An unofficial alternative to the HN interface | Hacker News Reader

An unofficial alternative to the HN interface

hckrnews.com

171 pointsfuhrer199685 comments

I've been using this for awhile now as my primary HN front-page interface, for several reasons:

- easier to read

- mobile-browser friendly

- auto refreshes

- preserves articles that make it to the front page, and in (reverse) order of the time they made it to the front page, so no need to constantly check the front page and parse all of its contents to see if new articles are posted

cf. http://www.hckrnews.com/about.html

a big Thank You and kudos to its author(s) and maintainer(s)-- it works well and consistently!

I generally like the original interface, but I hate to have to re-scan all the titles in the home page to find out which ones are new. So I built this Chrome extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-mark-a...

ummm... i thought the "new" button up therer did exactl the same thing

That button shows you new submissions, even if they got no votes. Pretty different thing!

Funny how it still shows the link to the below story that got buried by the flamewar detector.

"I lost years’ worth of Google Docs files because of a poor user interface"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6612854

that's a feature. with hckrnews you get to see all the articles, even if they were only on the front page for a short time. for me, that's the biggest advantage it has over the main site.

I've been pretty happy with the HackerNew Chrome extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hackernew/lgoghlnd...

Can't upvote this enough.

HackerNew is also open source, and the developer (Tom Moor) is very open to pull requests: https://github.com/tommoor/HackerNew

Using this for over 6 months, can't go back to regular HN, even though this means browsing using Chrome.

Depending upon your objections about Chrome, you can use a non-Google Chromium binary.

Hacker News Enhancement Suite is a cool option too: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-enhanc...

Although, I love the endless scrolling of HackerNew.

I personally like the HN-Special chrome extension : https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hn-special-an-addi...

I tried all the of Chrome extensions mentioned in this thread, and this one is the least obtrusive. I like it.

I still like http://hn.premii.com

Yeah. I like this one a lot as well. Use it on my phone, iPad and in browser.

Yes, this gets my vote hands down. hckrnews looks fine but hn.premii gets mobile right. I use it on my mobile and on my desktop all the time. Only downside is that you can't write comments.

oh wow that is good.

I don't mind the classic HN layout - in fact I kind of like it because it's clean way to present information. And all the other designs of HN have added nothing but a reskin. Where as that one actually contributes a original (to HN) ideas itself.

This is really something, thanks for the link.

How do some sites (like this one) get more accurate and up-to-date data than others (one in OP)?

Huh. This would be alright on an iPad, but it doesn't fit my current flow of browsing HN:

* skim a page of links

* open ~5 interesting links in new tab, open comments if I predict the comments will be interesting

* go through tabs, which are already loaded by the time I get there

With this strategy, there's not a millisecond of perceived loading time.

I have the same workflow, and I like http://cheeaun.github.io/hackerweb/ on mobile (and sometimes desktop).

I wish this one looked the same on iOS 7 as it does on e.g. Chrome desktop. Instead it's doing some sort of app-like thing to retain iOS 6 styling, and the address bar and bottom toolbar never disappear, so the available screen real estate is very limited. At least it makes comments readable, though.

I don't have an iOS device anymore, and I never used that site when I did, so I forgot it did the fake-iOS thing. I definitely prefer the non-iOS theme. It looks and works great on FxOS.

Funny, this is almost exactly what I do, though I almost always open both the articles & discussion on articles that catch my eye.

Thanks,

It is also available on android and iOS app store.

iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hacker-news-yc/id713733435

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.premii.hn

Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news/gdljjm...

That awkward moment when you're already on hckrnews.com...

Well I'm not when I'm leaving this comment!

True. But if you get the browser plugins, its there in spirit!

Ah. That's why I was so confused when the page just.... refreshed.

One thing I would love is:

-top X posts by comments from a day/week/month

-top X posts by votes from day/week/momth

What I don't like about Hacker News is that interesting things fall out of front page too quickly and discussion dies I prefer interface where interesting stuff stays at the top longer (amount of comments last week approximate it well in my view).

It doesn't allow for arbitrary granularity, but you may be unaware of: https://news.ycombinator.com/lists

See also - http://www.daemonology.net/hn-daily/ - I find its a better "best".

You should take a look at http://www.hndigest.com . You can subscribe to get emails at specified intervals (daily all the way to weekly) and choose from top 5-30 stories per email.

Since people are mentioning various other HN interfaces they use, I'd highly recommend to check out Georgify — https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/georgify/ofjfdfale...

I second that. Love love love it.

Is there a firefox extension or greasemonkey script for that?

Edit: There's http://userstyles.org/styles/46180/georgify-for-hacker-news

This website, hckrnews.com, is developed and maintained by Wayne Larsen: https://github.com/wvl

BTW another project of Wayne's is: http://clara.io

There have been many alt HN interfaces. I try them all, yet I never end up sticking with any of them. I feel like HN meets its needs pretty well and I like that they have resisted change (whether consciously or not)

I think the happy medium is one of the browser extensions. I'm using "Hacker New" for Chrome, and it adds basic nice things like default larger text, comment collapsing. Of course, I get used to it and become annoyed if I decide to visit the unmodified HN on my mobile device.

I installed Hacker New a long time ago and I forgot I was even using it until I went to Hacker News from a different browser

I hacked a Greasemonkey script a while ago because I wanted some easy way to pick out vote/comments. I've been using it for many months now and it's not annoyed me once, which is a good sign. It also leaves the rest of HN alone.

Screenshot: http://cl.ly/image/3G1k2j0w2Q3G

Source: https://gist.github.com/ingmar/5564603

I used to use this interface, but then I noticed a bug (or interesting feature, depending on your point of view) in that when you were viewing the top 10 or top 20, and loaded more articles, some articles would disappear from the list.

