8 ms·

Show HN: Collapse Comments on Hacker News

93 points by Igglyboo 11y ago

Igglyboo 11y ago
Re-Submitted because I uploaded it to the chrome web store, had some reports of people not being able to enable it or install it because of some recent security changes. Just a tiny little extension that lets you collapse comments on HN. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Here's the github link if you're interested https://github.com/Igglyboo/hn_collapse https://github.com/Igglyboo/hn_collapse
- quanticle 11y ago
  Awesome work. This is really helpful on stories that have more than a hundred comments.
- tswartz 11y ago
  Cool! I've always found it hard to read comments in the big discussions. It would be helpful if you had more details on what comments it collapses in the Chrome store description. In the screenshot it didn't look like comments were collapsed. Can I adjust which comments are collapsed, is it just deeply nested comments?
- smhinsey 11y ago
  This is pretty cool! I switched from a similar extension purely because I prefer the location on the left of the comment rather than the right. I've tried a lot of these and one thing I haven't seen is a similar feature to RES that remembers collapsed threads. Any ideas if this is something that HN's design somehow precludes or is it just a matter of someone sitting down and writing the code?
amadeusw 11y ago
Similar add-on for Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/hn-utility-suite/?src=search https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/hn-utility-su...
charlieegan3 11y ago
I've used https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-collapsible-c/hockhafcdegocajmjhafgjncjpodihkd https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-collap... for a while, does this have any extra features?
joesmo 11y ago
Thanks for this! I was using an old extension for this that broke with the HN redesign a few months back.
shadeless 11y ago
I'm pretty happy with "Hacker News Enhancement Suite", it supports this and few other nice things. [0] [0] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-enhancement-s/bappiabcodbpphnojdiaddhnilfnjmpm https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-enhanc...
- irq 11y ago
  I just tried this and I am not happy with it. I dislike the extreme changes it makes to HN's layout and colors. Way too heavy handed for me. Surprising, given the name, which is obviously a play on Reddit Enhancement Suite, which is a great addon that doesn't make reddit look totally different.
  - kjaer 11y ago
    The extension badly needs settings, so that you can control what features you want and don't want. That being said, the author of the extension isn't really active on GitHub. He certainly hasn't replied to my pull request that adds the ability to tag users yet. I might fork it one day, call it HNES+ or something. Then maybe development can gain a bit of traction again.
- flashman 11y ago
  I use "HN Special"[1] with the visual theme turned off (it irritates me). It also offers infinite scrolling, although it makes accessing the search box a little tedious. [1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hn-special-an-addition-to/cchaceegbflphbdpfocjalgjhjoahiia https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hn-special-an-addi...
  - absorber 11y ago
    Just tried it, this IMO is definitely an improvement over the Hacker News Enhancement Suite, especially when using the default HN style. However, I frequently use HN without scripts and cookies, and I find it somewhat disappointing that it uses cookies to store its settings instead of local storage. I'll open an issue on the repo when I find the time though.
waleedka 11y ago
This should be a standard feature in HN. The other pain point is the up/down arrows being so close to each other on mobile that I have to zoom in, vote, then zoom out.
- mizzao 11y ago
  Is monkey-patching other people's web apps really the right way to get this done? It's very brittle and it seems that the policy-driven (i.e. convince HN to do it) method is better than the vigilante programmer method.
  - jkeat 11y ago
    Why not both? This is an immediate solution.
  - patrickmclaren 11y ago
    These two approaches don't need to be exclusive. Community workarounds such as this can also function as building blocks for discussion.
  - Kenji 11y ago
    Yes. I made my own collapsible comments Greasemonkey script years ago and only had to update once, about a year ago. I am really happy with it because it has precisely the features I want and need, and every time I log into HN from another machine I miss it sorely. Maybe I'll submit it to HN but my website needs one quick fix first.
  - prawn 11y ago
    People have been asking for it for years with no action or even response (that I've seen). I've used the same HN collapse extension in Chrome for a while now with no problems - dislike browsing HN on my phone without it. It's obvious to me which approach has been better.
  - mchahn 11y ago
    > It's very brittle So? Things break and then I uninstall them.
mastax 11y ago
I had been using hn.premii.com in order to get a better browsing experience, but it was annoying that I couldn't comment on there. I'm not sure why I hadn't thought to look for chrome extensions to enhance HN, but I'm glad that I found them!
IkmoIkmo 11y ago
Works great, thanks!
elliotec 11y ago
Thank you! This is great and doesn't do anything I don't care about!
lobster_johnson 11y ago
I use this one (supports Chrome and Safari): http://hckrnews.com/about.html#extensions http://hckrnews.com/about.html#extensions It has collapsing, and it also highlights unread comments.
- peter_l_downs 11y ago
  Just installed it – thanks for the pointer. Works exactly as expected.
- aganders3 11y ago
  Thanks - much appreciated as a Safari user.
- dionidium 11y ago
  This is the one I use, too. It does exactly what you need it to do.
- kawera 11y ago
  Excellent extension, been using it for years.
taspeotis 11y ago
I like HackerNew https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hackernew/lgoghlndihpmbbgmbpjohilcphbfhddd?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hackernew/lgoghlnd...
kristianp 11y ago
This is nice. One feature I'd like in HN is a max comment depth that is collapsed by default. Often a lot of scrolling is needed to get past a controversial thread that has a lot of replies, but doesn't discuss something relevant or informative. People end up replying to the top thread even for a different topic, because they feel that is the only way to get seen.
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  Great observation. I het annoyed by the scrolling and the fact that I cant tell who they're replying to without hitting parent.
mhays 11y ago
Thank you!
CoachRufus87 11y ago
Is there a way to sandbox a chrome extension to a specific domain (or know that an extension is only allowed to work on a specific domain)?
- detaro 11y ago
  Chrome tells you the extension permissions, including for which URLs they apply, before you confirm installing it.
adamweld 11y ago
http://hn.premii.com/ http://hn.premii.com/
charonn0 11y ago
I use this[1] bookmarklet for the same effect. [1]: https://gist.github.com/charonn0/beae6d3adf1b586409fa https://gist.github.com/charonn0/beae6d3adf1b586409fa
nononoxd 11y ago
No, wait! I thought only grandma uses chrome and that the HN users care about freedom and use firefox/dillo/icecat/whatever. My wrong.
cheshire137 11y ago
I use this one: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-collapse/bbkfcamiocfccgmcjngdljolljhifdph https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-collap...
Rauchg 11y ago
Love it. Suggestion: persist the collapse state to `localStorage`. This is enabled on Reddit through a Chrome Extension as well.
wluu 11y ago
Looks quite similar in behaviour to one I've been using previously: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-collapsible-c/hockhafcdegocajmjhafgjncjpodihkd https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-collap...
toyg 11y ago
Still missing: an extension that will open links in a frame, keeping comments below (or rather to the side, in the age of widescreen).
kadder 11y ago
Hnbuzz a hacker news iOS client already supports collapsible comment :) - |via http://bit.ly/hnbuzz01 http://bit.ly/hnbuzz01 |
pllbnk 11y ago
I had submitted a similar script, among others a few days ago. It is a user script and can be used on Firefox w/ Greasemonkey and Chrome w/ Tampermonkey: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/PauliusLabanauskis/UserScripts/master/src/comment_collapser.user.js https://raw.githubusercontent.com/PauliusLabanauskis/UserScr...
pc86 11y ago
The voting buttons should probably disappear for minimized comments.

