Tell HN: Please link to the full page article (print version) when available. | Hacker News Reader

Tell HN: Please link to the full page article (print version) when available.

98 pointsLoic24 comments

Just a short reminder that linking to the print version of multipage articles is way better to read, to keep as reference later but also to download over a poor quality GPRS connection. Thank you!

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No, not the print version - you want to keep the source alive don't you? They need revenue. I say post the version with the ads, not that I like ads. It's only fair.

I also disagree with this convention. I find that print versions lack many images, diagrams, and additional media that add to the depth of a story. Also, whenever I read a print-version, I end-up having to resize my browser window to make it narrower so the content is actually readable.

I feel for you having to download content over a GPRS connection, but whenever I see a printer version of an article, I try to find the original.

Linking to full page version is good, print version I disagree with. One click from the non-print version gives you the print version, it doesn't (often) work the same backwards.

There are sites that don't offer a full page version but do offer print versions- WashPo comes to mind though I know some other sites do it as well.

I think in cases such as these linking the print page is fine- you can argue we should support the originator with ad views, but then I'd argue they should fix their site and offer a single page option.

I don't know when this stupid trend of linking to the print versions by default started. Was it the advent of Instapaper? Sometimes, the print version is - sadly - the best version, but it should never be the default option.

The print versions' typography are often inferior to the regular versions, multi-page or ad-ridden or not. I recently installed Ad Muncher for Windows which blocks all ads by default, and most of the websites I visit look amazing now. Of course, I need to find out how to whitelist ads like The Deck Network and Fusion Ads.

Link to the article as a single page instead of multiple pages, yes, but not the print versions please: they often try to print themselves. It is irritating to be opening a bunch of articles in tabs and get interrupted by one of them asking if it can print itself.

I was not aware of this until right now. I suppose the script filters I have are preventing these pages to try to print themselves. I am sorry to request something which is bad for most of the users, my fault :-/

Perhaps, in the same way that HN adds a link to Scribd for pdf submissions, it should add a link to the print version if one exists. (Web pages can indicate a print version with the <link> tag, but I don't know how widely it's used.)

No to linking to the print version. Following such a link often brings up a print dialog.

Client: "Can you make it so that print box thingy pops up automatically?"

Developer: "That may annoy some users. I think most people already know how to print a document."

Client: "So can you make it so that print box thingy pops up automatically?"

So, wait, why did you click "print" if you didn't want to, you know, print the page?

Because i know enough to "game" the system - and that "print" for many sites will give me a cleaner (flash-free, animated-gif-free) window.

OTOH: I've no problem with the print dialogue that opens along with the cleaner page. My "esc" key works just fine.

Regardless of your page preference, please strip any unnecessary hash information. I am often annoyed to find that a link contains the hash of a comment, scrolling my browser down to something which is irrelevant because I have not read the article yet.

http://thatcoolsite/article-i-love#comment-103 should be submitted as http://thatcoolsite/article-i-love

Just wanted to say this post does not represent my preference. I'm one of those people who likes comments and context. I do get the appeal of the print version. But it doesn't represent my workflow.

This corner case should not dictate all HN submissions.

I have seen a lot of friction about this over on some other news syndication sites, so in anticipation of that argument here, I offer the following compromise:

If not linked to, perhaps as the first comment following submission?

I long for the day that I can set a preference in my browser and it automatically views articles in Readability mode, or rolls-up paginated articles.

Does Readability concatenate multiple pages? I've never seen that, but I haven't really looked...

It does now. It's a somewhat new addition launched after Safari 5's Reader boasted the same feature.

Ah, thank you.

Here's the blog link: http://blog.arc90.com/2010/08/02/readability-updated-to-supp....

Sometimes when you do that the site redirects you to the home page. I've seen this quite a few times. I sent my mom an article report about my startup and she asked me if it had to do with a hunt for accused rapist. I was a little confused until I figured out what was going on there.

just use http://viewtext.org/

No, really, don't. Might as well throw in a short url when submitting to add to the obfuscation.

huh?

*edit: oh, i get it. i meant the reader should use viewtext, not everyone should submit viewtext links...duh

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