Hacker News Reader

A modern, multiplatform JavaScript webapp for reading Hacker News.

Features

• Browse Hacker News front page
• Read articles and comments
• Filter by Ask HN, Show HN, and Top posts
• Dark theme support
• Offline caching
• Mobile-friendly responsive design

Development

This project has been modernized with:

• TypeScript for type safety
• Vite for fast builds and hot module replacement
• Modern ES modules instead of legacy script loading
• ESLint for code quality

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+
• npm or yarn

Installation

npm install

Development Server

Start both the mock API server and the dev server:

# Terminal 1 - Start mock API server
npm run dev:api

# Terminal 2 - Start Vite dev server
npm run dev

This starts a development server at http://localhost:3000 with hot module replacement.

Build for Production

npm run build

The built files will be in the dist/ directory.

Preview Production Build

npm run preview

Type Checking

npm run type-check

Linting

npm run lint

Configuration

API Endpoint

Important: The original API endpoint (http://ng.premii.com:8080) is no longer accessible. For development, this project includes a mock API server.

Development Setup

1. Start the mock API server (in one terminal):

npm run dev:api

2. Start the development server (in another terminal):

npm run dev

The mock API server runs on http://localhost:8080 and provides sample Hacker News data for testing.

Production Deployment

For production use, you'll need to:

1. Set up your own Hacker News API backend, or

2. Use an alternative API service such as:

   • Official Hacker News Firebase API: https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/
   • Algolia HN Search API: https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/

3. Update the API endpoint in src/config.ts:

url: {
  stories: "YOUR_API_ENDPOINT_HERE",
  readability: "a/read/sample.txt"
}

API Format

The API expects the following endpoints:

• GET /news - Returns an array of story objects
• GET /item/{id} - Returns a single story with comments

See mock-api-server.js for the expected data format.

Technology Stack

• TypeScript
• Vite
• Modern JavaScript (ES2020+)
• CSS3
• LocalStorage for offline caching
• Fetch API for HTTP requests

Legacy Links

• Original Web: http://hn.premii.com
• iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hacker-news-yc/id713733435
• Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.premii.hn

Credits

• Icon font - http://icomoon.io
• Normalize.css - https://github.com/necolas/normalize.css/
• Unofficial Hacker News API - https://github.com/cheeaun/node-hnapi/

License

MIT