NewsWave.com.ua: Reader of Ukrainian news. Theory and practice

Good day, Habradruzya!

Tell me, do you read news on the Internet? How exactly do you read them?

Of course, everyone has their own convenient way. Someone uses an RSS reader in the form of a program / plug-in or an online service, someone visits some of the most interesting news resources, and someone generally goes to a single site and is happy with everything.
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I wanted to do something of my own. And since I am a web programmer by profession, this “own” should have become a web site.

I want to introduce you to NewsWave.com.ua - my news aggregator.

What is it?

NewsWave. Information news wave.
The association was with water, because information “flows” in a continuous stream, forming a solid news feed.

As I wrote above, NewsWave is a news aggregator . We can say that from the series “Yet Another One”, but with one reservation - it turned out to be surprisingly pleasant to use.

The site collects materials from RSS feeds of the most interesting news resources. The list of "sources" is constantly growing. At the moment there are mostly Ukrainian news sites.

I myself am from Kiev, so I decided to try it first in my field. I plan to release an analogue for Runet in the future.

Idea

Making a list of requirements for my future "news site", I received the following characteristics:

1. Be pleasant to read, do not strain (design, usability).
2. Often update the news feed.
3. Add new information so that it does not interfere with reading existing records.
4. Collect news from sources of different subjects, distribute them into headings.
5. Give the ability to quickly move from a brief description to the full text of the news and back.
6. And, of course, contain a quick search form.

If you say one sentence - it should be a tool that is as easy to read as possible, with fresh interesting and varied news. And it should be simple and straightforward.

The idea of ​​news aggregators is no longer new. There are many different. But (as it always happens) I wanted to do better, to do it qualitatively, so that it would be pleasant to use both me and other people.

In addition, it was interesting to conduct a kind of experiment called “a new project - is it difficult or long?”. The moment was favorable.

Implementation

The task itself is simple. A simple design, layout, engine tuning, implementation of a news collection system from rss-streams and data display - all this took about 2 weeks. And then two more to finish off the small rough edges.

Separately, I want to mention the pagination system news feed .

Both for users and for search engines, it’s bad when new entries in the feed shift existing ones. This behavior inevitably confuses a person - he is lost in this endless list. In addition, I myself hate the situation when you go to the site through a search engine, and there has long been other material.

I have described my decision here . The idea is to show the latest N news on the first page, and when moving to the next pages, focus on the sequence number of the record from the end of the list.

Those. the address of the 2nd page will be / p / 51430 / , the 3rd - / p / 51420 / , the 4th - / p / 51410 / and so on.

This allows you to move along the news line in both directions without being lost, without shifting materials, without gaps or re-reading the same. If the same user goes back to the main page after updating the tape, then for him further navigation will follow different numbers. But he is not "lost."

At the same time, I also decided to refuse to display page numbers, but just made two arrows: “back” and “next”.

Probably the most difficult and controversial issue was the mechanism for reading the full text of the news .

Again - the question of convenience and speed. Traditionally, news aggregators take the reader to the source site page. And, as a rule, in a new browser window / tab. This “correct” method in all respects does not fit only in one (I think - the most common) case - when you want to quickly look at the material, run your eyes. Call it a "preview."

I took it upon myself to show the source page on the spot. It looks like this:



It uses FancyBox (jQuery) and IFrame. I tried to ensure that the user did not feel the inconvenience that may arise with frames. The dimensions and position are automatically adjusted, scrolling works correctly. This window can be closed or use the arrows to go to the previous / next news. If desired, the user can easily and quickly go to the source site page. Conveniently.

This question is controversial from the point of view of copyright. Since the author's materials from another resource allegedly appear on my site.

For my part, I did everything to make the user understand that this page is completely and completely loaded from another site without any changes, it is not saved on NewsWave, all rights belong to the source, and this window is just a preview tool.

So I try to say: “I have no intention of giving this content as my own!” However, judging by the discussions that I found on the network, not all relate to this issue unequivocally. Interested in your opinion.

Did you get octopus?

At the moment, NewsWave is a working news aggregator already with a solid length news feed. Works since the beginning of August.

Updates on the site occur every 20 minutes during the day (from 9 to 24 hours) and every hour at night. When adding new materials, a notification is displayed at the top of the page.



There are 15 headings so that you can read news on a specific topic. For example: "Economy", "Sport" or "Science and Technology" (my favorite).

I also made it possible to evaluate the news using the “+” and “-” buttons, but for some reason no one uses them except for me. Apparently not interested in it or do not want to waste time on nonsense.

News can be shared with friends on Facebook, Twitter, LiveJournal and VKontakte.

There is also a widget for Google and Yandex, which can be inserted into the home page in these search engines. It shows a list of the latest news.

No registration to NewsWave is required. Just come in and read.

The convenience of use. The question is subjective. Personally, I now do not use anything else. It seems that in terms of design and convenience everything turned out great. But it would be very useful to “hear” the view from the outside.

I will be glad to any feedback.

Thank.