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HN: Please add Reddit style collapsible comments

• joshuahutt 11y ago
  I like using this site to browse HN: http://insin.github.io/react-hn/#/story/11355038?_k=sv2c3d http://insin.github.io/react-hn/#/story/11355038?_k=sv2c3d
• bottlerocket 11y ago
  If you're on Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-collapsible-c/hockhafcdegocajmjhafgjncjpodihkd https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-collap...
• moondev 11y ago
  https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-enhancement-s/bappiabcodbpphnojdiaddhnilfnjmpm https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-enhanc...
• bryanlarsen 11y ago
  Here's another one, which works with the awesome hckrnews.com: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hckr-news/mnlaodleonmmfkdhfofamacceeikgecp https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hckr-news/mnlaodle...
• chollida1 11y ago
  I'd also like to see a "hide" button on each story so I can filter out stories that just aren't interesting to me. I get that "Left-pad as a service" is interesting to many people here(182 comments at the moment), but I've never really done any web development at all in my life and I am never really going to be interested in any javascript or node.js link. Similarly I'm guessing most people won't care about my favorite topics quantitative finance or algorithmic trading. It might cut down on the weekly posts where someone complains that HN is going to shit because a story made the front page and they just can't believe someone would find it interesting.
  • dsr_ 11y ago
    Oh. Are you interested in security? Deployment? Or "idiotic practices that are apparently widespread but only coming to light in the wake of a disaster"? Because that's what that story is actually about.
    • buckbova 11y ago
      And this is why HN became my goto after ditching my basket of reddits. I can find a takeaway from nearly every one of the links that make the front page.
    • jonahx 11y ago
      While you're correct about npm story, I think the grandparent has a valid point. Not everyone is interested in every story, and the ability to hide would be a nice enhancement.
      • Normal_gaussian 11y ago
        Ironically the posts I am least interested in are the ycombinator posts. However I assume hacker news is rendered on the server incrementally (anyone have any links on this?) so hiding links will simply reduce the number you see.
  • striking 11y ago
    That would be contrary to Hacker News' existence with regards to Y Combinator. I like to know where the SV pulse is, and I'm almost certain that's why this site exists. It's for watching SV and commenting on it and interacting with it as well as posting cool links that anyone is interested in.
• nexxer 11y ago
  Firefox extension to collapse comment trees: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/hn-utility-suite/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/hn-utility-su...
• fidraj 11y ago
  I use this https://cheeaun.github.io/hackerweb/ https://cheeaun.github.io/hackerweb/
• ghayes 11y ago
  To all the top level comments about browser extensions, I want to use HN on mobile without an app. It's not possible due only to collapsibility. Comments sections are effectively top-comment-only.
  • threeseven37 11y ago
    If you don't mind me asking, why don't you want to use an app?
    • greggman 11y ago
      Apps can spy on me more than webpages and have more potential to do bad things to my device.
    • prplhaz4 11y ago
      Because I already have an app for that - the web browser, and it works great with countless other services I use on a daily basis.
    • ryanisnan 11y ago
      Yet another tool to keep track of for something that could easily be native? Biggest reason to use an app in this case would be only if pg was expressly against an idea that an app could achieve.
  • kuschku 11y ago
    Use Firefox? (It has addons on mobile)
  • snowwrestler 11y ago
    I browse HN a lot in the default iOS browser, and it works fine for me. I can scroll pretty darn fast with flicks of my finger, to get past sub-threads I want to skip. Heck I do the same thing on Reddit; it's faster and simpler for me than collapsing threads.
    • ghayes 11y ago
• oolongCat 11y ago
  I use this https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-collapsible-c/hockhafcdegocajmjhafgjncjpodihkd?utm_source=chrome-app-launcher-info-dialog https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-collap...
• notliketherest 11y ago
  Hacker News Enhancement Suite works wonders https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-enhancement-s/bappiabcodbpphnojdiaddhnilfnjmpm?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-enhanc...
  • ihuman 11y ago
    I personally use "Hacker News Collapsible Comments"[1], but it breaks whenever they add the black bar to the top of the site. [1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-collapsible-c/hockhafcdegocajmjhafgjncjpodihkd https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-collap...
    • tokenizerrr 11y ago
      Hacker News Enhancement Suite deals with that just fine in my experience.
    • elliotec 11y ago
      What is that bar at the top for anyway?
      • stevekemp 11y ago
        It is added when somebody "noteworthy" has died.
    • huac 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... It doesn't break with black bars.
  • yock 11y ago
    This doesn't help on mobile, and these browser extensions are frequently broken when markup changes.
