Hacker New

Around a year ago during my time in Hong Kong I started working on a Chrome extension for Hacker News. The aim of the extension was to make the site easier to use and add some (in my mind) much needed functionality.

Today i’ve released the latest version of the extension which addresses many of the concerns from the previous versions both on HN and Github, here’s a little tour of all it has to offer:

User Following

Hover over any username provides the option to “Follow” or “Unfollow” a user, followed users are highlighted wherever the appear, allowing you to pick out articles and comments from friends and thought leaders.

Instant Inline Replies

Previously replying to a comment meant opening a new page, inline replies mean you can type within the page and then submit when you’re finished. It also means that long replies won’t cause a timeout!

Retina Support

The extension replaces the existing image assets such as vote arrows and icons with higher resolution versions suitable for Retina displays. Thanks to Christian Genco for the idea.

Improved Readability

Hacker New increases the size and colour contrast between links and surrounding elements. It also makes it clearer which articles you have already clicked on.

Quick Profiles

Hover over a username anywhere on the site to instantly see a users Karma and affiliated websites / social profiles. This is a useful indicator of how much respect they have gathered the HN community.

Filters

Filtering allows you to hide articles, users and domains from HN that you would rather not see. I have my filters setup to filter a variety of negative keywords and trashy domains!

Endless Scrolling

The frontpage just got longer, infinitely longer in fact. Endless scrolling kicks in before you reach the bottom so the news keeps flowing. The footer and search bar are always available by hovering near the bottom of the screen.

Collapsible Threads

If you just want to immediately skip past a thread, you can now collapse the entire thing on the right hand side and get directly to the next comment.

Social sharing

Social sharing buttons are built in for Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Buffer. Of course they don’t load until you request it so there is no extra bloat on page load times.

I hope the extension improves your HN experience as much as it does mine. If you think something can be done better or would you prefer to tweak the styling go ahead and fork the project over on Github!