At least you always can use css version if there are some font issues:
http://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/css-triangle/
HN: Please replace grayarrow.gif with Unicode character ▲
121–130 of 190 posts
Re: HN: Please replace grayarrow.gif with Unicode character ▲
#122I'm amazed at the number of different hacks people have employed to solve this, just goes to show its the simple things that make the difference.
FYI, this illustrates the solutions impact pretty well: http://cl.ly/0C0C1j3U1e2G0a193F35
Re: HN: Please replace grayarrow.gif with Unicode character ▲
#123Very good proposal. There are more unicode symbols to choice from: http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/geometric_shapes.html Down arrow/triangle: ▼ It is not only matter of resolution but I personally like bigger fonts and have zoomed in HN so triangles look bad: http://i.imgur.com/fpA7N.png
I also zoom in to 125%, not sure if it's just me, but for a textual site the default font size seems too small. Maybe my eyes are just giving up. Out of curiosity, I was wondering why the triangle wasn't a CSS triangle.. wouldn't that be more efficient than a gif?
The GIF is 111 bytes. A CSS triangle might be smaller, but it's probably not much of a win.
Re: HN: Please replace grayarrow.gif with Unicode character ▲
#124TBH, it's very optimistic to think that anything really will change in the HN code. People have suggested tons of improvements and nothing ever changes - perhaps it shows that even if we don't improve our products people still keep coming back anyway.
Is Hacker News Craigslisting? Def Craigslisting: adhering to what has been working despite the howls of people that 'know better'
Re: HN: Please replace grayarrow.gif with Unicode character ▲
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
How are they not logical opposites? Isn't an upvote exactly the opposite of a downvote?
Upvote = I like this. Downvote = This is noise/off-topic/abusive. Thats the way it should work, and is part of what makes HN different to say Reddit. In reality, its becoming increasingly common for people to downvote something simply because they disagree with it.
That is how it works, especially since downvoted comments are literally harder to read.
Re: HN: Please replace grayarrow.gif with Unicode character ▲
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
We could use the "pile of poo" ( http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/1f4a9/index.htm ) character for downvote instead!
This seems like a bad idea, since at small font sizes it will be a similar shape to the up-triangle, especially in fonts which (mostly) fill it in.
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Re: HN: Please replace grayarrow.gif with Unicode character ▲
#127Re: HN: Please replace grayarrow.gif with Unicode character ▲
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm pretty sure you get downvoting powers at 500 karma. (At least, that's about when I got them. I have heard rumors that it fluctuates, and like all the mechanics of Hacker News, the precise rules are proprietary secret sauce.)
I have downvote in this thread but not always. I find the removal of edit, reply and voting privelege at seemingly arbitrary conditions to be very annoying.
Downvoting is disabled for very new comments and for replies to comments you've upvoted, iirc. Editing is disabled after a "reasonable" time. I don't think replying is ever disabled.
Re: HN: Please replace grayarrow.gif with Unicode character ▲
#129While we at the topic of the upvote arrow, does anyone have any idea why when I upvote a post I can never view it in my saved stories section?
Re: HN: Please replace grayarrow.gif with Unicode character ▲
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
Afaik, the browser will read GIF once and keep the bitmap in memory, then composite it into the right place when it needs it, which is a lot cheaper. With SVG, the browser will render it once and keep a bitmap, then composite it. With a CSS icon, there is no way for the browser to know that it's an icon at all. There is no clear delimitation between it and the rest of the page. The browser has no choice but to re-ren…
The rasterization of the Unicode character will be cached in the glyph cache just like the rest of the glyphs, so the GIF is not really any cheaper.
Ok, SVG, character and GIF are better than a bunch of CSS :)