[HN Gopher] Show HN: I made a Hacker News for the automotive ind...
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Show HN: I made a Hacker News for the automotive industry
Author : trizoza
Score : 59 points
Date : 2021-04-19 18:56 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (autonews.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (autonews.io)
| grawprog wrote:
| Not a big fan of the use of space compared to hn. On hn on mobile
| I can clearly see the headlines for 13 stories, on the automotive
| one, I get 6, meaning i have to scroll a whole page just to see
| as many stories as I can at a glance on hn. With one quick
| scroll, i can see an entire hn page, to get to the bottom of
| autonews I had to scroll 5 times and scroll past an annoying
| subscribe bar placed in the middle.
|
| I don't really feel like it captures hn's ease of use and
| simplicity.
| trizoza wrote:
| Thanks, I was actually exactly thinking the same when I was
| comparing autonews.io vs HN. But I would have to compromise the
| images if I wanted to make it more concise, and I've decided
| not to.
| jvalencia wrote:
| You can keep the images, but just reduce all the white space.
| Also, I'd get rid of the cookie banner, as I didn't see
| cookies?
| trizoza wrote:
| Thanks, someone else mentioned the cookies as well. Will
| have a look into whether I can remove that, as I hate the
| consent myself.
| grawprog wrote:
| I don't think the images are a problem. Like the other
| commenter said i think it's the use of whitespace. The story
| feed seems quite narrow compared to hn. There's lots of
| deadspace to either side. I think you could increase the
| usage of space while not compromising on the images.
|
| Please too, put the subscribe thing at the bottom of the
| page, not the middle. That just reminded me of a midpage
| banner add. It disrupted the reading flow very obviously.
|
| It's a terrible spot for it.
| andrewstuart wrote:
| Agreed - don't get fancy - you're on a good idea with the auto
| focus - just clone the HN look and feel, choose a different
| color palette.
|
| I wonder if part of the appeal of HN is it has no images?
| mysterydip wrote:
| It is for me. Reception isn't always good where I go and
| being light on load times is one of the reasons I keep coming
| back.
| capableweb wrote:
| You don't even have to write your own software, you can just
| run HN ("news") directly for your niche!
| http://arclanguage.org/install
| trizoza wrote:
| All that work... :)
| shoto_io wrote:
| Maybe I am getting old, but if I see "I made HN for X" I am
| expecting to see the exact design of HN...
| prh8 wrote:
| At a minimum I'd hope for a copy plus fixing the issues.
|
| But I like seeing it tailored a little more towards the
| target audience.
| millzlane wrote:
| It's not just you. I must be old too.
| travoc wrote:
| Does the back button in the iOS app eventually float off the
| screen and become unusable? If so, I'm in.
| weird-eye-issue wrote:
| Coming from Android... You guys still have back buttons? I
| just swipe from the edge of my screen to go forward/back
| from anywhere
| spyke112 wrote:
| One of the things HN gets right is in my opinion the classic
| basic design. I wish you would have recreated that.
| trizoza wrote:
| Thanks for the feedback. The main reason why I went for the
| combination of pictures and text was that many car enthusiast
| like the visual aspect of cars and therefore I kept the images
| as well.
| GloriousKoji wrote:
| I think the thumbnails add too much white space between
| headlines and doesn't actually show enough to be useful. Like
| if there's a press release of a new model or spy photos, I
| want to see all the pictures from all angles and not a zoomed
| in crop of a singular headlight. As of right now I'm only see
| 3 thumbnails of the top 10 with a picture of a vehicle.
|
| Also (old.)reddit already does the small thumbnail and
| headline thing. I like the hackernews layout for its
| information density.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| For what's its worth - Circular images are a fad created for
| avatars (pictures of people with their heads fitting inside
| the circle). You're showing images embedded in the article
| and IMO should be rectangular.
| rabuse wrote:
| I agree with this. Also, the page shouldn't be centered
| like that.
| thinkloop wrote:
| What's wrong with centered? Anyway it's not really
| centered, more left-justified with expanding left
| padding.
| frozencell wrote:
| What is the classic design of automotive? That's the question
| to ask IMO.
|
| Paul Graham wrote about automobile design in an essay.
| trizoza wrote:
| Do you think you could find the essay? I'd love to read it
| elihu wrote:
| He made a remark about SUVs when talking about programming
| languages; was that what you're referring to or was there
| something else?
|
| http://www.paulgraham.com/hundred.html
|
| > Some kinds of waste really are disgusting. SUVs, for
| example, would arguably be gross even if they ran on a fuel
| which would never run out and generated no pollution. SUVs
| are gross because they're the solution to a gross problem.
| (How to make minivans look more masculine.) But not all waste
| is bad. Now that we have the infrastructure to support it,
| counting the minutes of your long-distance calls starts to
| seem niggling. If you have the resources, it's more elegant
| to think of all phone calls as one kind of thing, no matter
| where the other person is. > > There's good waste, and bad
| waste. I'm interested in good waste-- the kind where, by
| spending more, we can get simpler designs. How will we take
| advantage of the opportunities to waste cycles that we'll get
| from new, faster hardware?
