Yet Another PWA JNC Client

Shiny

@crimson-wise said in Yet Another PWA JNC Client:

Yeah, there is one. Thought about it when Shiny mentioned it, and since I'm already checking the times on that API in a few places, it should be straightforward, will take a look.

I personally already know the times when parts get released so I just open the app at that point.

Checking when new novels are released (usually on the hour) would be great. It might need to check again a few minutes later as well unless the release was slightly later due to clock mismatch.

Shiny

@Crimson-Wise Hopefully you are ready for the APIocalypse: https://forums.j-novel.club/topic/5142/developer-psa-labs-j-novel-club-is-your-new-friend

Crimson Wise

@shiny There were a few APIs there I wasn't aware of, so I can give it another try.

Geezer Weasalopes

@shiny said in Yet Another PWA JNC Client:

@Crimson-Wise Hopefully you are ready for the APIocalypse: https://forums.j-novel.club/topic/5142/developer-psa-labs-j-novel-club-is-your-new-friend

Now I understand why they posted that in a member access section rather than staff only.
I hadn't been aware that there were homebrewed apps running around to access the site.

admin

@weasalopes Yup! I mean it's inevitable when you run an open API like we do. Someone built like a windows app client for us, etc...
We don't officially support them but if people want to put in the time to give additional reading options we're happy to help.

Crimson Wise

@weasalopes There are a few readers. I wrote this client as an alternative to the (somewhat glitchy) old app, before the beta for the new app was even available.

There are tools to manage downloads for JNC epubs IIRC, and so on.

@admin said in Yet Another PWA JNC Client:

if people want to put in the time to give additional reading options we're happy to help.

And I appreciate it!

alfonso_rd_36

@crimson-wise said in Yet Another PWA JNC Client:

@weasalopes There are a few readers. I wrote this client as an alternative to the (somewhat glitchy) old app, before the beta for the new app was even available.

There are tools to manage downloads for JNC epubs IIRC, and so on.

@admin said in Yet Another PWA JNC Client:

if people want to put in the time to give additional reading options we're happy to help.

And I appreciate it!

So? Will you migrate to the new API? I love the reader you've built (I even have the official beta app, but rarely use it) and I'd love to keep using it until the heat death of this universe

Crimson Wise

@alfonso_rd_36 Thanks! Ironically, I'd move to the new official app if the usability on the read parts improve. The paginated reader seems to be mostly fine now on the v1 app.

And yeah, I'll give it a try. I was surprised that the contents for light novel parts is available on the new API. Was expecting to be DRM'd somehow, same as manga, but it isn't.

I'll probably need to rearchitect how I handle the home tab however, since I can't download everything as I was doing before ;)

(And to add, I am myself a heavy user of my reader!)

Freyr

I use your reader for everything. Much better readability then the official app on an iPad. I also like how you do page numbing since I can use the number to compare how big difference parts are whereas the official app has a percentage which is not helpful.

Crimson Wise

@freyr That is a good point actually. How does the official app handles the iPad's landscape orientation? A single column filling the whole screen?

My reader came from an EPUB reader app I was implementing for desktop around that time, so I had to handle a lot more window shapes. I pretty much use my phone these days however so I completely forgot about it.

Freyr

@crimson-wise I actually broke my iPad last week… so I am using my iphone until I get a new one.

I nearly always read on a iPad in portrait which works very well in your app as compared to the official app.

I don’t remember what landscape looked like in your app, but on the official app I do remember it handling landscape badly though that was while ago.

Crimson Wise

@freyr Got it, thanks! Well, the official doesn't have margins yet so that's a bit of an annoyance.

My app tries to keep an A4-shape for columns. In landscape you'd end up with a couple of columns I believe. (Or you may also end up with a lot of margin if wide enough but two columns don't fit... which helps with readibility IMO, at least with bigger screens.)

Crimson Wise

So I've migrated to the new API, and published the PWA under a new domain,

https://jnc-reader.wscr.dev/

The old PWA app will likely stop working as the old APIs go away, so I'll delete it eventually (the old URL will stop working at that point.) That said, the new version is still rought around the edges so I'll be fixing things as I find them.

Feature-wise, not all the data that was available on the old API is also on the new one, so a few minor things went away, but it's more or less the same otherwise.

The new version may be faster as well to load. On the old version I was loading pretty much everything at front and caching them, on the new one things get loaded on demand with little caching, so there will be a lot more requests going around. If your network is stable enough it should be fine.

alfonso_rd_36

@crimson-wise said in Yet Another PWA JNC Client:

So I've migrated to the new API, and published the PWA under a new domain,

https://jnc-reader.wscr.dev/

The old PWA app will likely stop working as the old APIs go away, so I'll delete it eventually (the old URL will stop working at that point.) That said, the new version is still rought around the edges so I'll be fixing things as I find them.

Feature-wise, not all the data that was available on the old API is also on the new one, so a few minor things went away, but it's more or less the same otherwise.

The new version may be faster as well to load. On the old version I was loading pretty much everything at front and caching them, on the new one things get loaded on demand with little caching, so there will be a lot more requests going around. If your network is stable enough it should be fine.

Ok, put the new link on a new tab. Once the old app failurize I'll migrate

Freyr

@crimson-wise

The new version is great and much faster. Works well on my iPad

Pictures from an iPad

https://imgur.com/a/tc1VnGd

You asked before what the official app looked like on an iPad
https://imgur.com/a/dtd9zpL

Your (new) web app is still much better then the official app. The only downside of the old web app for me of being a bit slow is gone.

Only improvement I could want is that for manga links open the link in the default grower instead of showing a blank page, I don't read manga much so that is a only a small problem.

Crimson Wise

@freyr Good to know, thanks! And yeah, the manga thing is a bit annoying (iOS doesn't seem to give too many choices here) but I'm good with what it's at the moment.

Crimson Wise

PSA: after using the new version for a month I don't think there are any major issues* compared to the old one. Let me know otherwise.

Otherwise, I'll be deleting the old website at the end of the month.

* Aside from a couple of graphical glitches, the only practical bug I'm aware of is some minor mishandling with authentication, so it appears like you haven't logged in. I'll figure it out eventually, but seldom happens (to me at least), and can be worked around by pulling down to refresh so data gets reloaded. Either that or authentication actually expired, and you need to login again.

Crimson Wise

The old website is no longer available, please go to https://jnc-reader.wscr.dev/ from now on.

sniper_samurai

@crimson-wise Seems the catch up for this month is broken on the new site. Instead of all the parts being available they are all locked except part 1 of each volume, even the ones that have not expired yet.

Crimson Wise

@sniper_samurai Thanks, you're right. It should be fixed now if you refresh the page.