Ask HN: How to you read new comments on existing threads

6 points·themonk··4 comments

I often revisit threads on HN, but It is not easy to figure out what all the new threads got posted since my last visit.

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I spotted the following a while ago. It's a greasemonkey script that is supposed to modify new comments on HN in some distinct way like highlighting them or similar. I haven't tried it or read the code.

https://github.com/polyfractal/HNHalfLife

Yep, I wrote (and still use) that. It does two things. On the main page, it puts "(X New Comments)" next to comment links that you've visited. Inside comment discussion pages, it places "New Comment" tags next to new comments.

Simple but effective. It uses HTML5 local storage, so you'll need a compatible greasemonkey-enabled browser.

Frankly, I wish pg would just add this feature to the site itself...

I wrote a greasemonkey script https://gist.github.com/1187770

What this does is allow you to navigate through the comments chronologically, using the right and left arrow keys.

That is, when you visit an HN thread, you just press the right arrow and it takes you to the latest comment. Press it again and it takes you to the 2nd most recent comment, etc. Pressing the left arrow moves you backwards.

My buddy Michael Schade put this tool together, if you're interested: https://github.com/michaelschade/hnpc

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