Vue HN 2.0
hnews.xyz
hnews.xyz
Really it just feels wrong for hackernews, the site that works in elinks and only uses 7 or so optional lines of JavaScript.
I mean, if you think it's using Vue wrong then flame away, sure. But critiquing that you prefer HN's current design strikes me as a bit like going to a "TodoMVC in framework X" project and commenting that you prefer to use paper and pencil.
edit: My bad, the Live Demo link takes it to a different HN Vue page. https://vue-hn.now.sh/top
The first version of Vue HN is used in the Examples on the official Vue website: https://vuejs.org/v2/examples/hackernews.html
2 counters points:
- The low-js version is already pretty good and usable without js, why make a clone to specialize in using even less JavaScript?
- vuejs 2.x is targeting isomorphic server side rendering, so you should target your complaints to anything that should work with js disabled, but only works with js enabled.
I guess what I'm really asking: does anyone think Vue will still be good and fast in a couple of years or will it be more like Angular, breaking under its own weight and growth? (no offense to the angular folks, but I haven't heard an engineering team say "glad we chose angular" for a while)
I would add the following points from my experience with Vue:
Vue is incredibly easy to learn. The usual claim with React is "productive in under a week", while I find that with Vue, most JS engineers can be productive in a few hours. Especially for engineers coming from a background in Angular, Mustache, Handlebars, etc. the templating in Vue is very easy to understand.
The documentation for Vue is excellent, some of the best documentation I have ever worked with: https://vuejs.org/v2/guide/
It has the advantage that it's not beholden to the whims of a large company like React is with Facebook or like Angular is with Google, given that its development is funded by a Patreon campaign: https://www.patreon.com/evanyou
Additionally, Vue is not encumbered by the patent questions around React: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11270213
I don't anticipate Vue crumbling under its own weight. Vue is developed by Evan You, who has already shown his ability to learn from Vue 1 and iterate on that with a lean and organized Vue 2. My main criticism of Vue would be that its ecosystem is not as strong as React's at this point, as you have pointed out.
The client "rehydrates" this data into its own store so that its state is consistent with the data rendered. Essentially we're in the same position as if we'd rendered it client-side.
It's a lot simpler than it might sound.
2) The thumbnail images oftentimes just repeat the title, consider reducing the size of thumbnails to fit more text.
3) In the spirit of HN, consider removing all images from thumbnails to give readers a feel for the text.
Most sites these days have a meta tag for images they want to display which is likely optimized for exactly this usage. Can always fallback to screenshots if those don't exist, but I'm pretty certain it'd be more pleasing.
You could implement this in less 10 minutes with micro-open-graph[0] (disclaimer: I made that). Runs on now.sh, so it's free to host too. (depending on how much traffic you send to it)
Because screenshots show what you'll actually see in the site?
I don't care for the "meta image the site wants to display" at all.
Lots of news sites don't allow ad blockers these days. This means that all you'll see in the screenshot is some popup.
Otherwise, it's mostly "don't let the door hit you on your way out" case.
IMO this approach has harmed the UX of twitter.com tremendously and is done mostly to facilitate ad integration. Dark patterns for the lose.
On the other hand, one could argue a lot of what the images tell can be inferred from looking at the title and metadata alone, but this has definitely reduced my "false positive" clicks. Vanilla HN wins hands down for information density.
I think website preview (history-less, pre-rendered and cached) might be a possible field for interest for startups (pocket, raindrop etc.) and their browser extensions to manage bookmarks in browser, because they currently generate (and cache) image previews on their own so they can offer website preview as feature. This feature also reminds me Force Touch [1].
[1]: http://osxdaily.com/2016/02/23/preview-web-page-links-safari...
Yes, me.
Around ~2013/2014 Twitter Cards were introduced. Cards are text (the tweet) + a large image (2-4 tweets in size). This was marketed to users as a preview of the URL/article content, but it was really about making the ads less obtrusive. It failed and, IMO, had massively negative impacts on the UX.
Where is the code that generates the screenshots? I looked around here https://github.com/vuejs/vue-hackernews-2.0 but couldn't find anything. Is this the right repo/branch ?
I guess it's using something like headless chrome to get the thumbnails?
Minor thing: Would be great to have mobile screenshots when accessing your site on mobile (otherwise everyhing on the screenshots is tiny).
[0] - http://tophn.info/ [1] = https://hackernoon.com/tophn-a-fun-side-project-built-with-v...
To the maker: it would be nice if you linked to the HN page so as to enable people to comment on posts they find via your client.
In HN the right side of the screen is underutilized. Maybe you can have the list on topics on the left, and previews on the right, etc. Or have the right area to be customizable...
But I like having a list of topics since it allows you to discard the ones that are uninteresting faster.
Maybe if you could also have tags like in slashdot and filter tags that would be good too, but HN doesn't have tags.
My wants:
- Default to no images and toggle them like Reddit Enhancement Suite
- Vim shortcuts for all navigation, including a help menu
- Dark mode
- Gallery mode
Not saying do that, just saying what I'd want.
Neater would be a thumbnail-in-the-thumbnail showing a picture of the submitter and author, perhaps on the upper left and right corners. Might require a bit of data mining, though.
The speed at which images and content are loaded (esp. during paging) makes it feel very snappy to use. I don't know why, but it "feels" even faster than the standard client.
It would be interesting to see how submitters, if this new one is the only interface, optimize the images that show up in the screenshot.
I confess I would not choose the new interface after a quick test drive. I prefer going through single line text descriptions.
Unfortunately, it also decided to reorder the thumbnails while I was scrolling down the page. Nooooooooooo
For those that do use it, don't you find the jumping around of the news items distracting?
That aside, this is a well-executed concept: It loads quickly, is fairly well laid out, and the comment section is more modern feeling than the original HN -- if a little too modern for my taste.
I'll never use it, the thumbnails are completely useless to me, and I'm in Australia. Dynamically loaded content is garbage, over here. Too much time spent staring at an empty screen waiting for content. The actual linked-site content takes as long as it takes, of course, and you have no control over that, but it's definitely well done!
I would suggest you to add /best as well (unless I missed it and it's already there)