Hacker News Reader

Comment by frde | Hacker News Reader

Typing this using the extension. I like it, through I think one of the reasons I like browsing HN is that the website is intentionally very simple / I don't have to think around navigation at all (everything is very linear, I click something I get a page reload with the thing I'm expecting). This adds just a bit more cognitive load around navigating.

I'll keep using it for a bit to give it a fair shot however since I can imagine the split pane being super useful in certain cases.

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Same thoughts here. I think it's great that people can make extensions and apps for new and varied experiences, but the current HN is dang near perfect IMHO. Simple, intuitive, fast, does what you expect it to do. Nothing less nothing more. It's reached its final form for me. Everything else is fan fiction.

"dang near perfect" is correct!

The only issue is the font, really. I use the stylus extension to change it to:

* { font-family: Open sans; }

And _now_ it's perfect. For desktop at least.

One thing I noticed is that pressing `edit` does not let me edit anymore. It just opens my post on the left pane (and still isn't in edit mode) so my only option to add this feedback is to reply to myself :)

You are right actually.

It's a bug, that missed my test somehow.

Will fix.

> This adds just a bit more cognitive load around navigating.

I think you'd like "Refined Hacker News". It provides thoughtful, convenient enhancements but doesn't change the core HN experience.

https://github.com/plibither8/refined-hacker-news

Great extension. I use it heavily. The problem is that the developer seems to have given up on it.

You'll need this PR to use it without errors: https://github.com/plibither8/refined-hacker-news/pull/125

Interesting, I'm using is as-is from Chrome Web Store¹ and haven't seen problems. Thankfully it's open source in case a fork is ever necessary.

¹ https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/refined-hacker-new...

You don't 'see' the problems unless you know what to look for. One sign is that the spinner in the top left corner doesn't end. Check the console for errors too.

The primary issue is that the DOM parsing fails due to changes in the HTML structure and the extension throws NPE's.

Oh! Yes, then I do see this. Thank you for the pointer to the PR and the explanation.

I've been collecting thoughts on the next generation extension to make for HN. Hopefully when I have a bit more time (in the middle of a giant home remodel), I'll find some time to implement it. One core thought that I really enjoy about this extension is that it doesn't really change the UI/UX at all, it just refines it. I think that is important.

And each post opened, because it's on it's own page, is in a single-thread-focus-mode. And so is your post as I'm writing this reply to it.

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