Learn More
Resend Email
7
SoldierOfCode
4d

https://devrant.molodetz.nl/preview...

Picture of an EXTREMELY early stage of an android devRant client (since the official one no longer works due to the certificate expiration).
Threw this in just a few hours so it's super bare bones and just a proof of concept for myself currently, there is no APK, this isn't even an alpha.
I absolutely do not have time for fun projects so I can't promise anything time wise, if I'll have time I'll try to make it at least usable enough for an alpha build to send here on the next weekend.
(Perhaps will even find an hour or two here or there in the middle of the week)

I sincerely appologize for my lack of time, I would've absolutely loved to start this earlier, and to finish a MVP for y'all (and myself) to use as soon as possible.

Currently it uses 'dr.molodetz.nl' as a "quick and easy" solution for the certificate thingy (so know that data and credentials move through a "thrid-party"), but once I'm having an app that is usable (minimally) I'm planning to switch back to devrant.com but with certificate pinning.

P.S. If anybody has got any tips or advice for android development, write in the comments, I would appreciate anything because I fucking HATE android development and it makes me feel like a monkey smashing a computer with a wrench hoping shit will work. Not my first android app, but even though I've made a few android apps in the past(real apps for actual use, not "template" apps for portfolio or for learning) I still feel like every tiny step is fighting against the framework instead of with it.

devrant

android_dev_can_suck_my_ass

yourant

android_development
Favorite
Ranter
Comments
  • 3
    4d
    @retoor @whimsical
  • 4
    4d
    @Lensflare tagging you too since you also have your own third-party devRant client, and maybe you'll have non-android (or non-os in general) specific advice for things that you already struggled with and solved.
  • 5
    4d
    Ah, that's cool. A native android client is more preferable than my https://rantii.molodetz.nl (installable PWA for android). This platform deserves native clients. My project was done in 2 hour or something, maybe three. It has a few issues but does introduce markdown and syntax highlighting.

    # Check it out

    ```python

    def pony():

    pass

    ```

    I won't forgive you for not having a lot of time :P

    What time is it in camelstan?

    Edit: hmm, the syntax highlighting sucks.
  • 4
    4d
    Use https://retoor.molodetz.nl/retoor/... for the best API documentation. In the root there is a document with calls and their responses. Else just read the python source to see how authentication and voting works. But if you ask perplexity (in deepsearch mode) to make you a devRant client to use with your android application, you're done too. What a time to be alive huh.

    I use perplexity for almost all my api clients. The power of perplexity is unlimited!
  • 3
    4d
    @retoor Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, PWA. So that's how you're supposed to use 'rantii'.

    Couldn't figure out how it's more useful than the regular devrant website, now I get the intended use case.
  • 2
    4d
    @SoldierOfCode

    I accidentally created software. Maybe it's a good resource. But that's how powerful perplexity is. You name an api, and it will create the whole software around it. Would not use the project i mentioned here, it has flaws like using regex for json. That has to do with my limited 3rdparty preferences that perplexity knows from me so i get such shit.

    Zip android project: https://devrant.molodetz.nl/downloa...

    Project description that escalated into software: https://devrant.molodetz.nl/preview...
  • 2
    4d
    Woah, go to bed :P https://devrant.molodetz.nl/preview...
  • 3
    3d
    @SoldierOfCode nice, always glad to see stuff like that! 😁

    Ok, a couple of thoughts:

    Why do you want to use certificate pinning? I don’t see the point for a 3rd party app. It only asks for trouble when certificate issues occur.

    Isn’t skyrant open source? Maybe it would be easier to just modify that to ignore the expired certificate, like I did with JoyRant.

    JoyRant also started as "I wonder how easily I could do it myself". It was at the time when the official app was still in the store. But it was crashing frequently for years so I wanted to make a crash free version.
    It started out with a simple feed viewer (similar to yours) and then slowly evolved into an app with more and more features.

