Refined Hacker News

[plibither8]

Hi all, developer of Refined Hacker News here! Happy to see that it has been posted about again. I had initially posted it last year as a Show HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20173974 and my philosphy behind the extension (as mentioned in the my comment) is:

> There are many extensions out there that add quite a few features to Hacker News, but they also always do one thing, which I have realised, is a slippery slope: changing the minimalistic design and style of Hacker News.

> I created this extension with one thing in mind: I am NOT going to mess around with the overall design or style of Hacker News. It's sacrosanct.

Thanks, I'm up for discussion! :D

[mercer]

Pretty cool! I currently use Hacker News Enhancement Suite, made some tweaks via the Tampermonkey extension, and made a little "unread comments" and "tag user" feature. Looks like your extension might be able to replace some of that /and/ provide some cool new stuff!

[warpspin]

I really liked the idea, but the layout jumping during initial page load (used the Firefox version) was really annoying me so much, I had to deactivate it again.

[weinzierl]

If I had one wish for a feature of this extension to be made available on HN then it would be:

"Easily favorite items and comments"

I really like the favourites feature and use it a lot but the original UI makes it really hard.

[dang]

What would make it better? Making the links work the same way as vote and flag?

I'm a bit disappointed in that feature. The intention was for users to browse others' favorites to find interesting things to read, but I've not seen any indication that it worked out that way.

[csunbird]

Wait, I actually had no idea that there was a favorite option.

[michaelmrose]

I agree I would use the feature far more.

[ScottFree]

The gifs in the readme showing the functionality you want to highlight is a nice touch. I wish more projects did that.

[skulk]

This looks really slick and I'd love to use it. Does it require any browser-specific APIs? If not, I'd definitely try to compile it into a userscript so I can use it with qutebrowser.

[thinkloop]

I've always wondered whether HN's "off-putting", "serious" interface (it is when you first see it) is an important factor in it not devolving into reddit.

[krapp]

People have been accusing this place of devolving into Reddit so often for so long the mods specifically call it out in the guidelines as a semi-noob delusion and tell people to knock it off, which they never do.

The interface is merely simplistic, it's neither serious nor very off-putting. No more than, say, Craigslist anyway. For that matter, 4chan's interface is far more offputting, and its culture is far worse than Reddit.

Like, do people here really believe HN would instantly descend into chaos and madness if the layout used proper typography, modern HTML or (god forbid) AJAX?

[SeekingMeaning]

Yep, as someone who came from Reddit, the culture here has definitely changed me for the better

[verylittlemeat]

Part of what has kept 4chan relatively unreddit (aside from less aggressive moderation) is knowing that you need something like 4chanx to make it usable.

[mercer]

I've heard the same said about Reddit back when people were starting to migrate away from Digg.

[remarkEon]

The auto-refresh feature is cool. I find myself hitting F5 a lot.

...

On the other hand, I really appreciate how minimalist this website is - both in how it's designed and how it's moderated. It's a nice retreat from the rest of the internet that's often overbuilt and thoughtlessly controlled.

[majkinetor]

Very nice.

I would like to be able to collapse entire thread by clicking on its line, even when I scrolled. For that lines should be visible for entire thread duration, not only original comment (like new reddit).

I would also like to see autorefresh on topic itself.

[koheripbal]

Also, the linked area of the line is too thin - I can barely click on it.

[walterbell]

Feature request: color coding of usernames by reader-defined groups. User could specify group name/color via a CSS style with a common prefix. The extension would need to maintain a local database of usernames in each group. Enables visual highlighting of user comments and stories based on previous experience.

[koheripbal]

If there's an extension, maybe we could have a collaborative tagging system so we can see what other people have labelled the author as?

[Shared404]

I think that this looks cool. I would be perfectly fine with most of these being integrated into default HN, on the condition that it would gracefully degrade back to the current form if you have JS disabled.

[mrep]

I love this extension for it's ability to highly new comments you haven't seen before. Only downside is it does not work for comments after the first page.

[kiddico]

Add in the facelift changes from 'Hacker News Enhancement Suite' and I'd be all about it. I wonder what happens if I use both...

Actually it works fine. Not sure what the spinning icon on the main page is all about.

edit: you can turn that off. I think I've found my new HN setup :D

It does some weird things to the popup for user profile info, but I don't think that'll be an issue.

[michaelmrose]

I really like the ability to reply without losing context.

[sebazzz]

I think the basis interface of Hacker News prevents some people from participating in discussions on this website. That is a double edged sword.

[joshspankit]

Respect for linking directly to the visual demo.

[twistedanimator]

This looks great, like the start of a "Reddit Enhancement Suite" for hacker news. It would be great if it also worked with hckrnews.com as I find that to be my main interface for browsing the day's discussions.