93 points by Igglyboo 11y ago

Re-Submitted because I uploaded it to the chrome web store, had some reports of people not being able to enable it or install it because of some recent security changes. Just a tiny little extension that lets you collapse comments on HN. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Here's the github link if you're interested https://github.com/Igglyboo/hn_collapse https://github.com/Igglyboo/hn_collapse

quanticle 11y ago
Awesome work. This is really helpful on stories that have more than a hundred comments.
tswartz 11y ago
Cool! I've always found it hard to read comments in the big discussions. It would be helpful if you had more details on what comments it collapses in the Chrome store description. In the screenshot it didn't look like comments were collapsed. Can I adjust which comments are collapsed, is it just deeply nested comments?
smhinsey 11y ago
This is pretty cool! I switched from a similar extension purely because I prefer the location on the left of the comment rather than the right. I've tried a lot of these and one thing I haven't seen is a similar feature to RES that remembers collapsed threads. Any ideas if this is something that HN's design somehow precludes or is it just a matter of someone sitting down and writing the code?

amadeusw 11y ago

Similar add-on for Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/hn-utility-suite/?src=search https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/hn-utility-su...

charlieegan3 11y ago

I've used https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-collapsible-c/hockhafcdegocajmjhafgjncjpodihkd https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-collap... for a while, does this have any extra features?

joesmo 11y ago

Thanks for this! I was using an old extension for this that broke with the HN redesign a few months back.

shadeless 11y ago

I'm pretty happy with "Hacker News Enhancement Suite", it supports this and few other nice things. [0] [0] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-enhancement-s/bappiabcodbpphnojdiaddhnilfnjmpm https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-enhanc...

irq 11y ago
I just tried this and I am not happy with it. I dislike the extreme changes it makes to HN's layout and colors. Way too heavy handed for me. Surprising, given the name, which is obviously a play on Reddit Enhancement Suite, which is a great addon that doesn't make reddit look totally different.
- kjaer 11y ago
  The extension badly needs settings, so that you can control what features you want and don't want. That being said, the author of the extension isn't really active on GitHub. He certainly hasn't replied to my pull request that adds the ability to tag users yet. I might fork it one day, call it HNES+ or something. Then maybe development can gain a bit of traction again.
flashman 11y ago
I use "HN Special"[1] with the visual theme turned off (it irritates me). It also offers infinite scrolling, although it makes accessing the search box a little tedious. [1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hn-special-an-addition-to/cchaceegbflphbdpfocjalgjhjoahiia https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hn-special-an-addi...
- absorber 11y ago
  Just tried it, this IMO is definitely an improvement over the Hacker News Enhancement Suite, especially when using the default HN style. However, I frequently use HN without scripts and cookies, and I find it somewhat disappointing that it uses cookies to store its settings instead of local storage. I'll open an issue on the repo when I find the time though.

