less templating
- Amplify.Store - client-side storage
- Viper - simple animation
- Vanilla JavaScript - everything else
Also uses the unofficial Hacker News API, open-sourced.
git clone git@github.com:cheeaun/hnmobile.git
cd hnmobile
node server.js -noappcache
The -noappcache argument is to prevent browsers from caching everything in the Application Cache.
If there are changes in the /js folder, run this to regenerate scripts.js (skip the npm install if uglify-js is already installed):
npm install uglify-js
node make-scripts.js
If there are changes in the /templates folder, run this to regenerate templates.js (skip the npm install if uglify-js is already installed ; do not use npm install hogan.js as the current NPM version – 2.0.0 – is not compatible):
npm install uglify-js
npm install git://github.com/twitter/hogan.js.git
node make-templates.js
Feel free to fork, file some issues or tweet your feedback to me.
Do check out these awesome contributions as well:
- HNmobile Bookmarklet by neocoder
- Hacker News Menu Tab (GitHub) by Guilherme Defreitas
The current focus is iOS. I have plans to make this app look native on other mobile platforms once I fork our some money and get my hands on a number of non-iOS devices (Android, Windows Phone, etc) for development and testing. Contact me if you feel generous enough to donate some devices to me :)
Licensed under the MIT License.
This is the not the first third-party app for Hacker News. Others have tried doing the same thing, despite some slight differences. I've compiled a list of apps here.