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A comment on Show HN: I'm open sourcing Harmonic, the Android Hacker News client.

Re:Show HN: I'm open sourcing Harmonic, the Android Hacker N... by swesnow on Tuesday May 23, 2023 @12:56PM (#36047144)
Hey HN!

I'm the developer of one of the most popular Android clients for HN, Harmonic for Hacker News. Over the years I have recieved many requests to open source the app which I am finally doing - sorry about taking so long :)

Having been very busy working on my PhD during the last two years - Harmonic has not recieved the attention it deserves. I therefore hope that open sourcing it can give it a new lease on life. I also hope that by posting here many of the nice people who have reached out to me will notice that the app is finally open source. I'm also happy to answer questions about the app but cannot make any hard promises about future features.

(As a note; I wouldn't call the architecture of the app a beauty by any means - it is very much cobbled together using my (somewhat outdated) knowledge about Android development.)

-- Simon

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Show HN: I'm open sourcing Harmonic, the Android Hacker N... by whalesalad on Tuesday May 23, 2023 @02:43PM (#36048907)
Sometimes it can be hard to let something like this go. Kudos to open sourcing!
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Show HN: I'm open sourcing Harmonic, the Android Hacker N... by swesnow on Tuesday May 23, 2023 @05:30PM (#36051104)
You're very right - and it's kind of hard to explain even to myself why. I'm glad its done now and people seem to be actually looking into the code
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Show HN: I'm open sourcing Harmonic, the Android Hacker N... by ejj28 on Tuesday May 23, 2023 @04:07PM (#36050155)
Cobbled together or not, the app is functional, has an awesome UI and I love that I don't have to leave the app to actually read articles. Awesome work!
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Show HN: I'm open sourcing Harmonic, the Android Hacker N... by swesnow on Tuesday May 23, 2023 @05:27PM (#36051065)
Thank you! I agree that those are for sure the most important things. Glad it does the trick for you :)
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Show HN: I'm open sourcing Harmonic, the Android Hacker N... by TheHumanist on Wednesday May 24, 2023 @04:41PM (#36063601)
It really is very sleek and beautifully minimalistic. Don't downplay your achievements! It's a great app.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Show HN: I'm open sourcing Harmonic, the Android Hacker N... by mmanfrin on Wednesday May 24, 2023 @11:48AM (#36059755)
Conversely I love that I can set it to use the system browser, I absolutely loathe in-app browsers.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Show HN: I'm open sourcing Harmonic, the Android Hacker N... by dlojudice on Tuesday May 23, 2023 @04:48PM (#36050671)
Thank you for building Harmonic. It's been my HN client for years. I will definitely take a look on the code and try to contribute.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Show HN: I'm open sourcing Harmonic, the Android Hacker N... by swesnow on Tuesday May 23, 2023 @05:29PM (#36051090)
You're very welcome! Always nice to hear that someone has been happy with the app for a long time. Would be very cool if you could make some form of contribution. Again I apologize for the code being somewhat of a mess - it was not made with open source in mind but if you have any issues I'll try to help you out :)
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Show HN: I'm open sourcing Harmonic, the Android Hacker N... by vaughnegut on Tuesday May 23, 2023 @11:57PM (#36053904)
First of all, I love the app (I'm writing this comment on it write now)!

I'd always wondered, is the UI inspired by Relay for Reddit? The sliding between, colour-coded comment chains you tap to collapse, I absolutely love it and it's the only other place I've seen it. I wish more apps used this style, it's so intuitive, pretty, and pleasant to use

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Show HN: I'm open sourcing Harmonic, the Android Hacker N... by swesnow on Wednesday May 24, 2023 @03:48AM (#36055197)
Thank you! It is partly - I use Sync for reddit as my reddit client and that is an inspiration for much of the UI however I did actually download Relay because I know it had some interesting UI choices and stole some ideas from there. It's amusing that it is noticable
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Show HN: I'm open sourcing Harmonic, the Android Hacker N... by nunobrito on Wednesday May 24, 2023 @05:00AM (#36055606)
Please learn to spell "receive". Most people will say nothing about this detail, it does however impact your texts.

Anyways, fantastic work with the app. I'm using it right now for writing this comment. Thank you for making it available.

[ Parent | on HN ]