Handy GitHub File Explorer | Hacker News Reader

Handy GitHub File Explorer

10 pointsalexmdodge17 comments

This tool is for those developers who often review long and tedious pull requests on GitHub. I wrote a Chrome Extension that generates a simple and seamless file explorer in the GitHub pull request view. Let me know what you think:

https://gde.alexdodge.ca/

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How is it differentiated from Octotree?

Octotree is a much larger extension which has a extended scope. This was built as a small, seamless file explorer to support the GitHub pull request view. I think of it more like a component than an actual full augmentation.

The page could use some love in safari on iPhone. Text is off center, the check mark icons are different sizes, and the image at the bottom of the page is larger than the border that’s supposed to be around it.

Noted. With the extension only available on desktop I put a focus on getting a simple page up which would direct users the right way. Will give this some attention in the next iteration.

an extension I'd welcome for GitHub code reviews, is one tracking the review progress, e.g. allowing to flag on/off which files have been reviewed and which not

Then you might want to check out https://reviewable.io -- not an extension but does integrate with GitHub pretty nicely. (Disclaimer: I'm the founder.)

thanks for reminding me about this, I tried it a while back but eventually abandoned it, because of complex UI (lack of file tree on the side; the file matrix at the top doesn't make it easier to keep status; many buttons don't have a onmouseover tip so it's not clear what they, e.g. if the cause some state change; UI very different from GitHub leading to extra friction with team members) and the noise it generates in GitHub, for users who uses just GitHub

Yeah, fair enough. I want to move the file matrix into a sidebar file tree instead (along with the rest of the toolbar) but I'm blocking on some infrastructure work. I've been resisting tooltips on hover for the longest time but I'm capitulating on that as well -- for now, hitting F1 or H anywhere will bring up the help, but hover tooltips are coming.

As for GitHub integration, I agree it's not ideal but it's the best their slightly brain-dead review API will allow. Getting the whole team to adopt the tool is much better, but is obviously quite a bit harder. Though that's probably why I'm seeing a lot more success in the enterprise space, where top-down diktats are par for the course.

looking forward to see those changes, particularly on the sidebar, glad to see development is ongoing :-)

About keeping state, I've always wondered if it would be possible to store state via git commits, e.g. via a special branch ".state/reviewable.io" or even another repo - is that doable, assuming the browser would use my identity to post status updates?

Development is definitely ongoing! The high-level changelog is at https://changelog.reviewable.io/ and you can get more granular updates via https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/reviewable-enterpris... (though these releases usually go out a few weeks after the respective changes hit reviewable.io).

Not sure what you mean about putting state in the repo. It's possible of course since you can stuff anything in there, but what would be the advantage? It wouldn't integrate with GitHub any better and it would throw away the real-time updates, queries, etc., available thanks to Firebase.

Something I have in the pipeline. I hope to add a feature which lets you toggle which items have been reviewed which would show up in the explorer.

The message “You need to enable JavaScript to run this app” in unreadable. It's black on dark violet.

Consider putting “Show HN:” in the submission title.

That's a good suggestion, but a better one would be: Consider reading the rules for Show HN and then submitting it properly as a link with the title starting with Show HN.

Rules:

https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html

What about Firefox support?

I was reading about a general extension abstraction library that would offer this support, so hopefully a plan for the future!

so many haters on HN. maybe write smt useful yourself before criticizing the product

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