I was trying to read HalfBakery on the train earlier today and I noticed a problem with annotations showing up in different font sizes. It turns out that some mobile browsers scale up the text (ignoring the page author's wishes) to make it more readable, and this doesn't work that well on halfbakery. I was about to report this when I noticed something else.

Halfbakery continues to look and feel fresh and very usable on a desktop, which is amazing considering there has never been a major redesign, at least in the last seven years. However, it is not quite that usable on a mobile. In particular, a single column layout would save a lot of sideways scrolling. I was about to post an idea for a mobile halfbakery, maybe a quarterbakery, when I realized another thing.

Creating a new mobile website with all the features halfbakery has accrued over a decade would be a non-trivial undertaking. I don't know how much free time jutta has, but I think it would be fair to make such a massive request. Without some process where more people can pitch in, this project (and any others like it) would have a no chance of getting off the ground.

So, this idea is actually two ideas:

- putting the HalfBakery code on github so that people can download it and contribute minor improvements (of course, these will need to be approved by jutta to come on halfbakery proper)

- publishing an HTTP API to do common things on halfbakery, like reading ideas, searching and posting annotations. This would allow people (with some kind of authorization) to experiment with various alternate interfaces for halfbakery (like maybe a Google Glass app?!) without affecting halfbakery proper. If there's trouble (annoying posts by the Glass-wearing newbie halfbakers) the API key of the offending app can be revoked and sanity restored.

If jutta is interested, I can offer my time to see this baked. I write code for a living and maintain a couple of open source projects.
-- arvin, Nov 19 2013

Low res version http://www.halfbakery.com/lr/
May work better on your phone; give it a try [lurch, Nov 19 2013]

API was already requested HalfBakery_20API
But there was no discussion back then. [arvin, Nov 19 2013]

Any comments?

Alternate interfaces to the bakery that may end up discovering something new and useful (to bring back to the main website) seems to me a good idea.

A fishbone with no explanation is... disheartening :-(
-- arvin, Nov 20 2013



random, halfbakery