May 25, 2012 at 15:21Ferra.ru: how we made our news reader and articles for Android
Hello! It so happened that I work at Ferra.ru. Yesterday, we released our Android application, and I still have a lot of fun with the desire to share our joy. I think, "I am PR" for this is the best fit. We did it for a long time, redid it many times. But what we put on Google Play , we like, although, of course, I wanted more. But for starters - just right.
First of all, I will answer the question: why? It is clear that there is no problem reading us through RSS. We have a separate article feed and even a news feed designer- there you can select individual sections. But RSS is still a specific thing. We know this, you know about it, but the masses of the people do not know. And the statistics of site visits by platform / browser confirms this. Plus, functions like commenting are designed that the RSS reader will not pull in principle. Anyway, specialized is better than universal.
The design turned out to be minimalistic: two tabs - for news and for articles. The former are displayed in a simple list with headings and snippets of text. With articles trickier: we show them in horizontal lists for each section, with tiny pictures.
You can switch between adjacent materials with a swipe, you do not need to make a hook through the list. This idea seems to have come to us independently, but, as it turned out later, this is a common technique. Great minds think alike :)
Now for the technical details. We have a mobile application, and such users have one main feature: slow and sometimes expensive Internet. Therefore, I had to think about how not to drive too much through the air. The task, by the way, turned out to be interesting!
To begin with, all images are scaled on the server side. The client transfers the width of the terminal screen and receives images of the desired size. This is the main measure, and it allowed to cut off the traffic every two or three. Pictures are loaded when opening the material and are cached for later.
Our articles are voluminous, and even bare letters would gobble up a megabyte or two in one update. Well, who needs this senseless cruelty? .. In general, we made a separate RSS feed of articles, which includes only the headings and URLs (they play the role of ID for us) of the last ten articles from each section. The client receives them, looks at what he does not already have, and then he turns to a separate script that issues the full text of a specific article in RSS format, passing him the ID of the desired article. How many new articles have appeared - so many times will be addressed.
In general, we need feedback, criticism, affection, beating and, if possible, tips on how to do better :) So far, the optimization options only come to my mind to request all the latest articles in one fell swoop so as not to force a long-ping connection.
Ferra.ru on Google Play
First of all, I will answer the question: why? It is clear that there is no problem reading us through RSS. We have a separate article feed and even a news feed designer- there you can select individual sections. But RSS is still a specific thing. We know this, you know about it, but the masses of the people do not know. And the statistics of site visits by platform / browser confirms this. Plus, functions like commenting are designed that the RSS reader will not pull in principle. Anyway, specialized is better than universal.
The design turned out to be minimalistic: two tabs - for news and for articles. The former are displayed in a simple list with headings and snippets of text. With articles trickier: we show them in horizontal lists for each section, with tiny pictures.
You can switch between adjacent materials with a swipe, you do not need to make a hook through the list. This idea seems to have come to us independently, but, as it turned out later, this is a common technique. Great minds think alike :)
Now for the technical details. We have a mobile application, and such users have one main feature: slow and sometimes expensive Internet. Therefore, I had to think about how not to drive too much through the air. The task, by the way, turned out to be interesting!
To begin with, all images are scaled on the server side. The client transfers the width of the terminal screen and receives images of the desired size. This is the main measure, and it allowed to cut off the traffic every two or three. Pictures are loaded when opening the material and are cached for later.
Our articles are voluminous, and even bare letters would gobble up a megabyte or two in one update. Well, who needs this senseless cruelty? .. In general, we made a separate RSS feed of articles, which includes only the headings and URLs (they play the role of ID for us) of the last ten articles from each section. The client receives them, looks at what he does not already have, and then he turns to a separate script that issues the full text of a specific article in RSS format, passing him the ID of the desired article. How many new articles have appeared - so many times will be addressed.
In general, we need feedback, criticism, affection, beating and, if possible, tips on how to do better :) So far, the optimization options only come to my mind to request all the latest articles in one fell swoop so as not to force a long-ping connection.
Ferra.ru on Google Play