My theory on this is that it was caused by loading articles a certain number of hours back from the current time, and then grouping by day before sorting to the top X.

For example, if the last 24 hours were loaded, and grouped into today and (part of) yesterday, you would get an accurate top X for today so far, and an accurate top X for the portion of the previous day it had fetched.

This was particularly noticeable when I hadn't visited for a few days (I've since rectified this aberrant behavior of mine) and loaded a few past days to review missed submissions. Seeing something that caught my eye disappear as it loaded older content drove me nuts.

It looks like the problem is fixed now, but it's hard to be sure, as it may be more or less likely depending on the time of the day you visit.

I sent a bug report to the developer when I noticed this (in February 2013), but never heard back. I'll happily go back to using this interface if it's fixed though, I found it generally more pleasant to use.

Sorry if I never got back to you about this.

There were definitely some bugs around the filtering / content loading. I _think_ they've been resolved for a while now, so I hope you'll give it another shot.

No problem. I definitely will, because I'm enough of a completist in general that it bothers me when feel I've missed something that looks interesting, and I'm already seeing that again. Well done, you've created something that immediately triggers (because I can see what I was missing) and alleviates (because I can check what I missed) my obsessive behavior over HN. Next step, profit as I throw money at you... ;)

Oh, and if you're looking for recommendations on new features:

1. Colorize submissions that have had X% increase in votes/comments (with different colors) since last visit when in top X mode (specifically in the past 48-72 hours). 2. Allow a user defined point/comment threshold over which submissions are colorized.

I welcome this, but the UI confuses immediately: what's top 10 and top 20? and top 50%? No obvious explanations as to what the referent of "top" is! No scales, no FAQ.

Also, I want to know what the settings are compared with the "official" HN frontpage ordering.

"about" is broken, where I had hoped to find a FAQ

You can try /about again. Server was having problems there with the load.

FYI top 10 / top 20 / top 50% should be the "Top N" stories by number of points for each day according to your timezone.

I prefer http://lessmeme.com/less.html because it lets me quickly see which items are new.

My favorite continues to be http://hackerwebapp.com/ but this has some nice features as well.

I mashed together the best parts of hackerwebapp and hckr news:

http://hn.leftium.com/

I was using it and it's great but the biggest annoyance is the fact that if I wanted to comment, I still had to go to the original HN... So I started using this extension:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/helvetinews/jebgog...

Now I just use regular HN with it.

I've been using the extension HN Special. I've tried a ton of interfaces, but this one is my favourite. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hn-special-an-addi...

I use the HN Enhancement Suite. It adds some good functionality as well as making the interface pretty (but not overly web 6.0-y with thin-weight helvetica and white space everywhere.)

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-enhanc...

Wow, just installed it, and Hacker News no longer makes my eyes bleed! Thanks for pointing it out.

I have started using it few months ago and I like it. Mostly because I can read hacker news as pragmatically as I have been reading google reader. I don't need to visit home of HN several times a day to find out if there is any new posts. I just open hckrnews.com and I see what have been posted since my last visit.

It would be nice to collapse or skip all replies to a parent, do any of these extensions do that? I often find some discussion that is uninteresting to me (but might be others for others) and just want to easily get past it. If it is long, it takes some time to find where the indention matches-up many PGDNs below.

The top comment by moskie points out one such chrome extension. Just installed it and works great for collapsing threads.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hackernew/lgoghlnd...

If you want to add collapsible comment threads without changing anything else about the site, "Hacker News Collapse" is the extension for that --

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-collap...

The HipsterNews chrome extension is pretty sweet. I've been using it for 3 months or so https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hipsternews/midncc...

Is there something that lets me fold/hide comments that I have already read (like on Reddit)?

What do you guys use on your phone (if you use an app on the phone)? I have been using an app called "Hacker News 2" in the play store. I generally like it, but the comments are flaky, sometimes it lets me see them and other times it doesn't.

You can try this on your mobile browser: http://hn.premii.com/

iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hacker-news-yc/id713733435

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.premii.hn

Comparing the lists between new.ycombinator.com and www.hckrnews.com some articles on top 10 on the first are missing on the second is that intended and I didn't understand how it works?

I like this one, everything in one place:

http://georgenava.appspot.com/demo/hn/index.html

* Mockup, nothing works.

I use StyleBot to customize HN's stylesheet:

http://stylebot.me/search?q=news.ycombinator.com

The (imo quite excellent) hubski.com is built on arc.

I wish I had a screenshot of hubski.com at its inception. Since it began life as a port (albeit with completely different mechanics) the UI was essentially a clone. Quite quickly mk transformed that along with the usually feature and performance iterations to the point where you'd never be able to tell at a glance.

Just celebrated the first 100,000 posts milestone too.

mk (et al) have done a great job.

Look great but unfortunately there is no search. Search is my main entry point into HN.

What do you search for generally?

May i suggest you go off white. Not a lot just enough to unbrigthen the screen.

#FBFBFB for instance.

It brings me much joy to know that this link also appears on hckrnews.com :)

Excellent move! Cheers! Can we also look at those Arials at the top?

I've been using this for about a year, really good interface

Seems like the server was not expecting that load...

Like this. But can you please kill the hellobar?

I've always used this, since day one.

This is the only way I use hacker news.

inspired by Flat UI. I like it...a lot better than current hacker news

That's more like it.

Are you using Node.js?

It needs HTTPS.

I wish there would be a dark/black edition somewhere.

Me too. Exactly the same layout as http://www.hckrnews.com/ but with white text on a dark grey background.

The orange components could be left the same, as they would still provide good contrast and go with the colour scheme.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com