Digs: iOS app that syncs your Discogs collection and lets you browse it offline
56 points by rlustin a day ago | 22 comments
  • hu3 15 hours ago |
    Blog title lacks iOS: "Building Digs, an offline Discogs companion"

    And it's a RN app:

    > It’s a React Native app built with Expo and TypeScript. Data lives in SQLite.

    • ZeWaka 15 hours ago |
      What's wrong with React Native? I don't quite get your point there.
      • Insanity 15 hours ago |
        Speculating - but an iOS app that's build on React Native is not really a 'native iOS app'. Which might have some performance implications etc.

        Just speculating, I've not done mobile development since before RN was even a thing.

        • skydhash 14 hours ago |
          RN does use a lot of native code. It’s not based on a webview like Electron is. Most of the builtin components are native views and there’s no CSS. The JS engine is also simpler. It’s more akin to the lua runtime in Neovim.
          • Insanity 14 hours ago |
            Ah, I did not know that. I thought it was more Electron-like.
            • davidhariri 9 hours ago |
              It’s a fair assumption. The React part is more about copying JSX and other React concepts (declarative UI etc) but it all boils down to native binaries. The toolchain is also pretty nice. It does hot reloading so you don’t have to recompile the app while building locally. The downside is you get less for free compared to SwiftUI. But SwiftUI also has many footguns and bugs. No free lunch!
        • rlustin 13 hours ago |
          Funny enough this was my first mobile app ever, I figured it out doing it. Expo helped a lot. The Apple review process on the other hand… that was a whole learning experience on its own.
          • coffeecantcode 12 hours ago |
            God I feel you here, that first review is always brutal.
      • monster_truck 14 hours ago |
        Quite a lot. Enough that it isn't realistic to ask this in good faith
    • rlustin 13 hours ago |
      Fair enough on the iOS mention. The tech stack (React Native, Expo, TypeScript, SQLite) is detailed in the blog post, I wasn't trying to hide it.

      As others pointed out in the thread, RN renders actual native views, not a webview. For this use case: browsing a local SQLite database offline, it works really well.

  • imagetic 15 hours ago |
    That’s fun!
    • rlustin 13 hours ago |
      Thanks!
  • cauterize 13 hours ago |
    Love this given my favorite record store is in a basement with bad cell service!
    • rlustin 13 hours ago |
      I love it!
  • dnlzro 13 hours ago |
    How'd you design the icon/logo for it?
    • rlustin 12 hours ago |
      Not a designer at all, I used recraft.ai and iterated until I got something I liked.
  • ebuyan 11 hours ago |
    What do you recommend beyond React Native?
    • rlustin an hour ago |
      This was my first mobile app so I can’t really compare, but Expo was a great way to get started with zero mobile experience. That said, I did feel a bit locked into their ecosystem. Everything is designed to push you toward their cloud build service (EAS), and I just wanted to build locally.
  • davidhariri 9 hours ago |
    Lovely! Thank you
    • rlustin an hour ago |
      Cheers!
  • trvz 9 hours ago |
    This could’ve been a nice native lickable app, as befitting for what it does.

    Instead, and I’m not against AI, AI slop that isn’t native, has awful design and awful font decisions.

    Someone should take the idea but implement it properly.

    And a Cover Flow view is a must.

    • rlustin an hour ago |
      The AI wrote the code, but the design decisions are 100% mine, I’m going through a monospaced phase.

      Cover Flow would look cool but I’m not sure it solves a real problem for this use case. When you’re digging through crates you want to search and filter fast, not swipe through covers. Appreciate the feedback though!