Hi hackernews!
I'm the author of this site/chrome extension/app. I'm happy to answer any questions you might have/field any comments
I've got to admit though, I'm a little jaded towards "Chrome only" extensions. Is there a reason you couldn't build this in Firefox?
As web developers, we've really got to stop this practice lest the web become further fragmented.
Anyways, I don't want to come down on you specifically - I realize this is probably just an MVP. You did a great job.
I totally agree, I was just trying to minimize the number of things I was designing for while I was building it.
That said, Firefox addon is in my todo! https://github.com/mcnuttandrew/forum-explorer/issues/45
How does "someone built a Chrome extension" justify you asking them to explain themselves for why they didn't build it the way you want?
OP seems to agree with the sentiment, so I'm not sure why you're bothered.
Questioning the choice (that is, implying it's wrong), asking for whether the reason is "good" as a value judgement, stating outright that "we have to do better", is not perfectly valid. It's rude.
I'm passionate about protecting the open web because I believe a modern and free democratic society literally depends on it. And yes, I know that sounds quite dramatic, but I believe it wholeheartedly.
It might be worth mining the trn user interface for ideas.
The author tried to write a major new version (4) in the late 90s, but from what I could see of the development process (being on a mailing list), the codebase became unmanageable and there were lots of bugs that proved impossible to catch. Usenet was on its last legs by that stage anyway. So that's a cautionary tale: make sure the specification and basic architecture remains clear and clean. (I'm not sure how many of the bugs back then were related to managing ncurses and other fiddly issues that won't arise in the architecture of a web app.)
Threads that the user didn't want to read could be "junked". This could work in the context of HN as a way of sorting posts into interesting and not interesting on a per-user basis.
Rather than just navigating a set of threads, trn gave the user tools to productively keep up with discussions they were interested in, and not have to worry about other discussions at all (after dismissing those discussions once).
Here's a basic explanation of the interface: https://www.einval.com/~steve/software/trn-faq.html
I then wanted to see the context for a specific comment so I clicked on it. Great that worked!
Then I wanted to go back to where I was in the list of comments by the OP. I clicked the back button ... that didn't work.
Ideally either the back button would work (each state has an equivalent URL) or the UI provides a way to return to the last state.
Thanks for the interesting tool!
Hackernews is written in arc. I also think its interesting the the comment structure is a tree, just like an S-expression:
It's using System WebView. In my case Bromite
I think this would be essential. I've been clicking around on it, and it's not entirely clear to me how to work it. I may be an idiot, but I'd really love some instructions.
EDIT: I just now managed to see the "wait I'm lost" link toward the bottom. It took some doing (that's part of the page that gets clipped). I'm now following the walkthrough -- perhaps that will clarify things for me.
Edit edit: OK, I think I have a basic understanding of what's up. It's overly complex for my needs, though -- I think I prefer the normal comment threads.
I'm on it! https://github.com/mcnuttandrew/forum-explorer/issues/67
> Edit edit: OK, I think I have a basic understanding of what's up. It's overly complex for my needs, though -- I think I prefer the normal comment threads.
that's super reasonable! this is an experimental interface, some things are bound to work for some people and not for others
I really wish my tooling for spell checking while writing jsx-y code was better, i feel like this happens a lot