Hacker News mobile web app

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.

Technical stuff

This mobile web app primarily works on iOS 5 Mobile Safari. It uses these wonderful scripts:

Tappable - touch-friendly tap events
Director - location.hash router
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.

More technical stuff

Running a local server

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.

Changes to scripts

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

Changes to templates

If there are changes in the /templates folder, run this to regenerate templates.js (skip the npm install if uglify-js and hogan.js are already installed):

npm install uglify-js
npm install git://github.com/twitter/hogan.js.git
node make-templates.js

Contributing and Feedback

Feel free to fork, file some issues or tweet your feedback to me.

License

Licensed under the MIT License.

Other similar mobile apps

This is the not the first app to introduce a mobile-friendly version of Hacker News. Others have tried doing the same thing, despite some slight differences.

pazimzadeh/hnmobile