Douya

Douya is an open-source Android app that serves as a third-party client for Douban, a popular Chinese social platform centered on books, films, music, and cultural discussion. Douban lets users rate and review media, follow friends, and discover content through both algorithmic recommendations and social connections. The official Douban app exists, but this project was created by a developer who wanted a cleaner, more visually refined alternative built around Google's Material Design guidelines for Android.

The app's main screen shows posts and activity from people you follow, much like a social feed. It supports browsing and reviewing books, movies, and music, reading friends' diaries and long-form posts, direct messaging between users, and notifications. Navigation uses a drawer menu combined with tab-based secondary views. On tablets, the layout adjusts to use multiple columns to make use of the larger screen area.

One of the things the developer focused on is how the app feels during use: transitions between screens are animated, the app appears to launch instantly by matching its startup screen to the app's colors, and the interface handles screen rotation without losing its place or reloading data. These are details that many apps handle poorly, and the README describes the technical approaches used to solve each one.

Because Douban provides an open API, this client connects to the same data as the official app. You need to obtain an API key through a separate setup guide linked in the README before the app will work. Pre-built APK files are available in the releases section of the repository for those who want to install it without building from source.

The project is written in Java, licensed under the Apache 2.0 license, and was developed as a personal project by one engineer who is also a Douban user. The README is written in Chinese with an English version linked at the top.