| spdionis wrote:
| I saw a loading spinner and immediately went back.
| trizoza wrote:
| Sorry about that.
| asimjalis wrote:
| I like the site and the layout.
| trizoza wrote:
| Thanks!
| awestroke wrote:
| But did you write it in a shitty homemade lisp?
| trizoza wrote:
| Hehehe, no, it's Next.js/React/TypeScript - why lisp? :D
| jhgb wrote:
| Because then it's not proper "Hacker News for X", of course!
| /jk
|
| (Although it has to be said that HN's rejection of complexity
| -- the exact opposite of your approach of embracing it with
| all those javascripty thingies -- does have something going
| for it.)
| trizoza wrote:
| Got you! ;) HN for X in terms of functionality, def not in
| terms of lightweight execution :)
| nielsbot wrote:
| Makes me wonder about hacker news having tags/categories. You can
| ignore them (they're just metadata) but also filter by them if
| you choose. (show me "automotive" posts)
| seumars wrote:
| Get ready for all the comments about the design from non-
| designers
| jq-r wrote:
| ^ just a nice sounding ad hominem attack ;)
| p1necone wrote:
| I'm not sure why being a designer is necessary to criticize UX,
| unless it's UX intended _for_ designers.
|
| You don't only read restaurant reviews from restaurant owners,
| or movie reviews from filmmakers, or car reviews from
| automotive engineers do you?
| Judgmentality wrote:
| For the same reasons being a coder isn't necessary to
| criticize code. Anybody can do it, but chances are your
| opinions are a lot less informed than you realize.
| asimjalis wrote:
| Is there a list of HN for X somewhere?
| trizoza wrote:
| :D:D:D probably yes
| sumthinprofound wrote:
| an RSS feed would be super great.
| trizoza wrote:
| Noted.
| ffpip wrote:
| Great website, you seemed to have worked hard on it.
|
| Some feedback if you don't mind it.
|
| 1. How about moving the domain of the article posted beside the
| post title (like HN)? This maintains the flow of reading. I read
| the post title and then I can see the source of the article on
| it's right.
|
| 2. You seem to have a separate URL for each post ( EG:
| https://autonews.io/article/99522953-788c-446f-a706-cd26e2c3...)
| but I couldn't find any way of accessing an individual post's URL
| from the front page. Had to dig into the HTML. Maybe clicking on
| the timestamp copies the post link or takes you to the individual
| post's URL?
|
| 3. Dark mode toggle is very confusing
| (https://i.imgur.com/V0MrNlA.png). Don't switch the icon after
| each toggle. Put an icon (indicating dark or light mode) outside
| the toggle and then let users change based on that
| (https://i.imgur.com/1wyE6si.png) .
|
| 4. Don't automatically open links in a new tab. HN doesn't do
| that. Let users ctrl+click if they want to open it in new tab if
| they want to.
| trizoza wrote:
| Hi, thanks for that! Noted.
| tw600040 wrote:
| Is there a HN for finance?
| ALittleLight wrote:
| Filing a bug report:
|
| 1. Unauthenticated: try to add comment.
|
| 2. Error that you need an account to comment.
|
| 3. Create account
|
| 4. Attempt to submit the comment typed in one.
|
| Expected: Comment submitted successfully.
|
| Actual: Something went wrong.
| trizoza wrote:
| Thanks, will be addressed!
| mewmew wrote:
| Perhaps I'm the wrong audience, so feel free to disregard this
| feedback :)
|
| I personally use Hacker News without JavaScript, and was
| expecting/hoping the same would work for autonews. But, alas. It
| gets stuck at "Loading..."
|
| Still, wish you all the best with autonews, and hope you can
| build a tailored community of automotive enthusiasts.
|
| Cheers, Robin
| trizoza wrote:
| Thanks Robin. I have not even thought of running it without JS.
| Might consider in future. And thanks again! Hopefully it finds
| its audience.
| amitmahbubani wrote:
| Tech and related content is generally global. Auto news on the
| other hand is usually localized, and locally relevant.
| trizoza wrote:
| Hi, yeah, that's a very good point. Have not considered this
| fact. Hmmm...
| frozencell wrote:
| Maybe something automobile in the VR could be new.
| verall wrote:
| This might seem facetious, but the cookie warning really threw me
| off. It doesn't really matter, I canbjust click past it, but
| instantly in my head:
|
| "This isn't HN for anything. Some marketing something or other I
| guess..."
|
| I think, for a dedicated/techy crowd, little things like a cookie
| warning mean a lot. To me it screams crap. I can't think of a
| single website I use enjoy using regularly that included a cookie
| warning. I think Reddit added a cookie warning when their UI went
| to shit.
| trizoza wrote:
| Hi, I honestly hate the cookie banner myself - that's why I
| made it as much invisible as possible. But I'm using Google's
| Firebase for user authentication and therefore it uses cookies.
| I also store your choice of theme dark/light into a cookie so
| it's there for you next time. I believe that's why I have to
| have the banner there. Or am I wrong?
