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Tell HN: Thank you for not redesigning Hacker News

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61–70 of 398 posts

Re: Tell HN: Thank you for not redesigning Hacker News

#62
Sure, but the mobile layout could do with some concrete improvements. Specifically, the up/down arrows are too small to hit, and the comment text area should fit a few more lines of text. I feel like Bambi on ice when I scroll around in it on my phone.

Re: Tell HN: Thank you for not redesigning Hacker News

#63
post #57

HN is lightweight in some ways, but also quite bad in others. For example, every single time you vote on anything, the site sends back a 302 redirect and then a copy of the entire page's HTML in response. This means that every vote results in a response that's usually around 10KB gzipped. As of right now, for me, voting on any comment in this thread currently causes a 14KB response and takes about 1.3 seconds to fini…

When reading on an iPad, tapping on links is nearly impossible.

A better responsive CSS file wouldn't make the site any slower or degrade the experience for laptop users.

Re: Tell HN: Thank you for not redesigning Hacker News

#64
post #39

I personally believe this is one of the couple reason why HN's demographic is significantly on the older side, in Tech terms. I personally wish HN attracted a bit of a fresher, younger crowd as the conversation here has become more stale over the last few years.

I wish there were more preteens and teens on the site. By the time someone reaches 20 their ideas are a little stale shaped by the harsh realities of life.

On the other hand, such demographic often comes with a lot of drama

Re: Tell HN: Thank you for not redesigning Hacker News

#65
post #13

For FB https://mbasic.facebook.com/home.php

It still loads tracking (of course), but it is a vast improvement over their mobile site, and doesn't need JS.

And you can use messenger without having to use the app or go to desktop

Re: Tell HN: Thank you for not redesigning Hacker News

#66
It is this that I cringe hard whenever a developer mentions 'the modern web' or 'the free and open web'.

I wish websites were as simple as HN.

+ Lightweight.

+ No ads.

+ Works without (or little to no) JS.

+ Does not make me download MB's of data.

It seems 98% of the websites I visit cannot pass the first two.

Re: Tell HN: Thank you for not redesigning Hacker News

#67
post #24

There should be an extension that automatically redirects common websites to their lite versions. reddit.com -> old.reddit.com facebook.com -> mbasic.facebook.com cnn.com -> lite.cnn.com npr.org -> text.npr.org twitter.com -> twitter.com (with JS disabled) gmail.com -> gmail.com (HTML version)

>gmail.com -> gmail.com (HTML version) gmail used to have an option to set HTML as default, but it seems like it's gone. Only way to get HTML is to click on a link that's available during loading, nothing in the settings to make it permanent.

You can definitely make it permanent, it's permanent on my account. Can't remember what I did now...

Re: Tell HN: Thank you for not redesigning Hacker News

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>gmail.com -> gmail.com (HTML version) gmail used to have an option to set HTML as default, but it seems like it's gone. Only way to get HTML is to click on a link that's available during loading, nothing in the settings to make it permanent.

You can definitely make it permanent, it's permanent on my account. Can't remember what I did now...

Generate enough outcry on social media?

Re: Tell HN: Thank you for not redesigning Hacker News

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Safari: View → Zoom In It's smart enough to remember the zoom level the next time you open HN too.

That's not increasing line-height. I don't have a problem with my eyesight, I have a problem with poor typography.

And I have a problem with acres of whitespace. Here's one vote for HN to leave the line height right where it is.

Re: Tell HN: Thank you for not redesigning Hacker News

#70
post #24

There should be an extension that automatically redirects common websites to their lite versions. reddit.com -> old.reddit.com facebook.com -> mbasic.facebook.com cnn.com -> lite.cnn.com npr.org -> text.npr.org twitter.com -> twitter.com (with JS disabled) gmail.com -> gmail.com (HTML version)

>gmail.com -> gmail.com (HTML version) gmail used to have an option to set HTML as default, but it seems like it's gone. Only way to get HTML is to click on a link that's available during loading, nothing in the settings to make it permanent.

After you've clicked on it, there's a bar at the top with an option to "Set basic HTML as default view"
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