This app is shit. I would abandon it immediately. I really mean this in the most heartfelt and sincere way.
Literally everything about it is bad. The layout, the color scheme, everything.
I would also like to mention that there are some fundamental flaws to this "app", as well. First and foremost it's a Windows 8 application. I'm not saying that Windows is bad. But the demographic here is largely skewed towards the Unix variants. And those who do use Windows are likely to be using Windows 7, not 8.
Secondly, it's a full screen proprietary application. Why is fullscreen a problem? People don't sit at a computer for the sole purpose of "I'm going to read Hacker News". It's more of a passive thing you do while doing other work. I don't think anyone would want HN taking up their entire screen. It's fine for something like a smartphone or tablet which is by definition passive, but a desktop computer.... not so much.
Lastly, you can do the same exact thing in a browser extension, which would be open source, not fullscreen/in the way and cross-platform.
While writing this I realized that this costs $2. I had doubts that people would download this as a free application, but there is no way in hell anyone would ever consider paying money for this.
I'm sorry to be a dick, but I have a hunch that you have had nothing but undeserved positive encouragement while building this application. Scrap this shit. Make a game or something.
Thanks for the candid feedback. I agree it is not that great. I have used it a fair amount myself on my tablet where the full screen experience works better. The browser experience for me is a little painful on the tablet and I find the app gives me a better experience. The offline mode I find most useful, especially when flying, since I can save a bunch of articles quickly and read them at my leisure on the flight. Sure, I could probaby achieve the same through another mechanism but on a windows 8 tablet I find things not built for touch a little difficult to work with. Have to agree that the UI is not the nicest by far - I struggled with the winjs stylesheets but maybe I will find time to improve it. Honestly, I built it mainly for myself to try out winjs. I find it useful and thought I might as well put it out there.
Oh... The whole touchscreen/tablet aspect of Windows 8 must have went completely over my head... a lot of what I said kind of goes out the window (heh) with that in mind.
Honestly, as a tablet application this is pretty awesome. The offline caching bit is really cool too.
Literally everything about it is bad. The layout, the color scheme, everything.
I would also like to mention that there are some fundamental flaws to this "app", as well. First and foremost it's a Windows 8 application. I'm not saying that Windows is bad. But the demographic here is largely skewed towards the Unix variants. And those who do use Windows are likely to be using Windows 7, not 8.
Secondly, it's a full screen proprietary application. Why is fullscreen a problem? People don't sit at a computer for the sole purpose of "I'm going to read Hacker News". It's more of a passive thing you do while doing other work. I don't think anyone would want HN taking up their entire screen. It's fine for something like a smartphone or tablet which is by definition passive, but a desktop computer.... not so much.
Lastly, you can do the same exact thing in a browser extension, which would be open source, not fullscreen/in the way and cross-platform.
While writing this I realized that this costs $2. I had doubts that people would download this as a free application, but there is no way in hell anyone would ever consider paying money for this.
I'm sorry to be a dick, but I have a hunch that you have had nothing but undeserved positive encouragement while building this application. Scrap this shit. Make a game or something.