Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Hacker News client with a twist

haxplore.pabue.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 246 posts

Re: Show HN: Hacker News client with a twist

#181

Post by ydant »

exikyut wrote: post #30
pabue wrote: post #2

Haxplore is a little web app I created because I didn't like to click around the HN interface to read submission and discussions. I also wanted to experiment with different ways of implementing keyboard control in web apps and HN seemed like the perfect test subject. So maybe it's useful for some of you too. The most important features are: - Intuitive keyboard control - Link detection in comments with hotkeys to ope…

Intitial impression: "oookay [click] let's have a look let's see how badly broken *this* HN frontend i--ooh. Oh, okay. Wow this is nice! " And it truly is. There's something this honestly nails. But after using it for few moments, I was able to crystallize what I perceived was "wrong" with the design: the mechanic of combining locality with spatiality means I completely lose sight of the bigger picture. I have a real…

Agreed with pretty much everything here. It's a nice UI, looks good, is smooth, well done overall.

However, it doesn't fit how I read HN or Reddit - I tend to scan and be drawn to keywords and visually interesting parts of the thread. This type of UI turns the comments into a TODO list of indeterminate length.

Re: Show HN: Hacker News client with a twist

#182

Post by albert_e »

pabue wrote: post #2

Haxplore is a little web app I created because I didn't like to click around the HN interface to read submission and discussions. I also wanted to experiment with different ways of implementing keyboard control in web apps and HN seemed like the perfect test subject. So maybe it's useful for some of you too. The most important features are: - Intuitive keyboard control - Link detection in comments with hotkeys to ope…

idea: can you pre-fetch just the top comment for each post?

Currently ..clicking on right arrow always shows the "loading" animation for 0.5-1 sec.

Instead, if we readily show the top comment instantly and then lazy-load the rest, it will drastically improve the UX. User will perceive near zero wait time that way. My 2 cents

Re: Show HN: Hacker News client with a twist

#183

Post by laumars »

umvi wrote: post #141
pabue wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that's so nice to hear. Thank you! That's actually a great idea. If you say "high density", do you mean just less whitespace/spacing or should stuff like the upvotes, author and date be completely removed from the initial element?

On vanilla HN, a story is roughly 30 pixels in height with 5 pixels of whitespace between stories: PostgreSQL 14 (postgresql.org) [20px tall] 399 points by jkatz05 2 hours ago [10px tall] [5px spacer] On Haxplore, a story is roughly 75 pixels tall with 32 pixels of spacing. If you decide to implement a high density mode (I would make sure other users beside me want this before doing that work), the primary concern IM…

> If you decide to implement a high density mode (I would make sure other users beside me want this before doing that work),

That’s a refreshingly humble request. So often in FOSS I see people demanding features, even being downright critical at times. It’s really nice seeing someone suggest their feature request might not be popular is rare.

Thank you for restoring my faith in humanity :)

Re: Show HN: Hacker News client with a twist

#184

Post by behnamoh »

pabue wrote: post #2

Haxplore is a little web app I created because I didn't like to click around the HN interface to read submission and discussions. I also wanted to experiment with different ways of implementing keyboard control in web apps and HN seemed like the perfect test subject. So maybe it's useful for some of you too. The most important features are: - Intuitive keyboard control - Link detection in comments with hotkeys to ope…

It's very sleek, responsive, and friendly! Kudos! Please don't let it die like many other Show HNs:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28682173

Re: Show HN: Hacker News client with a twist

#185

Post by filoleg »

gwbas1c wrote: post #169
pabue wrote: post #2

Haxplore is a little web app I created because I didn't like to click around the HN interface to read submission and discussions. I also wanted to experiment with different ways of implementing keyboard control in web apps and HN seemed like the perfect test subject. So maybe it's useful for some of you too. The most important features are: - Intuitive keyboard control - Link detection in comments with hotkeys to ope…

Really cool! My $0.02: I wish this looked more like hacker news: IE, same colors, same fonts, same text size. I've been using Hacker News for so long that its look and feel are part of its queues. Different colors / fonts just gives the same content a different feel. I'm torn on how you display comments. One thing that I don't like in Hacker News is that a top-level comment with a lot of replies ends up pushing other…

wow, I've never even thought of such a simple change until I've read your reply (all comments collapsed by default as opposed to expanded by default), but I want it really badly now.

Many HN apps and browser extension by now have an easy way to to collapse comments (usually by clicking an icon next to the comment or tapping on the comment on touchscreens), but I don't think I've seen one yet where collapsed by default is an option.