    I recommend to make a list of features that you want to support.
    Don’t plan to support everything. Some features are barely used and aren’t worth it, imo.
    For example I don’t want to support Avatar editing. Or "stories".
  • 2
    3d
    @SoldierOfCode

    More thoughts:

    Don’t try to copy the UI from the original.
    I did this mistake myself in some places. But I also changed some things, not just to look different but also because I think it makes more sense.
  • 2
    3d
    @Lensflare

    > Why do you want to use certificate pinning?

    Because I don't want to blindly trust EVERY invalid certificate in case someone's going to try and abuse the fact that the certificate has expired, and do an attack (basically any type of an attack that a certificate usually protects from), instead I want the app to ONLY trust that one expired certificate that we "know" is safe and secure. Basically to protect the app from, for example - Someone claiming to be `devrant.com` with some self signed certificate.

    I want the app to only accept valid certificate plus ONE KNOWN expired certificate.

    So the goal is reducing the attack surface.

    "But nobody is realistically going to attack devRant, who would even want something out of this dying websight" -> Sure I think so too, that's not a good enough reason for me to ignore an obvious vulnerability, and apparenty it's an easy fix.

    It's just not the priority at a pre-alpha stage.
  • 1
    3d
    @retoor Camelstan??? I know Frankistan but Camelstan??? alloooo quoi?????
  • 3
    3d
    @Lensflare

    > Isn’t skyrant open source?

    Probably, but I suck at reading other people's codebases, and I'd like to make it by myself. I'm already suffering enough by having to dive into Android again, allow me to at least have a tiny ounce of enjoyment out of doing it with my own hands instead of rewriting someone else's project.

    Dark Souls has a better 'Fun to Suffering' ratio than Android dev.
  • 1
    3d
    @Lensflare

    > I recommend to make a list-

    Aye aye you will get your lists, don't worry, as soon as I implement the bare minimum (scrolling feed, viewing a rant+comment, post a new rant, post a comment) I will publish a list of what's already implemented, what's going to be implemented, order of importance, what MAY BE implemented, what I'm not going to implement, and which known bugs there are.
  • 2
    3d
    @Lensflare

    > Don’t try to copy the UI from the original.

    But I like the original's UI....

    The only dislike (and a STRONG one) is that posts don't show usernames on the feed, which you can see mine already shows them from the very start.

    But we'll see, maybe further down the road(After at least the base features are implemented), if people don't much like the original UI I'll add an alt-UI in the settings. Currently not a priority.
  • 2
    3d
    @Lensflare Thank you for all the suggestions and opinions <3
  • 2
    3d
    @SoldierOfCode

    Good point about the certificate pinning. You are more responsible than me! 😅

    Please, by all means, don’t let yourself be discouraged from doing it yourself! I was just trying to make the point that, in case that you just want a working android app with the least amount of effort, you could fix skyrant.

    I‘ve added usernames in the feed as an opt-out setting, too! 😁

    For the features list, I meant more like a list for yourself, not necessarily a public one 😁
  • 1
    3d
    @Lensflare huh, but I LOVE how the original (android) app looks like. I think the original app (rip) was nearly perfect. But don't cancel your image attaching, it'll crash 😂 Also, most of the times well performant :) If was graphical bit more skilled I would've made exactly like that. Although, rantii looks also fine.
  • 1
    3d
    I wouldn't make any new clients in the year of our lord 2026. The backend is definitely going down this year.
  • 1
    3d
    @AlgoRythm The end is nigh!
    We need Noah!
  • 2
    2d
    @Lensflare won't be surprised that you get religious soon :P devRant is really going to an end! And i'll be there! Want to be the last one standing! Who's with me? :)
  • 1
    2d
    @retoor question is… who will be the pair of people for the human species?
  • 0
    2d
    @Lensflare the Olsen twins!
  • 1
    1d
    @retoor how are they supposed to repopulate humanity?
  • 1
    1d
    @Lensflare dunno, but i would like to see them trying!
  • 0
    1d
    @retoor well, can’t say no to that…
devRant © 2021 Hexical Labs LLC
Privacy Policy  |  Terms of Service
Add Comment