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Is anyone actively working on improvements to 'news' app?
6 points by maluta 1513 days ago | 3 comments
I'm using Anarki ('news' app) to track links on my organization*

Right now it's working really well. I've set up an EC2 and nginx, started the ./run-news and everything is running OK

Although things are working I'm looking for some (small improvements) like:

- Login with Google Account

- Search functionalities

- Add new buttons features that exchange data with other services

- Best practices on backups (since people are adding links) and protocols to avoid data loss and restore if I need to re-install.

I'd love to talk with other members here that are working to improve the app.

[*] I work for a non-profit organization in Brazil.



4 points by akkartik 1513 days ago | link

You might want to chat with @kennethrapp on the GitHub repo. I think that's the only one actively working on the news app. Feel free to open issues and PRs as much as you like. I sadly no longer develop on Arc, but I'm happy to answer any questions if you set about trying to build any of these features.

Regarding backups, all data is stored in a single directory on the disk, so just copying a tarball or zip file of it to some other server or S3 should suffice. The only protocol I'd recommend is being wary of switching back and forth between branches. The master (Anarki) branch has diverged in the file format in some subtle ways, and using the stable or official branch or any other forks may cause data loss. At least make a backup first before you try it.

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2 points by hjek 1502 days ago | link

Hi Maluta,

Not doing much work on the news app in Arc but have done and currently working on a news clone in Prolog.

> - Search functionalities

A while back I added a simple search bar. There's no indexing but it should work fine for smaller instances. Have you tried it?

> - Add new buttons features that exchange data with other services

I implemented data export in JSON similar to the HN API[0] in a fork a while back. That wasn't complicated, and I could probably add it to the Anarki repo if it's something you could use.

By 'exchange', do you mean sending to or receiving from? What services were you thinking of? The news app also has RSS feeds which could fit this.

> - Login with Google Account

For a starting point, it might be good to look at Racket's OAuth package[1].

> - Best practices on backups (since people are adding links) and protocols to avoid data loss and restore if I need to re-install.

All the data is just in the `www` folder (or `anarki/apps/news/www` as it is currently). A backup can be as simple as taking a copy of that folder. Restore is just copying a backed up `www` folder back into `anarki/apps/news/www`. Best practice would probably involve having automated backups and also doing off-site backups once in a while.

[0]: https://github.com/HackerNews/API

[1]: https://docs.racket-lang.org/webapi/oauth2.html

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3 points by krapp 1511 days ago | link

I'm still working on it, but it's just in my spare time. Better API functionality is definitely on the todo list.

I added a project page to the github[0] to loosely collect and organize forum issues and development. Anyone is welcome to contribute.

[0]https://github.com/arclanguage/anarki/projects

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