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| You probably shouldn't backend on a Google service if you
| value your users' privacy.
|
| The theme cookie is easier to solve: Use CSS media
| preferences instead and use people's browser settings to
| choose it. That being said, cookie warnings may not be
| necessary if you aren't storing anything personally
| identifiable.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| Per my understanding of GDPR you only need the cookie warning
| for cookies unrelated to your site's fundamental operation.
| Admittedly, I'm not a lawyer and I've not really liked too
| closely at it, but I don't think you need a warning just
| because you use a cookie.
| smabie wrote:
| What sites do you enjoy that don't have a cookie warning? I
| feel like almost every site does, except HN ofc
| esturk wrote:
| What's are you doing differently versus r/cars over at reddit
| which already has over 2.3 million subs in their community?
| trizoza wrote:
| There definitely is an overlap, big one. I built it for this
| reason: I am a automotive engineer. I come to work in the
| morning, make myself a coffee and open autonews.io, click on
| 2-3 articles that interest me, read them, done with my coffee,
| ready to work, I'm up to date with latest news in industry - so
| maybe the combination of news feed plus community submitted
| articles is different. Hope it is!
| Piisamirotta wrote:
| Cookie popup. Loading spinner. Not enough Hacker News for me :)
| trizoza wrote:
| Roger that :)
| peanut_worm wrote:
| I don't see how it is very similar to HN beyond being a news
| aggregator.
| trizoza wrote:
| Hi all,
|
| I made this project to help myself stay up to date with
| automotive industry because I love cars and anything related to
| them. It gathers the latest automotive news from more than 20
| auto portals. Allows users to submit articles, comment, and
| upvote. I got quite literally inspired by HN and was mindblown
| why such a thing does not exist for automotive industry.
|
| Also users can subscribe to a newsletter that delivers top 10
| articles of the week every Monday morning.
|
| Thank you in advance for any feedback! And happy to reply to any
| questions.
|
| Peter
| tiotempestade wrote:
| Hey Peter, mind if I embed the feed in my automobile
| marketplace site? :)
| tobr wrote:
| Congratulations on shipping a thing! I have to say though,
| creating a place to submit links and invite or comment doesn't
| mean it's "a Hacker News for X" - what makes HN what it is is
| the community. Do you have any thoughts on how you could build
| a community around this project?
| trizoza wrote:
| Hi and thanks a lot. I 100% agree with you on the community
| factor - that was the main motivation behind my project -
| however to get your hobby project up and running I needed to
| bring some content in first - therefore the automation. I've
| reached out to all my peers (i'm ex-automotive engineer) and
| they've started using it - some of them on daily basis.
| However once I've reached my network limits - I've started
| launching to relevant communities - PistonHeads,
| reddit/r/AutomotiveEngineering, product hunt and now HN. I am
| hoping to that there will be a cross-section of users that
| love cars and will stick and start posting content
| themselves.
| busterarm wrote:
| A couple of former TTAC editors are active users here on HN.
| Will be interesting to see their feedback.
| trizoza wrote:
| That would be absolutely amazing.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| It seems like a neat idea, I hope it works!
|
| I'm not sure I'd say it's "HN for ..." though. The automated(?)
| news aggregation and newsletter features seem pretty different
| from HN's Spartan style and entirely user-submitted content.
| trizoza wrote:
| Hi, thx! The great aspect of HN, as you say and for me is
| also the community curation of relevant content. I've
| automated the inputs of the most popular automotive portals
| to get in some initial content. However the community - by
| clicking, sharing, commenting then decides which articles
| make it to the top. And of course they can submit their own
| articles - if it gets enough traction - I will consider
| switching of the popular.
| Svip wrote:
| If some of them are aggregated, while others are submitted, it
| is not clear to me to tell them apart, nor where an aggregated
| story came from. One just says "Submitted by Carol", but I
| cannot click on the name to learn anything more.
|
| I also notice you hotlink all the images, you might want to
| contemplate re-hosting the images yourself, or abandon the
| images altogether.
| trizoza wrote:
| Hi, thanks for the feedback. In the long term, you will be
| able to click and see the user behind the submission. However
| it's still in TODO column atm. But will def add it as this
| feedback is so valid. Good shout about splitting the
| automated/submitted content.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I think I like the autosubmissions, sometimes it's silly
| that a story HN will definitely discuss has to be found and
| submitted by someone. There are certain sites one could
| arguably auto-submit to HN, though HN is popular enough to
| just not need it.
|
| Do make it clear which are auto-submitted though.
| trizoza wrote:
| Will do.
| the_duke wrote:
| All the top stories seem very consumer oriented, not for
| professionals in the industry.
|
| From a cursory glance it seems more like a "car enthusiast"
| news site rather than a place for industry discussion.
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(page generated 2021-04-19 23:00 UTC)