We read Habrahabr, Hiktames and Megamozg in one application
Although I live in the USA, I still can’t imagine myself without news from Habr. I read mostly with Android devices and a laptop.
In recent years, Habrahabr has produced many different projects and I want to be able not to download 3 separate applications, but to read all the most interesting news in one.
To solve this problem in the local Google Play I managed to find Elkews , GeekHabr and TM :
')
I used all three and would like to consider the pros and cons of each of them separately. All descriptions and pictures will be arranged in the same order as in the screenshot of Google Play above.
Hardware: Moto X (2nd generation, Android 5.0), Nexus 10 (Android 5.0), MacBook Pro (Os X 10.9.4)
So, let's start from the very beginning: what the user sees after the first launch:
I am glad that all applications do not display annoying welcome or login screens, but immediately go to the most important thing.
Elkews and GeekHabr also remember the last tab opened by the user.
I think that the design of each of the applications has its advantages and disadvantages - everything is an amateur.
Next, look at the menu of all three projects:
Elkews uses your Google account to login and has its own Favorites and Read Later lists.
GeekHabr allows you to log in to each of the projects separately and read articles from various sub-lists. True, apart from adding to favorites and viewing your own hubs, the native login does not allow you to do anything. Here it will not be possible not only to write / edit articles, but also to comment on existing ones or subscribe to new hubs.
TM essentially just displays the data from tmfeed.ru . Only read is available here, login is not supported.
When you click on an article of interest, all three applications behave as expected: they display this article in viewing mode:
But if Elkews and GeekHabr clear the article from advertising banners and edit to fit the screen, then TM simply displays a webview with the mobile version of the original habr page.
In addition, Elkews allows you to open the original article, add to favorites or share with a friend.
And GeekHabr allows you to add Habr to your account favorites and read comments.
When you run these applications on the tablet, the following picture appears:
Elkews displays images and article headers grouped in Pinterest style.
GeekHabr stretches the image to the full width of the page.
TM traditionally shows compact text headers.
And here is the reading mode on my Nexus 10:
Elkews and GeekHabr display articles cleared of advertising, and TM: as I wrote, just shows the original. Also GeekHabr greatly reduces the size of the images. It's all on the fan.
In Elkews and GeekTimes I liked two things about which I would like to tell separately:
The first supports in addition the entertainment resource Adme and Habr’s English-language counterparts. When subscribing, the most popular news from all resources are among themselves according to their rating. In this case, you can read and just the news of any of the resources ordered by date without signing by touching the icon of the resource itself.
In GeekHabr, I liked the settings screen, which allows you to select text size for a list, article and comments from a large list. Also, the function of disabling images can be useful for slow Internet.
1. Elkews
A stable application that supports many interesting IT projects.
Pros:
- nice design
- very stable and fast
- offline access to the "Read Later" list
- login uses standard Google authorization and allows you to manage an extended list of subscriptions, as well as lists of "favorites" and "read later"
- there is a fairly tolerable web version that synchronizes all lists
- support of adme and foreign sites of IT-subjects
- the most important advantage of this project for me is the general list of the most popular articles, which shows the really most popular ones.
Minuses:
- login in the habr-community is not supported, respectively, you can not comment on posts
- in the list “Read later” with offline access do not show pictures
- very non-trivial (it seemed to me) access to reading posts of a separate project: you need to go to “Your Subscriptions” and click on the picture of the project of interest there
2. GeekHabr
Beautiful client with support for various lists, hubs, comments
Pros:
- modern beautiful interface with elements of material design.
The only thing that embarrassed is the “Load More” button. It seemed to me that it would be worthwhile to automatically load the following news when the user got to the bottom of the page
- login to each resource is supported with saving to favorites and subscription to hubs
- all sections from Publications to the Authors Exchange are displayed
- search support
Minuses:
- for me, the main disadvantage is that the articles from all three resources are separated and you have to manually choose which one you want to read.
Although I am sure that for someone it is the opposite plus and transparency. Just for me, it's almost the same as having 3 different applications.
- sometimes bugs like a green pointer on a green background when searching
- on my devices (with raw Android 5.0), unfortunately, it turned out to be quite problematic to use because of the frequent hang-up with a green screen when opening an article or when pressing a key back after reading an article
- it is not very convenient to read the articles themselves on a smartphone
- the inability to write articles and comment
- there is no possibility to watch from a computer
- pictures in view mode look too trimmed
3. TM
Minimalism and compactness
Pros:
- stable and fast running
- I liked that there is an opportunity to read the best articles from all three Habr communities
- It's great that this is an open source project, the link to which is posted directly on the Google Play application page
Minuses:
- unfortunately, the design and ease of reading I liked the least
In recent years, Habrahabr has produced many different projects and I want to be able not to download 3 separate applications, but to read all the most interesting news in one.
