I created this based on how difficult I found it to be to follow conversations here, especially long ones. It's always been fairly easy to keep track of replies to your own comments, but if you haven't commented in a thread or subthread, you're basically stuck counting timestamps. Since I've gotten it working it's made the browsing experience better. Please report any issues here or on github.
Great extension, I'll definitely be using it. If I can suggest something, I think it would be better to bold the unread comments (in the home page) only if you've actually open the link or read the previous comments. Otherwise it adds a lot of distraction on the page, and the bold links don't tell me whether I cared or didn't care about the associated news.
Great idea. I changed it to only be bold comments if the number of unread comments is greater than 0 and less than the total number of comments. It's been pushed to the Chrome Store. Thanks for the feedback!
Very nice. If it had a key handler to collapse the current comment with all replies[1], then I think it would be heaven. (Helps with long tangent threads at the top of the comment page.)
I know, this should be a pull request...
Edit: BTW, I just saw '(-1 unread)' which I'm guessing has something to do with showdead being on.
Could you make it keep the original titles for stories? The thing that makes it hardest for me to follow conversations is when a mod changes the name of the story.
It doesn't. The best solution for that that I could think of was to re-GET the current page and pull the new link out of it, but I'm nervous about doing that since HN is so sensitive about HTTP requests being made in rapid succession[1].
No console errors, just not showing. Let me know if there is anything I can send to help debug.
Also, not sure if this is by design, but after I post an in-place reply, I have to reload the page to see my post. However, upon editing a post, the page reloads immediately. I didn't see any error in the console.
I was conflicted about whether or not to update new comments inline or force a page refresh. So the behavior with the comments is intentional. I may end up changing it if it's confusing.
As for the other problem, I'm confused about why that's the only thing not working. Are you running any other extensions that could be conflicting?
Makes enough sense re: problem #1. Re: the unread counts not showing up, this still occurs for me even when Hacked Hacker News is the only enabled extension.
EDIT: I have no idea why, but as I was hammer-clicking on the Hacker News main button, all of a sudden the unread counts started to appear. I wonder if there was some cache issue or something such as that.
I've uninstalled and reinstalled a couple times on Mac and a Windows VM without getting that message. I know Google checks the manifest file on upload for validity, but I've seen reports[1] of seemingly random installation failures. Have it happened more than once?
Is there any sort of directory for Hacker News skins/mods/hacks? I feel like there is probably a more efficient way for me to view Hacker News, but I've found no convenient way to compare the different options.
I like the way that comments become "read" as you move through them with the shortcut keys.
But I prefer the simple orange line highlight that the hckrnews.com extension and (shameless plug) the Hacker News Enhancement Suite [0] use. Your variable width grey highlight becomes looks very chaotic.
I agree that the style in your link is cleaner looking. I don't have a very good sense for how to make things look nice. I might clean it up a bit because my goal is to keep HN simplistic but just add the few features that I've been itching for. I hadn't seen your before, though. It looks nice.
The default background color for new comments seems too dark for me--the contrast is low enough that new comments are more difficult to read than previously read ones. What about making the background for new comments lighter than the HN default?
Very cool! I wish I had that last week when I was scrambling to reply to comments... (I used text search the page for "minute" and "minutes" but that not very efficient...)
Bonus if you adapt the script to reddit -- the same problem of not knowing which comments are new exists (except for top level comments which can be seen if you sort by new).
39 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 101 ms ] thread1/ New article, never read:
I know that they are all unread, don't need to tell me.2/ Visited article
This is nicer IMHO than having another | separator. The 3 unread could be bold as it is now.3/ Visited and all read:
But this time 0 unread does not need to be bold.I know, this should be a pull request...
Edit: BTW, I just saw '(-1 unread)' which I'm guessing has something to do with showdead being on.
[1] http://alexander.kirk.at/2010/02/16/collapsible-threads-for-...
[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4981907
EDIT: Never mind, you click the More and it puts them on the current page. I thought it was done automatically when you scroll down. Good stuff!
Also, not sure if this is by design, but after I post an in-place reply, I have to reload the page to see my post. However, upon editing a post, the page reloads immediately. I didn't see any error in the console.
As for the other problem, I'm confused about why that's the only thing not working. Are you running any other extensions that could be conflicting?
EDIT: I have no idea why, but as I was hammer-clicking on the Hacker News main button, all of a sudden the unread counts started to appear. I wonder if there was some cache issue or something such as that.
Chrome stable, Mac Mountain Lion.
[1] http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=103281
But I prefer the simple orange line highlight that the hckrnews.com extension and (shameless plug) the Hacker News Enhancement Suite [0] use. Your variable width grey highlight becomes looks very chaotic.
[0] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-enhanc...
The default background color for new comments seems too dark for me--the contrast is low enough that new comments are more difficult to read than previously read ones. What about making the background for new comments lighter than the HN default?
Bonus if you adapt the script to reddit -- the same problem of not knowing which comments are new exists (except for top level comments which can be seen if you sort by new).