CSH WebNews is a web-based NNTP client written in Ruby on Rails, designed for use with the internal newsgroups and authentication systems of Computer Science House at RIT. The goal of the project was to create a full-featured replacement for desktop NNTP clients (e.g. Thunderbird), so that users would no longer need to download, install, or configure anything in order to participate in internal CSH discussions.


(click to enlarge – images are anonymized to maintain privacy)

WebNews features a resizeable Thunderbird-esque interface with a collapsible threaded message view, reading pane, and read/unread post tracking. It is a "single-page app", updating the interface in-place with no full page loads. In addition to reading and posting, users can search through over 50,000 archived posts dating back to 1999.

WebNews development began in August 2011 and is still ongoing, with new features being added at a slow but steady pace. "Progressive enhancements" such as sticky posts and stars (a la Gmail) enhance the experience for WebNews users without affecting traditional clients, and the WebNews API allows for integration of news into other systems and apps using only HTTP requests.

Source Code

Source code is freely available on GitHub at https://github.com/grantovich/CSH-WebNews. The issue tracker there is used by myself and other CSH members to track bug reports and feature requests.

Note: I created WebNews in my early days of learning Rails, and the code is not representative of my Rails skill level today. While I do still work on it, I don't really have the spare time to rewrite it using better coding practices and a full test suite. Right now it's more interesting to me as a sandbox for UX and API design.