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Readable Hacker News Chrome Extension

41 points| jarquesp | 15 years ago |chrome.google.com | reply

33 comments

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[+] idle_processor|15 years ago|reply
Aesthetic changes like this seem better suited to being Stylish[1] layouts or Greasemonkey[2] scripts, rather than full-blown extensions.

A quick userscripts.org search for Hacker News reinforces this: http://userscripts.org/search?cref=http%3A%2F%2Fuserscripts....

[1] http://userstyles.org/stylish/

[2] http://www.greasespot.net/

[+] jarquesp|15 years ago|reply
I ran into a few limitations when using Stylish (didn't try Greasemonkey).

This extension uses a JavaScript to re-align some elements, change classes etc. It's not only aesthetic changes, at least won't be in the next few updates.

[+] ricefield|15 years ago|reply
Sorry, but i'm not sure i find your "readable" hacker news more readable than the default layout. Might be because I don't mind reading small text, and can't bear scrolling. Also find the font and color choices iffy.

That being said, I think it has some of potential. Maybe do a little user testing and get a little more feedback and iterate on the design?

[+] jarquesp|15 years ago|reply
It's definitely an on-going thing. Over the past week I've gotten feedback and kept working on it, changing things here and there. I finally decided that it's at a good enough spot to post on Hacker News and get even more feedback.

It's been a 50/50 hit on whether or not to use a sans-serif or serif typeface. At least that's the biggest type of feedback I've gotten thus far.

But yes, I'd love feedback on this.

[+] jschuur|15 years ago|reply
My biggest beef with HN (apart from the amount of cool articles on it) isn't the look and feel of the site, it's the inability to distinguish old from new content.

I know, I could probably just subscribe to the RSS feed and do this in a feed aggregator, but sometimes I want to just quickly look at the front page and see the new stories since my last visit, without also having to deal with the stuff from 2 day ago that is still unread in Google Reader e.g..

Are the any community HN tools out there to help me out here?

[+] _frog|15 years ago|reply
For me, visited links are greyed out whilst anything I haven't seen since last visit is black.

Are you emptying your cache and history on exit perchance?

Here's what I see for reference: http://cl.ly/57jx

[+] akent|15 years ago|reply
Seems like a solution in search of a problem to me.
[+] greyman|15 years ago|reply
I like to original comments page more. The font after applying the extension is not contrasty enough, and the gap between the lines is too big. It's definitely not more readable.

Generally, too much free space - I personally prefer tighter desing with less scrolling. But still good try, it would be great if you offered some customizations.

[+] snarknet|15 years ago|reply
Yeah, I'm using it right now. A thicker font would be wonderful.
[+] didip|15 years ago|reply
hm, I was expecting Readability-like styling, but it's a good start. A couple of feedback:

    * make the upvote arrow HUGE.

    * make the comments link HUGE.

    * more contrast between color and background-color.
[+] jarquesp|15 years ago|reply
I've been thinking about changing the up arrow. Will play around with it.

Also, I just noticed that text within code is terrible.

[+] jemka|15 years ago|reply
I actually use hnsort.com for a related reason. Do you think you'll be adding any sorting options? Maybe even a feature like reddit to hide posts?

Thanks!

[+] jasonkester|15 years ago|reply
Ow. My squint muscles are just now recovering from having that thing up for a minute.

I think this has conclusively proven that light grey on light grey is not a good color scheme for "readability".

[+] johnm|15 years ago|reply
Cool.

Yes, customizability would be key for me. There's not enough contrast now, I'd change the typefaces and font settings, and the line-height (and a bunch of the rest of the spacing as well).

[+] tealtan|15 years ago|reply
I'm happy with your design choices, actually. However, I do wish that clicking through to the comments was easier - giving the link a larger hit area, for example.
[+] lfx|15 years ago|reply
It's nice. Text is easer to read.

But, could you add some color schemes, from witch I can choose? It would be great.

[+] jonmaim|15 years ago|reply
If you can keep the one page no-scroll policy of the default layout that would be awesome!
[+] mise|15 years ago|reply
You're certainly addressing a problem. HN is the only site I leave zoomed-in in Firefox.
[+] bkudria|15 years ago|reply
I think this looks pretty good! Thanks!