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Show HN: my first ever coding project (7bks.com)

25 points by topcat31 ↗ HN
Hey HN. I've just launched my very first webappp and would love your feedback.

http://www.7bks.com

It's a book list sharing website - kind of like playlists for bookworms.

The site is built on pyton/appengine - and I learned to code in under 4 weeks to build the site. There's more details on the background of the site here:

http://www.7bks.com/blog/179001

I've also published the full Python code for the site here:

https://gist.github.com/670034

Feedback is really important to me and I want to work hard to make the site better so any and all suggestions are greatly appreciated. Contact details are here: http://www.7bks.com/contact/

Or just leave a comment below :)

Thanks, Tom.

16 comments

[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 49.4 ms ] thread
amitvjtimub
I like overall look and feel. Also appreciate the fact that this must be hard to grasp in limited time but as such I am not target user.

Good work.

topcat31
Thank you :)

When you say you're not the target user - is that because you're not a big books fan or because the site puts you off somehow? Any feedback is always useful. Thanks

jim_h
Pretty nice idea. I like it, though I'm not sure I want to sign in with google. Maybe a simple account system like HN?

(I understand the concepts of using google/fb/etc sign ons, but I don't like to have to log into them if I can avoid it. Paranoid they'll know every website I have an account on. sort of..)

I think it'd be better if the recent books took me to the user's book description first (like in the book lists). Then if I wanted to go to Amazon, I could use the link from there.

topcat31
Yes, at some point I want to greatly improve the login system and offer both direct login but also twitter/google/facebook. Unfortunately it's a little beyond my coding abilities at the moment! Also, as soon as I start storing passwords I need to ensure they're secure and I'm not quite confident enough in my coding abilities for that yet. Still, I'm learning fast so hopefully soon :)

Yes - I'm going to completely change the homepage soon with a much stronger focus on featured/top lists rather than just recent ones. Also, that top books list is pretty rubbish at the moment, I should change it like you say to go to the list with the book on.

Thanks for the feedback

ryanto
looks very nice.

1) When browsing lists I like the spacing and big font, but I would also like to see all books without having to scroll. Like an easy way to take the list in.

2) Add more ways to login, maybe including your own system.

3) This might be a cheesy idea, but is there anyway you can theme book lists based on their topic/category. For some reason I think the layout of scifi fiction list could/should be different than a list of Perl books. Btw, when I say theme I just mean general layout stuff, not like MySpace animated gif theme.

topcat31
I'm totally adding animated gifs :-p

1) Hmm - I'm not sure how this would work but an interesting idea. I'll have a think about how to do this.

2) On my roadmap. See my comment below for more detail.

3) This is also on my roadmap! I'm going to run themed weeks where I get people to create lists on a specific topic (e.g. scifi) and then after the week aggregate all the lists on a special sci-fi page. Hopefully in time this will build a really good topic/genre resource while still having some editorial control to weed out poor lists.

Thanks a lot for your thoughts :)

h0h0h0
Hey Congratulations for launching Tom!

Did you want feedback on coding as well? If so I can pass some info along.

Other than that i like the layout and the visual of the site. it's simple and makes a ton of sense at quick glance.

topcat31
Thanks! Yes I definitely want feedback on the coding. I'm hungry to learn more and that's why I put the code on github. My email add is on the site - please let me know what I'm doing wrong :)
swanson
For 4 weeks in, that is pretty good Python code. Keep up the good work!
thetylerhayes
I LOVE COMMENTS IN BIG TEXT. AND I LOVE SHARING COMMENTS IN BIG TEXT. SO I CREATED THIS COMMENT IN BIG TEXT AS A REMINDER THAT ANYONE CAN CREATE BEAUTIFUL COMMENTS IN BIG TEXT AND SHARE IT WITH OTHER PEOPLE WHO LIKE BIG TEXT.

Actually, I'm just curious: why is the text on your home page SO BIG?

topcat31
Because I suck at design and I needed to fill the space :-p
fallingbadgers
It's a very nice site. Be good to have author's name and comments in normal text while keeping italics for the book title. Now to play with it some more!