P.S. And now that I am thinking more about it, apps and extensions (at least the ones i've used so far) don't even have the true "collapsing" function (or maybe I just wasn't aware of where it is buried in the settings, so please let me know if I am wrong here).

When you try to collapse on Refined HN (ff/chrome extension) or HACK (iOS app), it doesn't hide all child comments and then keeps the root comment (just listed those two extensions/apps as an example, because those are the two I personally use). It hides the content of all comments including the root comment that you clicked, but it leaves a small indicator that there is a collapsed comment, basically just the username and the number of comments.

To this point, I have a question to everyone. If there is an HN app for iOS that anyone can genuinely recommend that has a feature when you collapse a comment, it still shows the one you clicked "collapse" on but hides all child comments (as opposed to the text content of the root comment you collapsed being hidden as well), please post them.

Re: Show HN: Hacker News client with a twist

#186

Post by behnamoh »

filoleg wrote: post #185
gwbas1c wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really cool! My $0.02: I wish this looked more like hacker news: IE, same colors, same fonts, same text size. I've been using Hacker News for so long that its look and feel are part of its queues. Different colors / fonts just gives the same content a different feel. I'm torn on how you display comments. One thing that I don't like in Hacker News is that a top-level comment with a lot of replies ends up pushing other…

wow, I've never even thought of such a simple change until I've read your reply (all comments collapsed by default as opposed to expanded by default), but I want it really badly now. Many HN apps and browser extension by now have an easy way to to collapse comments (usually by clicking an icon next to the comment or tapping on the comment on touchscreens), but I don't think I've seen one yet where collapsed by defaul…

Reading the comments on Haxplore using Haxplore is so meta:

https://imgur.com/a/v4tbfqP

Re: Show HN: Hacker News client with a twist

#187

Post by laumars »

capableweb wrote: post #65
pritambarhate wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but "enabling keyboard navigation" shouldn't mean disabling mouse based navigation. There are multiple people on this thread who are confused because of disabled scrolling which shows that it's bad UX. > If you don't like it, just use Hacker News. Yes, I will not be using this site. Just giving my feedback and opinion on the UX just like you.

> Yes, but "enabling keyboard navigation" shouldn't mean disabling mouse based navigation If someone shows me a project for keyboard navigation, I won't complain that there is no mouse navigation, as that would go against the very nature of the project. > Yes, I will not be using this site. Just giving my feedback and opinion on the UX just like you. But you're not actually giving any useful feedback on the UX the pe…

I think you’re being a little defensive. People might like the graphical design but not the control scheme. In that case I think it’s fair to say that. Sure it might intended as a keyboard site but that doesn’t mean the author couldn’t enhance in that, even pivot, if he wanted to.

To use your boat example: there is no point trying to sell kit cars if people are only interested in buying boats.

Ok, this is a pet project so the author might have no intention of taking his design and trying to monetise it. But as long as feedback is civil I can’t see why opposing opinions can’t be shared (and ignored if the author so chooses).

I know on my personal projects, comments that seem to miss the point often then inspire me to create new things. So I’m always interest in any feedback. Just as long as it’s not people moaning about the name lol

Re: Show HN: Hacker News client with a twist

#188

Post by cheschire »

pabue wrote: post #69
tartuffe78 wrote: post #55

It would be nice if there were a way for it to "remember" where I left off, or filter stories I've already scrolled past out of the list when I come back.

That's a pretty cool idea. I'm gonna look into that. Thanks!

Might be tough to implement with the display order changing. You’d need to find some way to hide or subdue via ID. But even then you still can’t leap down without looking for unread IDs. Seems like a tough one.

Re: Show HN: Hacker News client with a twist

#190

Post by pabue »

albert_e wrote: post #182
pabue wrote: post #2

Haxplore is a little web app I created because I didn't like to click around the HN interface to read submission and discussions. I also wanted to experiment with different ways of implementing keyboard control in web apps and HN seemed like the perfect test subject. So maybe it's useful for some of you too. The most important features are: - Intuitive keyboard control - Link detection in comments with hotkeys to ope…

idea: can you pre-fetch just the top comment for each post? Currently ..clicking on right arrow always shows the "loading" animation for 0.5-1 sec. Instead, if we readily show the top comment instantly and then lazy-load the rest, it will drastically improve the UX. User will perceive near zero wait time that way. My 2 cents

Thanks, that's a pretty good idea. I will probably add this in the future, but so far everyone seems to be okay with the performance/speed.
Post reply on HN