    • 11y ago
• thoughtpalette 11y ago
  Beautiful HN Chrome plugin UI, supports: - Improved readability design - Retina screen support - User following - Super fast inline replies - Quick profiles with social network info when hovering over usernames - Filtering of stories based on terms and phrases / domain or user - Endless scrolling - Collapsible comment threads - Direct link to Google Cache version - Social sharing for Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Buffer https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hackernew/lgoghlndihpmbbgmbpjohilcphbfhddd https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hackernew/lgoghlnd... (not affiliated in any way with this, just love it)
  • shostack 11y ago
    I always wonder what level of security and data transparency exists behind things like this. Are there any real risks to using something like that?
    • jeremyw 11y ago
      This one happens to be open source (https://github.com/tommoor/HackerNew https://github.com/tommoor/HackerNew), but you can always unpack plugins, take a look at their Javascript, and if you don't like what you see, repack with your own modifications.
      • ryanisnan 11y ago
        I absolutely understand the notion that being open source makes it significantly more difficult to hide devious code, but let's be realistic. If you had to scrutinize every piece of OSS for something malicious, you would never get anything done.
  • kuschku 11y ago
    Is there a firefox version?
• Laaw 11y ago
  There's a philosophical reason for a cumbersome UI, and it revolves around the idea that comment volume should overall remain somewhat low. It should be hard to manage tons of comments on a story, because it lowers the overall comment count. I'd love to see some A/B testing on this.
  • function_seven 11y ago
    I understand the philosophy, but the law of unintended consequences means that the comment threads are only about whatever the top commenter brought up. For example, let's say the article is "Scientists discover new material that boosts solar panel efficiency by 16%". The top comment might be, "This does nothing to alleviate the base-load problem. We still need better battery technology". Well now the comment section for me is all about battery chemistry, battery manufacturing news, hydro-pumping as a means of storage, etc. All because the top comment spawned its own mega-thread that pushes relevant (to the story) comments off the bottom.
    • Laaw 11y ago
      Maybe that's okay, or at least an acceptable consequence.
• beachstartup 11y ago
  no, i disagree strongly. i despise reddit's collapsible / half-loading comments. on large threads it loads the same 10% every single time and hides a lot of the good responses. just give me all the comments in one shot. i'm a big boy, i can handle reading.
  • function_seven 11y ago
    You're disagreeing with a different request, then. I'd just like to collapse comment trees. That's all. I don't want to only partial load them. (I can see why you'd infer that from the post, because it references reddit) It's an embarassingly-simple feature to add, and it would provide a huge value to all of us that browse this site on our phones.
  • caffeinewriter 11y ago
    I agree, but why not keep the loading structure, with just an option to collapse individual threads, having them opened by default. So, the experience doesn't change for users that wish to avoid collapsable trees, but gives the option to users that do want it.
  • deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  • thex10 11y ago
    it's _not_ given to you 'all in one shot' though. the 'top' comment is first, along with all of its responses, then the second top comment, and so on. you'll still miss many good responses because you won't scroll through hundreds of comments (which can be very lengthy on a mobile screen). also let's not conflate collapsible and half-loading. this thread is not advocating partial loading. you dont need partial loading of comments in order to enable collapsible functionality.
    • beachstartup 11y ago
      sometimes i start at the bottom and scroll up. i might be weird.
  • 11y ago
• MaxfordAndSons 11y ago
  Yea it is rather frustrating when the top comment spawns an enormous tangential discussion and you have to scroll through it; it doesn't help that there are no indent guides to at least make it easier to tell when you've finally scrolled to the next top level comment. And all this is doubly annoying on mobile.
  • Normal_gaussian 11y ago
    I do not want collapsible comments - I feel that this encourages "skipping" over discussion (which helps polarise and lower the quality of the entire thread) Indent guides? Yes please. I often find myself wanting to find and read all the replies to a particular comment (it is often posing a question or defending an opinion I find questionable).
    • mratzloff 11y ago
      As opposed to scrolling by without reading, which is what most already do instead? We're under no obligation to read everything here.
    • JonahBraun 11y ago
      Actually collapsing comments helps. Often insightful top level comments are posted at a later time. These remain less read and less voted because of their position.
    • 300bps 11y ago
      That's the thing that a lot of HN users don't get. A lot of thought has been put into how to get fewer comments on HN. You have shadow banning, thread depth delays, thread depth limits and so much more. They don't want to turn HN into reddit.
