Show HN: Chrome extension to collapse and expand HN parent comments threads | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Chrome extension to collapse and expand HN parent comments threads

github.com

44 pointsmarcosnils25 comments

I can recommend Refined Hacker News by plibither8 (https://github.com/plibither8/refined-hacker-news). I added a "collapse root comment" module which does just that. The addon itself has tons of other useful features, and is still pretty lightweight

It's so great. I forget that I'm using it, and then am shocked when I use HN on a browser which doesn't have it.

Slightly off-topic, but, does anyone have a tip/tool for actually making it through a long thread (such as "who's hiring") in multiple sessions? I have trouble saving my spot if I leave the tab for too long, or if I navigate away, and then come back with the back button. It's possible I've never seen beyond page 2 because it's such a slog and I often have limited time.

https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/18066-hn-comments-owl

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hn-comments-owl/kp...

E: This will only highlight comments since X time, it helps somewaht.

I only use Chrome for work. Since they perma-stopped my ability to cease the video autoplay and back when I would turn it off, it would somehow get itself turned on again, I stopped using it as my 'leisure browser' at home and at work during lunchtime.

Any hopes for some HN-y Firefox plugins?

I don't know HN's view of Opera, but I've been using it for more than a year and really like it. It's chromium based and can use any plugin from the chrome store. It also has a lot of useful features (PIP video window, sidebar messengers, dev tools, dark mode, workspaces)

Opera was bought out by a Chinese company a few years back. It's now, as I understand, more-or-less a Chromium clone.

If you like(d the old) Opera, 12.16 IIRC, though, I would suggest a more-or-less Chromium clone: Vivaldi. It feels like it has the same truly-a-user-agent feeling as Opera gave me so long ago. I believe it's staffed by ex-Opera devs, too.

EDIT: Okay, I just realized you acknowledged it was a Chromium fork...I wish I knew how to read. My recommendation on Vivaldi still stands however.

Yeah, I get that it was bought by a Chinese company and that seems to be the primary criticism from people (and I'm not sure it's justified.)

I wouldn't call it a Chromium clone - the codebase and most functions/abilities are the same but the UX and UI thinking is very different.

I will still check out Vivaldi!

PIP and dark mode sound like standard chromium features. Curious what's better in the dev tools though.

dev tools: I don't think they're particularly better per se. They're pretty much identical. But overall, the design of Opera is a bit more useful to me. The sidebar alone just makes it more usable.

PIP: I looked it up. There's a pop-out video option for Chrome available with plugin. The UX for it is better in Opera.

You don't need the extension for PIP anymore.

Ha, I made something similar last year https://github.com/AlexBHarley/skipper.

It adds a keyboard shortcut to take you to the next top level comment. I think it's broken now because I did it in a really hacky way.

When you get tired of a comment chain in a thread click two (or three, I forgrt) keys and bam, you're into the next conversation.

I think that should be the default, all parents collapsed. Very neat. If you want a quick preview, you can copy the code on this page[1] from the GitHub repo directly and paste it on the console. Works on Firefox too.

[1] https://raw.githubusercontent.com/marcosnils/orange-juicer/m...

This actually gives me an idea for just the thread page itself. Default collapsed threads that you can expand to show comments.

Illustration: https://i.imgur.com/NrR8TVR.png

*The comments and thread are unrelated. I just picked random ones from a thread I was on.

One thing I truly want HN to add is a button like https://apolloapp.io or official reddit app have that lets you go down/up the top threads quickly. Usually its in the bottom right corner.

Super useful when browsing on mobile.

I'm not sure if it's exactly what you're looking for, but I had a similar need and wrote this extension for my personal use: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/sihn/

It adds "parent" and "root" buttons under every comment. You can use the collapse button next to a post to get to its next sibling. (They are also made easier to hit on mobile.)

Firefox only though.

Sync for Reddit allowed you to map volume buttons to thread up/down. That was super convenient and fast. Unfortunately, it seems Apple does not look to such features kindly.

I hope that HN doesn't add anything. It's great just the way it is.

People can certainly add whatever they want with browser extensions, though.

Floating buttons are…kind of annoying, to be honest. Just like those “back to top” buttons a lot of websites use.

I prefer the current option to hit the '-' to collapse threads when I'm done with them and not having any more click/touch targets on screen. It seems like the collapsing is remembered while logged in across devices and sessions.

I'd love a firefox version too :)

It looks like its open source. The developer would probably be delighted to take a patch adding Firefox support!

The developer is the person who posted the story. How does patching Chrome plugins to add Firefox "support" work, exactly? Have you ever done that?

FWIW, I'd totally check this out if it were for Firefox. I left Chrome years ago for privacy reasons.

Firefox tries to be largely chrome compatible. It is likely, that it would work on Firefox with minimal work and merely needs to be added to AMO. If that is the case, then it is a simple case of asking the developer to add it to Firefox. I would recommend a Github Issue for that.

The trouble of course exists in both direction. I have a FF extension I didn't manage to port to chrome yet because chrome is missing something (finding me the tallest element that has a scroll bar).

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