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Show HN: Hacker News client with a twist

haxplore.pabue.co

221–230 of 246 posts

Re: Show HN: Hacker News client with a twist

#223

Off topic, but where did you get the idea for the design? I love it! Not something I get to see regularly.

Tbh I'm not sure. I think the idea for the control scheme came e from video game consoles like the Nintendo switch or PS. And the visual design is a result of a few iterations of trying to make it appealing while still keeping some of the spirit of HN.

Re: Show HN: Hacker News client with a twist

#224
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…

Vue + Tailwindcss?

Correct.

Re: Show HN: Hacker News client with a twist

#226
post #197

Hot damn. Haxplore is cool. This is kinda how I imagine all my clients should work. HN, feedly & NetNewsWire, Overcast & Podcast.app, Music.app. It's like a synthesis of file explorers and media consumption. Bravo. (I've got a bunch of other UX notions for power users.)

I would extend "file browser" to be the more general "tree navigation" - for instance, Miller Columns[1] (which I believe is an accurate characterization of Haxplore's interface) are used in the Pharo environment[2] to navigate objects. In general, though, I agree with you - I think that most of the media tools that we use today could benefit from Miller Columns and a keyboard-driven design.... I'm interested in talk…

Hi. Thank you for leaning in, sharing your ideas. I'll check out Pharo. Peeking at it, it reminds me of a Smalltalk dev env. Cool.

1. Navigation

For navigation, my blue sky notion is to have ad hoc hierarchies. So imagine allowing the user to reorder those Miller columns. And any metadata item can be used as a column. And then the hierarchy browser (Finder equiv) infers the new tree.

This is probably called faceted navigation.

So in the case of Haxplore, the columns for one nav view I want are 'Author', 'Date', 'Kind' (eg OC, Show, Ask).

For music, I want a nav view to sort by Producer.

For movies, views for Director and Writer.

For podcasts, views for Guests and Topic.

Any way, you get the idea.

2. Filtering

All nav views should have filters. (I forget which IDE allowed this.)

Not just Spotlight style results, or Amazon style faceted product searches.

Because I still want to drill down thru the resultset using Miller columns.

3. Quantified Self

Log all the activity and metrics client side.

For podcasts and audio books, log when and where I was.

For all content, record if I looked at it, how long I looked at it, if I just deleted or skipped, etc. My count of podcast subscriptions is ridiculous. But I'm afraid (FOMO) of deleting something I liked. My own metrics would help me manage my consumption.

Creating ad hoc 'follow' subscriptions would be cool too. Remember HN commenters I liked. The podcast guests I liked. Ditto producers and directors.

Etc.

Re: Show HN: Hacker News client with a twist

#227
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…

I really prefer that it shows only the top level comments by default, which can be expanded with a simple key. Overall fantastic experience.

I just have two suggestions. Add a dark theme and options to show only top 10/top 20/all just like hckrnews.com which helps to keep track of things and not miss important stories on busy days.

Re: Show HN: Hacker News client with a twist

#228
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…

I miss a tiny thing: seeing when each comment was created.

Good catch, this will be added in the next update.

Re: Show HN: Hacker News client with a twist

#229
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…

I really like it! I'll use it as my default HN client for a while, see how it goes. This app makes me focus more on the content than regular scrolling HN.

I'm really glad to hear that. Heads up, there will a big update in the next few days.

Re: Show HN: Hacker News client with a twist

#230
post #53

"We're sorry but Haxplore doesn't work properly without JavaScript enabled. Please enable it to continue." well that certainly is a twist...

It's a HN client with keyboard navigation. Not sure what you expect.

As someone who browses the internet by default without any JavaScript enabled, I also find it jarring when websites do this.

I understand that some webapps absolutely need JavaScript to function, but I wish it was handled with a bit more tact than a completely blank page displaying a single sentence asking me to enable it. I'm not calling out op, twitter and quora do this too.

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