[App] Notifications for NovelUpdates

Discussion in 'Tech Discussion' started by inv3rse, Jul 16, 2017.

  1. Skoll028

    Skoll028 Member of DivineDaoLibrary

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    In reply to that though, the app creator themselves can set up basic security measures, such as encrypting, without overly affecting usability.
     
  2. noisypixy

    noisypixy Sacatunn que pen, que summum que tun.

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    As long as they don't make it open-source, you're right on that point.

    Yes. But the HTTP thing wasn't about the app, but NU itself.

    App creators can protect data in transit between the app itself and the app servers, but they can't protect the data between the app servers and NU.

    A system is only as strong as its weakest slab; and the weakest slab here is NU.
     
  3. BabaNovac

    BabaNovac FUYUKAI DESU Seraglio e youkoso SchrodingerPanties

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    I don't think this is such a good thing for NU, I mean this site probably survives only through those two or three adds so if we stop using NU to keep looking for new chapters and use this app instead, NU is the one that looses after all... I may be wrong but I'll just keep using NU even if it takes a little bit of time, this way I know what new novels are being translated and the general flow of translations
     
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  4. Skoll028

    Skoll028 Member of DivineDaoLibrary

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    That is true, the amount generated from ads is not a small amount either haha. (Think how many use NU, and assume that each ad generates 10 cents for a view. This number may not be accurate ofc. But ten cents for the... hundreds of daily views easily? Let's assume 1000 views (prolly more than that tho). 1000*.1 = $100 a day. Not bad.)
     
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  5. inv3rse

    inv3rse Well-Known Member

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    It is good to see people being concerned about security.
    First off the password for login ist not saved anywhere in the app. For the login call I am actually using the https endpoint for the website. (If you do it over your browser I believe only http is used). After the successful login the website sends me cookie with a valid session. This session cookie is saved within the app and send with every request. Once the session cookie is expired you will have to enter your password again.

    The reason the app does not have an offline mode without logging in is simply that it requires a much more sophisticated app with more screens and more complexity. For the first version im trying to keep everything as simple as possible. That does not mean that it will never happen, but it is not my top priority.

    The ability to use a public reading list on the other hand is way more interesting for me.

    But for now I am looking into a weird crash on some big screen devices.
     
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  6. Comfortabull

    Comfortabull Well-Known Member

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    They could just as easily make ad revenue through an official mobile app that had ads as well... I'm kind of surprised they haven't thought of that by now.
     
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  7. Nyeko

    Nyeko Well-Known Member

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    Because everyone who makes apps are doctors.
     
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  8. SoulZer0

    SoulZer0 Heaven Refining

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    Tony has no intention of creating an app.
     
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  9. TheUnbreakablePlotArmor

    TheUnbreakablePlotArmor Mt.Tai cannot see me, as you cannot see Mt.tai

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    i tried searching for it, but it wasn't there. Could you help me?
     
  10. inv3rse

    inv3rse Well-Known Member

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    I just put out a hotfix (Version 1.0.1).
    This should hopefully fix the crash on devices running Android 4.x

    It will take a couple of minutes until it is available on the play store.
    The crash as far as I know was caused by a bug in the android incremental resource processing...
     
  11. camanjj

    camanjj Active Member

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    I can't post the link directly yet but here is something close to it
    appsto[dot]re/i6dL4nx
     
  12. noisypixy

    noisypixy Sacatunn que pen, que summum que tun.

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    52.5MB... Are all iOS apps that huge?
     
  13. Randyr

    Randyr Member

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    Just out of curiosity: Why this app rather than RSS? NovelUpdates supports personalized RSS through your reading list(s), and you don't have to log in to keep track of app changes. RSS is also universally available, so I can have RSS in browser, android, ios, my toaster, etc.
     
  14. Random

    Random Well-Known Member

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    What specs you got on that toaster??
     
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  15. noisypixy

    noisypixy Sacatunn que pen, que summum que tun.

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    RSS isn't perfect, it has an item limit. In NU it's 25 items.

    If your RSS reader checks your feed at a moment "A", and then check again at a moment "B", you'll be fine fine as long as the amount of releases that happened between "A" and "B" are <=25.

    But if you get "25 + n" releases between "A" and "B", then you'll only see the latest 25, and you'll miss "n" releases.

    It's a somewhat corner case and depends heavily on the amount and type of series you follow, but these things won't happen with an app in the first place (assuming that app doesn't use RSS feeds).

    EDIT: Also, with some metadata, you can "group" notifications (/cc @inv3rse). As in "3 new chapters for Your Novel", instead of "Your Novel 100 released" and "Your Novel 101 released" and "Your Novel 102 released". Or something like "mute notifications until chapter amount reaches 50".

    EDIT2: Or something like "notify me when a novel with these tags appears".
     
    Last edited: Jul 17, 2017
  16. camanjj

    camanjj Active Member

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    It depends on the app. I use some libraries that make things easier for development that unfortunately bloat up the app. If I did everything myself it would be way smaller. My plan is to slowly remove the unneeded dependencies and replace them with my own code but that also depends on how much free time and determination I have.
     
  17. noisypixy

    noisypixy Sacatunn que pen, que summum que tun.

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    I see. I'm thinking of making something for iOS soon-ish, so I was curious about that point.

    Thanks.
     
  18. Randyr

    Randyr Member

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    I agree that that's a valid reason depending on the amount of novels you read. However it truly is an edge case. For example, most RSS feed checkers, apps, w/e check every 10-20 minutes (usually configurable). This means that 25 chapters would have to be released within that timespan before this becomes a problem. Even then, you could reduce the amount between checks. Based on this, I'd say that makes the scope of this app fairly limited to extremely heavy readers where this edge case might occur.
     
  19. noisypixy

    noisypixy Sacatunn que pen, que summum que tun.

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    Depends on both sides, readers and translators. Nothing is stopping a random translator from releasing a batch of 25 chapters. But in general, yes, based only on that, the app would be just a reliable alternative to RSS.

    But with an app you can also get the personalization options I talked about in the "edits".
     
  20. noisypixy

    noisypixy Sacatunn que pen, que summum que tun.

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    @inv3rse, to summarize some of the possible features I've talked about so far (some of them are new):
    1. Group notifications by novel. That means if a novel "ExampleNovel" gets 3 updates you'd only get 1 notification saying "There are 3 updates for ExampleNovel", instead of 3 separate notifications.
    2. Mute notifications until backlog reaches a certain size. I sometimes like to wait until I have like 10-15 unread chapters to continue reading a novel.
    3. Mute notifications until chapter count reaches a certain size. I'm following some series that I'm not reading yet because the chapter count is too low. I'd like to be able to mute notifications for certain novels until they have 50 chapters, for example.
    4. Get a notification when a new novel on NU matches certain conditions, e.g. tags. I'm always looking for novels with certain tags, so this would be particularly helpful.
    5. Mute notifications from a certain translator. Maybe you're following a series but don't want to get notified when a certain translator does it.
    6. Notify only when volumes end. This is a bit tricky, but could be done with some novels. This metadata can also be get from some raw sites.
    If you're thinking of increasing the scope of your app to be a full-fledged NU client I have even more suggestions, but since your app is only limited to notifications I'm only posting these.

    I'm a developer myself, so feel free to ping me if you have any questions.