waleedka 11y ago

This should be a standard feature in HN. The other pain point is the up/down arrows being so close to each other on mobile that I have to zoom in, vote, then zoom out.

mizzao 11y ago
Is monkey-patching other people's web apps really the right way to get this done? It's very brittle and it seems that the policy-driven (i.e. convince HN to do it) method is better than the vigilante programmer method.
- jkeat 11y ago
  Why not both? This is an immediate solution.
- patrickmclaren 11y ago
  These two approaches don't need to be exclusive. Community workarounds such as this can also function as building blocks for discussion.
- Kenji 11y ago
  Yes. I made my own collapsible comments Greasemonkey script years ago and only had to update once, about a year ago. I am really happy with it because it has precisely the features I want and need, and every time I log into HN from another machine I miss it sorely. Maybe I'll submit it to HN but my website needs one quick fix first.
- prawn 11y ago
  People have been asking for it for years with no action or even response (that I've seen). I've used the same HN collapse extension in Chrome for a while now with no problems - dislike browsing HN on my phone without it. It's obvious to me which approach has been better.
- mchahn 11y ago
  > It's very brittle So? Things break and then I uninstall them.

mastax 11y ago

I had been using hn.premii.com in order to get a better browsing experience, but it was annoying that I couldn't comment on there. I'm not sure why I hadn't thought to look for chrome extensions to enhance HN, but I'm glad that I found them!

IkmoIkmo 11y ago

Works great, thanks!

elliotec 11y ago

Thank you! This is great and doesn't do anything I don't care about!

lobster_johnson 11y ago

I use this one (supports Chrome and Safari): http://hckrnews.com/about.html#extensions http://hckrnews.com/about.html#extensions It has collapsing, and it also highlights unread comments.

peter_l_downs 11y ago
Just installed it – thanks for the pointer. Works exactly as expected.
aganders3 11y ago
Thanks - much appreciated as a Safari user.
dionidium 11y ago
This is the one I use, too. It does exactly what you need it to do.
kawera 11y ago
Excellent extension, been using it for years.

taspeotis 11y ago

I like HackerNew https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hackernew/lgoghlndihpmbbgmbpjohilcphbfhddd?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hackernew/lgoghlnd...

kristianp 11y ago

This is nice. One feature I'd like in HN is a max comment depth that is collapsed by default. Often a lot of scrolling is needed to get past a controversial thread that has a lot of replies, but doesn't discuss something relevant or informative. People end up replying to the top thread even for a different topic, because they feel that is the only way to get seen.

nickpsecurity 11y ago
Great observation. I het annoyed by the scrolling and the fact that I cant tell who they're replying to without hitting parent.

mhays 11y ago

Thank you!

CoachRufus87 11y ago

Is there a way to sandbox a chrome extension to a specific domain (or know that an extension is only allowed to work on a specific domain)?

detaro 11y ago
Chrome tells you the extension permissions, including for which URLs they apply, before you confirm installing it.

adamweld 11y ago

http://hn.premii.com/ http://hn.premii.com/

charonn0 11y ago

I use this[1] bookmarklet for the same effect. [1]: https://gist.github.com/charonn0/beae6d3adf1b586409fa https://gist.github.com/charonn0/beae6d3adf1b586409fa

nononoxd 11y ago

No, wait! I thought only grandma uses chrome and that the HN users care about freedom and use firefox/dillo/icecat/whatever. My wrong.

cheshire137 11y ago

I use this one: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-collapse/bbkfcamiocfccgmcjngdljolljhifdph https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-collap...

Rauchg 11y ago

Love it. Suggestion: persist the collapse state to `localStorage`. This is enabled on Reddit through a Chrome Extension as well.

wluu 11y ago

Looks quite similar in behaviour to one I've been using previously: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-collapsible-c/hockhafcdegocajmjhafgjncjpodihkd https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-collap...

toyg 11y ago

Still missing: an extension that will open links in a frame, keeping comments below (or rather to the side, in the age of widescreen).

kadder 11y ago

Hnbuzz a hacker news iOS client already supports collapsible comment :) - |via http://bit.ly/hnbuzz01 http://bit.ly/hnbuzz01 |

pllbnk 11y ago

I had submitted a similar script, among others a few days ago. It is a user script and can be used on Firefox w/ Greasemonkey and Chrome w/ Tampermonkey: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/PauliusLabanauskis/UserScripts/master/src/comment_collapser.user.js https://raw.githubusercontent.com/PauliusLabanauskis/UserScr...

pc86 11y ago

The voting buttons should probably disappear for minimized comments.