Show HN: Tightrope, a color-based news stream | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Tightrope, a color-based news stream

tightro.pe

32 pointsttrp27 comments

I think this would organise different topics into categories and make those categories obvious through the use of colour. Nope. It just takes the image associated with the story and sets the background of the table row to an appropriate colour (the same way the new iTunes works in Album view). It's good that you've built this and are trying new things but the title makes it sounds much different to what is actually is.

This is what I expected, to be able to determine what type of news I would be reading based on the highlighting color. I was a bit disappointed.

Cool idea, and I think it has potential. I like the minimalism, but the colors (it's picking via algorithm, right?) are a little too much. Personally, I would use it if the colors had organization: Politics is this shade of blue, Sports is this beautiful red, etc.

Thanks for the feedback!

We're actually using the colors from each individual image:

- The most dominant color is the background

- The color that contrasts most with the background is the text color

- The second most contrasting color is the title color

We really like the way it pops!

Cool and useless. BTW it is not 'color-based', you're not basing anything on colors.

Pretty sad that you didn't create an algorithm for the images and simply using Embedly data, which I have to say it's a smart move anyway ;)

I'm sorry to say that, but a bunch of potentially clashing large color blocks on a page does not give you an "aesthetic edge".

Just want to point out that the back button doesn't work on your site. This is intensely annoying :).

Edit: By which I mean: clicking your link, then clicking the back button just takes me back to your page again.

Not by design, what browser are you in? thx for checking it out.

Firefox on Ubuntu.

we're fixing this now.

Same here: Chrome

works in chrome/Ubuntu

So is using the iTunes coloring algorithm enough to entice me away from Google News or Yahoo News or cnn.com or bbc.co.uk or whatever else I might use to get my generic current events updates?

You're right, a coloring algorithm certainly wouldn't be enough. Tightrope has a method to score and select media for 'Yesterday' and 'Trending'. 'Yesterday' gives a summary of the past day of media, while 'Trending' gives the bursts of media. You can read more on it here: http://blog.tightro.pe/post/40632430244/introducing-the-simp...

You would be better advertising those features rather than the colour thing which is unfortunately useless (although kind of cool).

OK but Google and Yahoo's news sites do something similar, at least as far as I can tell (and I'm a pretty technical dude - most users won't even understand that much). Again, what's going to entice me away from them?

So, I was about Tito question your news sources when I saw "chip Kelly to the eagles" on the front page. Then I checked and... it's true. Well done.

If there is a ' in the headline you are showing it escaped:

\' should be '

I couldn't even use it on my phone, I think the viewport meta set to device-width makes it load zoomed in and the interaction with the content makes it impossible to zoom out.

The page loads blank right now in Chromium under Meego linux on a 11" screen

Love love love it. I'm addicted.

However the colors are distracting. The layout, in-page loading, big thumbnails, infinite scroll, is 100% wonderful. But by making the heading titles all different colors and background of the blocks all different colors it makes it harder to skim through article headlines.

If ALL of the headlines were black colored, and all the backgrounds very light soft subtle pastel colors, I think you'd have that problem solved.

I like the differently colored blocks. It makes it easier to distinguish one article from the other, something I have a problem with on most sites (including this one). I would prefer a more coherent color scheme with some meaning behind the color (different shades of red for different shades of tech news, for example).

Maybe this one http://toolong-didntread.com/ ? I think it is pretty easy to distinguish between different articles here.

Your introduction message disappears immediately when you click on it.

For people who habitually select text they're reading (like me) that was quite annoying ... I still don't know what it said.

it said:

Relax. You don't have to sift through your social feed. You don't have to worry about reading the same stuff over and over. Tightrope balances out your daily media, providing value over a breadth of topics.

For a summary from the day before, go to 'Yesterday'. We ourselves check this on a daily basis. 'Trending' gives you media bursts within the last half hour. Careful - this can get addictive.

To give it an aesthetic edge, article colors are based on the dominant colors in the images. Images are selected and resized to fit smoothly into the app.

How do you pick the trend news at the backend?

I really like how you blend the photos into the text by color and focus.

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