Panoptikos

Panoptikos is an image viewer for Reddit. You can see it in action at panoptikos.com.

The server-side code is written in Go, the client-side code in plain JavaScript. Panoptikos is hosted on Google App Engine.

Features

• Preview images. No need to open dozens of tabs to see what’s behind all those links.
• Infinite scrolling.
• Sharp images. Preview images look gorgeous on high-density screens.
• No duplicate content. On Reddit you’ll often see the same content on the next page again. Doesn’t happen here!
• Supports all screensizes. Works on mobile phones equally as well as on widescreens.
• Supports all common platforms and browsers. It’s a web-app. There’s nothing to install, not even a browser extension.

Known issues

• High memory usage on clients because images outside the visible screen area are not removed from the page. Possible browser crashes if browser runs out of memory.
• Jerky scrolling because sometimes only high-resolution images can be used as preview images.

Development

If you want to work on Panoptikos or use it as a basis for your project, follow the steps below.

Installing Panoptikos

Install the Google App Engine SDK for Go if you haven’t done so already. Then:

$ go get github.com/ChristianSiegert/panoptikos

Switch to the git branch vanilla-js:

$ cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/ChristianSiegert/panoptikos/
$ git checkout vanilla-js

Running Panoptikos locally

Start the App Engine development server and tell it to serve Panoptikos:

$ cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/ChristianSiegert/panoptikos/app/
$ goapp serve

Then, open your browser and go to http://localhost:8080/.

Deploying Panoptikos to Google App Engine

1. Create a new application on appengine.google.com. As application id choose anything you like.

2. Change the application id in $GOPATH/src/github.com/ChristianSiegert/panoptikos/app/app.yaml to the one you just used when you created the application on Google App Engine.

3. Upload the app:

   $ cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/ChristianSiegert/panoptikos/app/
   $ goapp deploy
   

4. You can now access Panoptikos at http://your_app_id.appspot.com.

Updating Panoptikos on Google App Engine

Simply run:

$ cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/ChristianSiegert/panoptikos/app/
$ goapp deploy

This replaces your already deployed version. If you want to keep your deployed version, change the version string in app.yaml to something else before you run the command.

Switching between development and production mode

Ignore this chapter. Enabling production mode for Panoptikos does not work yet in this branch.

By default, the app is in production mode. That means a single file that contains all templates, Javascript and CSS was generated and is served. Any changes to the source code will have no effect unless you generate a new single production file. Generated production files are stored in app/webroot/compiled-index/.

To make development easier, you can enable development mode. If development mode is enabled, the server serves template, Javascript and CSS files from their development directories. Any changes to the source code will be reflected immediately on page refresh. Open app.yaml and uncomment the marked blocks to enable development mode.

Generating a new production file

Ignore the instructions below. Generating a production file does not work yet in this branch.

To generate a new production file that contains all templates, Javascript and CSS:

$ cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/ChristianSiegert/panoptikos/
$ /usr/local/go/bin/go run ./assetcompiler/main.go

You may have to adjust the path to the standard Go binary if you don’t develop on a Mac.

This repository contains two programs, app and assetcompiler. app is the actual Panoptikos app, and assetcompiler is responsible for compiling template, JavaScript and stylesheet files into a single file.

assetcompiler calls two Java programs, namely Closure Compiler to compile JavaScript files and Closure Stylesheets to compile CSS files. Since Java programs can’t be called in a Google App Engine Go sandbox, the asset compiler can’t be a part of the actual Google App Engine Panoptikos app and instead is a normal, standalone Go program.