As a counterpoint, I find the web version pretty great on iOS. Minimal JavaScript, loads fast, everything on one long screen, and the back button always works, leaving you exactly where you left off.<p>It is a nice counterpoint to overly heavy web that we have unfortunately gravitated towards.
Its source is hosted on GitHub: <a href="https://github.com/hidroh/materialistic" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/hidroh/materialistic</a>
Just installed it, used it for a few hours, loved it, and deinstalled it. Here's why.<p>First, no downvote action. We need this to push down trolls and sockpuppets.<p>Second, voting is inside a menu, yet this is a really common action.<p>Third and worst, when I use a browser on HN, every single link now asks me to select an app. Not once, but for each different link type it seems. After the fifth time (choosing 'Remember my choice' each time), I was so annoyed I uninstalled Materialistic.<p>End of report.
Materialistic is the only way I access Hacker News. But it would be awesome if the developer took some inspiration from the Reddit client Relay (<a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=reddit.news" rel="nofollow">https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=reddit.news</a>) too :) Great job hidro!
While I think it's the best of what's available, it still misses some features. No downvoting, no flagging, preformatted text gets mangled, and the own comments/conversations view is not ideal.<p>It's so close...
I've been using this for a at least a month now and it's really great, and I'd almost rather browse HN from Materialistic than the site itself.<p>If there's anything I could change, it would be to add a setting that turns off swiping when I'm inside a story (to switch between comments/article/readability) along with swipe vote/reply for comments.
Why doesn't YCombinator just fix the mobile style sheet for the website?<p>It's pretty clear the site is terrible on mobile, and it's not a hard thing to improve. Make the font bigger, and (especially) make the buttons much, much bigger (or further apart).<p>Actually - why don't they fix that on the desktop version? Fitt's law and all that.
It's definitely the most feature-rich HN client. Sad that something comparable is not on iOS :(<p>(But the ones on iOS aren't bad..I've had the most luck with one called "Hacker News" by Premii)
What does the word "Materialistic" have to do with Hacker News? I did a web search to see if I'm missing something, but it looks like it's just a name that does not fit.<p>How about "Hacker News client by Trung", or "Trung HN" for short.
I quite like your app. It's way better looking and serves my functional purposes of reading and voting. Of course improvements can be made - it's an iterative process. More power to you.
Big fan of Materialistic here. By far the best Android HN app I've found. Didn't realise this but I must have downloaded it just after you put it on the play store. Even the first versions were solid.<p>No shopping list of features :). Just wanted to say good job (posted with Materialistic)
I have few bug and enhancement reports:<p>1. The vote up status seems to get reset or so it seems from the app. I had invited this post yesterday, by today the thumbs up icon color was black again. It looked as if I did not vote this thread. So I clicked on that, and then the thumb icon was green. Then I went back to the main page, and remembered to type the following point. So I came back to this thread and the thumb icon was black again. It looks as it the app is remembering if I have already voted for that thread. Does HN allow one to vote any article multiple times?<p>2. I like the concept of the navigation overlay. But can you please add an option to disable the vibrations each time that button is used? It gets pretty annoying after navigating few comments.
Its a great app.
A couple of things that would make it even better:
- a refresh button
- an "are you sure you want to quit" warning when I click the back button.
Trying it out and liking it so far. I've noticed it does make my phone (Droid Turbo) heat up. May be from the frequent data reloads while I'm scrolling.
Materialistic is what I use and I'm very satisfied with the app, the lack of a downvote button is an issue but I can live with out it. Good job Hidro!
It's nice, but I don't like how the comments view wants to keep scrolling sideways. I wish it worked more like the articles view with swipe to vote. I'll never use the readability mode so I'd love to just disable it.
FYI per <a href="https://github.com/hidroh/materialistic/issues/23" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/hidroh/materialistic/issues/23</a> it will no be on F-Droid
It's a nice app and I've been using it for some time, but one thing that's always bothered me is the strange scrolling / caching behavior of the app. A quick scroll down displays a blank page while content is gradually "plugged" in. I don't think I've ever seen this odd scrolling behavior in another app.