An attempt at fixing the god-awful mobile app of Dresdner Verkehrsbetriebe.
DVBetter is available to use at https://benjamin-hempel.github.io/dvbetter. On supported browsers, you can even install it as a PWA!
Most of the times I open the official app of Dresdner Verkehrsbetriebe it doesn't end well. Everything's fine and dandy when suddenly the app becomes unresponsive or outright crashes on me. Oh, you want to arrive at that stop at the time you chose? Well, I didn't save your last input correctly so now you'll instead depart at that time. I could go on and on about all the little problems, nonsensical menu structure and usability issues, but instead I decided to just create my own app called DVBetter.
DVBetter currently offers the following features. If you'd like to see what's coming in the future, take a look at the roadmap.
- departure monitor
- quickly find real-time departures of any stop within the Verkehrsverbund Oberelbe network, including delays and cancellations
- bookmark your favorite stations to see their next departures at a glance
- choose how many departures to display for each bookmarked station individually
- automatically refresh departures to always see the latest information
- light or dark mode depending on system theme
- support for multiple languages
- currently supported: German and English
- by default, the system language is used (if yours is currently not supported, English is used as a fallback)
- language can also be selected manually via the settings tab
DVBetter stores all user data only locally on your device using PouchDB. Of course, to get departures and routes, DVBetter needs to send that information to the appropriate APIs of Dresdner Verkehrsbetriebe and Verkehrsverbund Oberelbe. For this, the open-source library dvbjs is used. Please also note that GitHub may collect data, create logs and set cookies according to their Privacy Statement as the app is hosted using GitHub Pages. If you don't like that, you can of course simply host DVBetter yourself by following the steps outlined below.
I currently have no plans to monetize the app, which means there will be no ads and DVBetter will remain free-to-use for the foreseeable future. I'm developing this app for fun and to learn stuff, not to make money. Thanks to GitHub Pages, I also don't have any running costs for hosting DVBetter.
DVBetter requires the following software to run locally:
Furthermore, you need to run yarn install in the project directory to install all required dependencies.
When all prerequisites are met, you can start up a local development server by running ionic serve in the project directory. The app should then be available at http://localhost:8100/dvbetter.
To build a production version of the app, simply run ionic build --prod in the project directory. This will create a www folder in the project directory that contains the build output.
Please note that this presumes the app's base href to be /dvbetter/. To change this, simply modify or remove the projects.app.architect.build.options.baseHref property in angular.json.
I am currently not accepting pull requests as this app is a hobby and learning experience for me, so I'd like to write all of the code myself.
However, if you'd like to report a bug or request a new feature, head over to the issues section. Before creating a new issue, please check if there's already an issue covering your report/request.
This section contains the libraries and technologies used to power DVBetter as well as their respective licenses.
- Ionic Framework (Website, GitHub, MIT license)
- Angular (Website, GitHub, MIT license)
- PouchDB (Website, GitHub, Apache 2.0 license)
- dvbjs (GitHub, MIT license)
- date-fns (Website, GitHub, MIT license)
- angular-cli-ghpages (GitHub, MIT license)
I'd also like to thank Richard Böhme for helping with testing the app and providing feedback.