      • krapp 11y ago
        Dang has said that collapsible comments are coming[0]. and shadowbanned comments are reversible by the public now[1] - and people vehemently defended shadowbanning as being absolutely essential in maintaining the quality of the community. Plus, other features (like domain links) have been added which make the site superficially more like reddit[2]. There used to be a "feature" where links would expire very quickly, making it impossible to reply to a comment if you spent more than a minute or two with the submit form open. People argued that that was also an intentional feature, even when the staff admitted explicitly that it was a bug. The staff has attempted to add a mobile stylesheet numerous times, and yet people argue that keeping mobile users away was a conscious decision by pg to keep the site from becoming reddit. This site has become so paranoid about "becoming reddit" that it literally tells you in the site guidelines not to complain about the site becoming reddit. It is entirely possible that, while pg did make a conscious effort to design the site in such a way as to attract certain users and repel others, that is not nearly as overriding and critical a priority as people make it out to be. [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8247089 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8247089 [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10298512 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10298512 [2]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10223645 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10223645
• 55555 11y ago
  It's not a straightforwardly positive UX decision. Allowing people to hide conversation trees they are not interested in has other effects. It would reduce discussion. the current setup promotes constructive disagreements. We already hide things if our collective mind thinks it's a bad idea, but I'm not sure it's beneficial to let this occur on an individual basis. If everyone thinks what I am saying is wrong, then this comment will get whited out and sent to the bottom, but if only you think it's dumb, maybe you should still have to read it. I kinda like the current way.
  • darawk 11y ago
    I think he's just talking about the ability to collapse something after you've read it, which is a great feature on reddit - particularly on mobile. I use it all the time. I read as much of the comment tree as i'm interested in, then collapse the root node to move on to the next one. It makes it easier than having to scan down and do visual indentation tracking.
  • SpaceCadetJones 11y ago
    Once discussions get long I can't even follow them, though. There at least needs to some something added to the UI so I can see who is replying to what and where a tree starts/ends
  • bargl 11y ago
    I actually find I get into more discussions by using a plugin that allows me to collapse so that I can comment on lower threads because I can actually get there when I'm interested. It really should be built in though.
    • Normal_gaussian 11y ago
      I disagree. Often the most insightful comments lie a few posts into a comment I disagree with. When browsing on reddit I would have already collapsed the thread. When I am genuinely not interested I don't have any problem scrolling down.
• anoother 11y ago
  Dear HN: Please don't. Your design is perfect.
• SuperKlaus 11y ago
  This is a great Chrome add-on that lets you collapse comments: http://gabrielecirulli.github.io/hn-special/ http://gabrielecirulli.github.io/hn-special/
• alpb 11y ago
  Check out "Hacker News Collapsible Comments" https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-collapsible-c/hockhafcdegocajmjhafgjncjpodihkd https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-collap... if you don't want too many changes that come with the Enhancement Suite.
• pdkl95 11y ago
  https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/12493-hacker-news-folding-subtrees https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/12493-hacker-news-folding-... I wrote this userscript a while ago. edit: In light of the left-pad brouhaha, maybe I should mention that my userscript doesn't have any dependencies - not even an embedded jquery.
• znpy 11y ago
  I think users should be able to flag a certain subtree of the comments tree as "off-topic" or "tangential" so that after a certain flag threshold such subtree is automatically shown as folded, and users would be able to see the most related comments first.
• btbuildem 11y ago
  Short answer is that the legacy codebase can't handle that. Most people use various browser extensions to help with HN usability issues.
• trollingineeer 11y ago
  Also bad behavior by HN users who piggyback on the top comment ALWAYS because they - the pseudo-intellectuals - think their words need to be seen by as many people as possible.
• logicrook 11y ago
  Are you too lazy to roll your own Greasemonkey script if it's such a problem for you? Are you just on HN to lose time, or too learn how to hack things?
• andrewflnr 11y ago
  You can actually beat Reddit's UI on this: save collapsing state across page loads. It's quite annoying on mobile to open a link on reddit, come back and be forced to reload the page, and then be presented with the same wall of irrelevance I closed up a minute ago.
  • Namrog84 11y ago
    With res. Or at least for me. It's saved. Sometimes i go to comments thinking I haven't even and find my already collapsed comments and realize I just forgot I already read comments for this post
  • verandaguy 11y ago
    I believe the RES extension does do this for Reddit, actually.
• harisamin 11y ago
  I built a Mac native desktop HN client. I don’t have collapsible comments yet but its on the way :) http://mackernews.com http://mackernews.com
• simonswords82 11y ago
  While we're suggesting improvements... Why is it that the discuss option isn't available on posts that are job adverts? I think it would be useful/interesting to allow casual conversation about job postings.
• simonswords82 11y ago
  While we're suggesting improvements... Why is it that the discuss option isn't available on posts that are job adverts? I think it would be useful/interesting to allow casual conversation about job postings.
• ebbv 11y ago
  This is well worthwhile, since it would help combat "top comment discussion is the only discussion" disease.
• Grue3 11y ago
  I never used collapsible comments on reddit. By the time you're reading deep into a branch and decide that it's better to skip it, you already too far from the comment that started the branch. It's actually more difficult to scroll back and click collapse than scroll forward until the next top-level comment.