To solve this problem in the local Google Play I managed to find Elkews , GeekHabr and TM :
')
I used all three and would like to consider the pros and cons of each of them separately. All descriptions and pictures will be arranged in the same order as in the screenshot of Google Play above.
Hardware: Moto X (2nd generation, Android 5.0), Nexus 10 (Android 5.0), MacBook Pro (Os X 10.9.4)
Start
So, let's start from the very beginning: what the user sees after the first launch:
I am glad that all applications do not display annoying welcome or login screens, but immediately go to the most important thing.
Elkews and GeekHabr also remember the last tab opened by the user.
I think that the design of each of the applications has its advantages and disadvantages - everything is an amateur.
Menu
Next, look at the menu of all three projects:
Elkews uses your Google account to login and has its own Favorites and Read Later lists.
GeekHabr allows you to log in to each of the projects separately and read articles from various sub-lists. True, apart from adding to favorites and viewing your own hubs, the native login does not allow you to do anything. Here it will not be possible not only to write / edit articles, but also to comment on existing ones or subscribe to new hubs.
TM essentially just displays the data from tmfeed.ru . Only read is available here, login is not supported.
Reading an article
When you click on an article of interest, all three applications behave as expected: they display this article in viewing mode:
But if Elkews and GeekHabr clear the article from advertising banners and edit to fit the screen, then TM simply displays a webview with the mobile version of the original habr page.
In addition, Elkews allows you to open the original article, add to favorites or share with a friend.
And GeekHabr allows you to add Habr to your account favorites and read comments.
List on the tablet
When you run these applications on the tablet, the following picture appears:
Elkews displays images and article headers grouped in Pinterest style.
GeekHabr stretches the image to the full width of the page.
TM traditionally shows compact text headers.
Reading on the tablet
And here is the reading mode on my Nexus 10:
Elkews and GeekHabr display articles cleared of advertising, and TM: as I wrote, just shows the original. Also GeekHabr greatly reduces the size of the images. It's all on the fan.
Special features
In Elkews and GeekTimes I liked two things about which I would like to tell separately:
The first supports in addition the entertainment resource Adme and Habr’s English-language counterparts. When subscribing, the most popular news from all resources are among themselves according to their rating. In this case, you can read and just the news of any of the resources ordered by date without signing by touching the icon of the resource itself.
In GeekHabr, I liked the settings screen, which allows you to select text size for a list, article and comments from a large list. Also, the function of disabling images can be useful for slow Internet.
Eventually
1. Elkews
A stable application that supports many interesting IT projects.
Pros:
- nice design
- very stable and fast
- offline access to the "Read Later" list
- login uses standard Google authorization and allows you to manage an extended list of subscriptions, as well as lists of "favorites" and "read later"
- there is a fairly tolerable web version that synchronizes all lists
- support of adme and foreign sites of IT-subjects
- the most important advantage of this project for me is the general list of the most popular articles, which shows the really most popular ones.
Minuses:
- login in the habr-community is not supported, respectively, you can not comment on posts
- in the list “Read later” with offline access do not show pictures
- very non-trivial (it seemed to me) access to reading posts of a separate project: you need to go to “Your Subscriptions” and click on the picture of the project of interest there
2. GeekHabr
Beautiful client with support for various lists, hubs, comments
Pros:
- modern beautiful interface with elements of material design.
The only thing that embarrassed is the “Load More” button. It seemed to me that it would be worthwhile to automatically load the following news when the user got to the bottom of the page
- login to each resource is supported with saving to favorites and subscription to hubs
- all sections from Publications to the Authors Exchange are displayed
- search support
Minuses:
- for me, the main disadvantage is that the articles from all three resources are separated and you have to manually choose which one you want to read.
Although I am sure that for someone it is the opposite plus and transparency. Just for me, it's almost the same as having 3 different applications.
- sometimes bugs like a green pointer on a green background when searching
- on my devices (with raw Android 5.0), unfortunately, it turned out to be quite problematic to use because of the frequent hang-up with a green screen when opening an article or when pressing a key back after reading an article
- it is not very convenient to read the articles themselves on a smartphone
- the inability to write articles and comment
- there is no possibility to watch from a computer
- pictures in view mode look too trimmed
3. TM
Minimalism and compactness
Pros:
- stable and fast running
- I liked that there is an opportunity to read the best articles from all three Habr communities
- It's great that this is an open source project, the link to which is posted directly on the Google Play application page
Minuses:
- unfortunately, the design and ease of reading I liked the least
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/290122/
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