Show HN: Flat Hacker News | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Flat Hacker News

sagargv.blogspot.com

25 pointssagargv50 comments

I have no idea why HN doesn't have collapsible comments like reddit. There's literally no downside and extremely easy to implement, it would solve the same problem this is trying to solve.

We definitely want to add collapsible comments to HN. While it does seem relatively easy to implement (if that was our only priority--we could do it quickly), it is not true that there would be no downsides. We'd have to rewrite it again in the near future is one I can think of and here's why:

When the new team took over development on HN, we decided that before we implement any new frontend features for the site we needed to update the markup HN uses to make it easier to implement such features in the future (just the markup, not the aesthetics).

Creating a visually identical version of HN with CSS3/HTML5 was easy (we also made it responsive to work on mobile devices)--implementing it was another matter. HN's presentation layer is heavily intertwined with the application/server logic, which meant it was going to be a bit tricky to separate the two. The reason it was tricky is because the entire code base up to a few months ago was optimized to be worked on by one person, pg. For example, we didn't even have docs on how to setup / run the arc code on local / development machines when we first got started.

Eventually we did get a version of HN working that's separated the presentation logic, but we realized that MANY of you out there have built apps that rely on scraping HN's outdated table markup. Because we decided that it would be bad to break all of your apps overnight, we've now started working on an API for HN to launch it in tandem with the new markup changes. We'd then give you all some time to update your projects.

Please try to keep in mind that new features for HN have to be done alongside a lot of other responsibilities. The software team that works on HN is also spending time moderating it and rewriting software that runs YC. Some members like Garry and myself divide our time between developing for HN and our duties as partners helping YC's startups.

This is a long-winded way of saying, please be patient. We are working on many shiny new things for you and can't wait to show you what we've been building behind the scenes. Until then, we're delighted to see implementations by HN users like sagargv. Hopefully, we'll be able to reduce the reasons for you to spend time on projects like these soon. :)

Wishlist: please, please keep it simple. Don't include a MB of JS or CSS, for example I'm on a slow connection (China) and it would be inefficient if you for whatever reason include a lot of crap just to be able to see basic content. I'm sure you have this in mind but just writing it down anyway :)

Yup. I totally agree.

I just want to mention - if you want some of those things, such as in-line reply, collapsible comments, CSS fixes (quoting in particular) and new comment indicators, try HNES for Chrome (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-enhanc...) - it makes using the site much more pleasant.

Edit: Was viewing this out of context - there is another mention of HNES up top, I apologize for the repetition.

Kevin, I just gotta say, you guys rock. Keep up the good work.

are you changing the tech stack or keep using arc? ahat about for the frontend?

In case you guys don't already know, there is another chrome extension for improving the UI of HN made by the maker of the 2048 game. I've been using it for a while and been pleased by its elegance. Take a look at http://gabrielecirulli.github.io/hn-special/

The Hacker News Enhancement Suite[0] has the ability to collapse comments, along with highlighting new posts in a thread, cleaning up the interface colors a bit, and noting other users whom you've upvoted in the past.

[0] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-enhanc...

The point is, that requiring an add-on, either this one or Hacker News Enhancement Suite is not the right solution. it's too easy to implement to keep the comments system here as-is.

I've always figured that this site is kept intentionally simple in order to limit its appeal and restrict commenting to people who are more interested/invested in the subject.

> I've always figured that this site is kept intentionally simple in order to limit its appeal [...]

I believe it's the opposite.

> HN's html suggests hiding deeply threaded comments should be simple. A spacer GIF appears to be used to indent comments, and those spacers used for indentation seem to have width in multiples of 40 in proportion to the depth of the comment.

Hu. Why not using CSS ?

But the people who are already here are the ones who keep complaining about it.

I have a feeling there's some truth to this. Being just appealing enough for those interested but without too much else. Though the existing culture shapes HN more than anything else.

As far as I can tell, pg wrote explicitly that this is true.

*"So the most important thing a community site can do is attract the kind of people it wants. A site trying to be as big as possible wants to attract everyone. But a site aiming at a particular subset of users has to attract just those—and just as importantly, repel everyone else. I've made a conscious effort to do this on HN. The graphic design is as plain as possible, and the site rules discourage dramatic link titles. The goal is that the only thing to interest someone arriving at HN for the first time should be the ideas expressed there."

http://paulgraham.com/hackernews.html

The "expired link" issue should be enough to dissuade most people.

And for Firefox (Greasemonkey): http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/105251

A couple of comments - (1) "more" should really be turning into "less" on click to allow reversing the expansion (2) it shouldn't mess with the font-size. Otherwise, it's a nice balance between the simplicity and the usefulness.

I've now implemented both these changes. The bookmarklet in the blog post (http://sagargv.blogspot.in/2014/06/flat-hacker-news.html) reflects this.

Thanks. I'll make these changes for the next version.

Another one of these. Must be the most common Show HN.

Hacker News already has limits surrounding reply levels...

The more deeply nested a comment, the longer it takes for the "Reply" link to show up. If you wait, then refresh, then you get the link, and you can reply directly.

You can always click the "Link" link, and that shows the comment directly with reply options, no delay.

But you've probably worked that out now.

No, it doesn't. It hides the "reply" link for deeply nested comments, but you can still always reply by clicking on "link" to view just the comment itself.

It might seem that way, but that's not true. There's a genuine timer. If you click on the `link' view, you probably just took long enough to run out the timer.

I stand corrected. Perhaps they changed the behaviour?

As far as I can tell it was always that way.

Deleted comment

long

chain

comments

soon

will it work

maybe not

nope

http://www.reddit.com/r/counting/

Still working ...

Still?

Yup - still.

Still working!

What about now?

Yes

Indeed

I think we've shown our case.

I agree. Commendations for proof by example.

Indeed

RIP 16 karma

I wonder how deep the rabbit hole goes...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com