Request: A way to mark/remove read articles?

#1

Post by buzzzlight » Fri, Mar 26, 2010, 2:42 AM UTC

I absolutely love Hacker News, but I find that the more I read it, the more I have to switch to the "new" section because I've clicked most of the links on each page. Then I read those and am forced to return to the mix, diluting my procrastination.

I've googled for a solution but can't find one.

For privacy, it might be best if the page could use javascript somehow and put any read links in a separate section under the unread ones (or better yet, hide them altogether so that every time we click "more", we get 30 unseen links).

If we are logged in, it would be good to have a button to quickly toggle the viewing mode. I realize this is a nontrivial request, so I only propose it in accordance with the talent here.

Thanx!

Re: Request: A way to mark/remove read articles?

#2

Post by _delirium » Fri, Mar 26, 2010, 4:01 AM UTC

This is in general one of my long-running dislikes of web-based stuff as compared to the Usenet, email-list, and BBS Echomail stuff that preceded it. In all those, I could mark or delete stuff I'd already read, while with web forums, I have to exert mental effort to remember which posts, comments, or threads I've already read.

Re: Request: A way to mark/remove read articles?

#3

Post by pg » Fri, Mar 26, 2010, 4:11 AM UTC

Don't followed links show up as gray for you?

Re: Request: A way to mark/remove read articles?

#4

Post by buzzzlight » Fri, Mar 26, 2010, 3:26 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #3

Don't followed links show up as gray for you?

Ya the styling works properly, it's just that, when every other link shows as read, it gets more difficult to sift through them.

As an experiment, I just tried saving this in a file called stylesheet.css, and setting it as the default style sheet in Safari under Safari menu->Preferences->Advanced->Style sheet:

td.title a:visited { visibility: hidden; }

It's a hack to make the read items disappear. Ideally, the whole row could be hidden under a turn-down arrow, or the site could somehow track which links have been read by the user and skip them (although that's not ideal for privacy, so would be best as an option).

P.S. I wasn't expecting the first reply to be from PG! This site is awesome.