  • justJanne 11y ago
    There are subreddits with a CSS that fixes that issue. Take https://www.reddit.com/r/geopolitics/comments/4a46s0/china_hinted_that_the_country_will_plan_more/d0ykz8x?context=9 https://www.reddit.com/r/geopolitics/comments/4a46s0/china_h... – the indent markers at the left actually allow to collapse that comment
  • yoha 11y ago
    Use RES keyboard navigation to navigate to top comment, fold it, and then go to next. With my settings, I just have to type OMJ.
• sidcool 11y ago
  Please. :( I will pay for it. I don't trust plugins and extensions.
• mratzloff 11y ago
  While we're wishing, I wish: - Arrows indicated which way I voted instead of disappearing completely. - I could change my up or down vote on a comment after making it. When viewing on a phone it's easy to fat finger the wrong arrow. If there's a concern about changing votes long after a discussion, gate it by time.
  • yoha 11y ago
    Agreed for the ability to change vote. This is most likely due to the way the buttons work (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11307758 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11307758), so as to keep the code as tight as possible.
• f137 11y ago
  Yes, please do it
• DougWebb 11y ago
  I can see why collapsible sub-trees aren't quite dead-simple. The comment list is a single table, and each comment is a separate row. There's no container around a comment's children. (Also, the indenting is implemented by putting a 1x1 image in the first column and setting its width based on the indent depth required.) Internally, there's obviously tracking of parent/child relationships, but adding container elements so that the children can be hidden would require getting rid of the table-based layout and replacing it with a nested div-based layout. The markup and styling changes would be fairly simple, but none of us know what the impact is on the backend, or on anything that depends on the markup structure that may or may not be in HN's control. My guess is that these non-technical impacts are the driving force behind keeping the markup as it is, which prevents the kind of features you want.
  • pas 11y ago
    Find the row clicked on. Find the indent. For every row that has larger indent (until one with the same indent), set display: none. For this row, mark it collapsed (even by putting a div around the current content, un-displaying it and putting a "show thread" button/link there). So indent is width of the "invisible pixel", easy to query, isn't it? What am I missing?
• bkyalpl 11y ago
  Until implemented on https://news.ycombinator.com/ https://news.ycombinator.com/, try https://hn.premii.com/ https://hn.premii.com/ which has collapsible comments. The web and mobile apps are open source[1]. 1 : https://github.com/premii/hn https://github.com/premii/hn
  • bkyalpl 11y ago
    Another option is http://hackerwebapp.com/ http://hackerwebapp.com/. By default, top-level comments are displayed without replies expanded.
• yoha 11y ago
  It really needs some polishing, but I am using a handcrafted UserScript [1] that lets me navigate comments with the keyboard (j/k as well as p/g/J/K), fold/unfold (m) and vote (a/z). Also some styling to ease reading (larger font, indentation marker). However, the "reply" (r) feature is not complete (i.e. broken), "last" (G) shortcut fails for some reason and flagged comments break the navigation. If you look in the relevant folder, you may notice it was initially designed for Word Press (WP.user.js), more precisely SlateStarCodex, and seems to work for most such blogs. SSC.user.js is just meant to improve the styling of SlateStarCodex. [1] http://sinon.org/userscripts/HN.user.js http://sinon.org/userscripts/HN.user.js
  • tedmiston 11y ago
    I'm late to party, but Premii's HN client has collapsible comments and keyboard navigation. http://hn.premii.com/ http://hn.premii.com/
• mpwoz 11y ago
  I actually got frustrated enough with this a few weeks ago to write a quick extension that lets me jump between comment trees: https://github.com/mpwoz/jumper https://github.com/mpwoz/jumper It's very lightweight and doesn't clutter up your screen with an icon since that's literally the only use case. I haven't gotten around to publishing it on the web store yet unfortunately so you'll have to install manually.
• kadder 11y ago
  Another one hnbuzz .. But an iOS app - |via http://bit.ly/hnbuzz01 http://bit.ly/hnbuzz01 |
• bsmartt 11y ago
  Does this site get updated on any regular basis? It doesn't feel like it it's ever changed.
• tkel 11y ago
  I recently made a firefox addon to do just this, called HN Collapse. Here it is: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/hn-collapse https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/hn-collapse Also on github: https://github.com/tomkel/hn-collapse https://github.com/tomkel/hn-collapse
  • alecco 11y ago
    Good man. I was going to suggest a RES-style extension.
• atroyn 11y ago
  This is a particular pain on mobile, because a given thread tends to be much deeper to scroll past.
• logn 11y ago
  This is Hacker News. JavaScript should be added by users as a browser extension. Only requests to make the website more user-serviceable such as class names and element names/IDs should be considered.
• slantaclaus 11y ago
  PLEASE
• ytrix00 11y ago
  If you decide to implement collapsible comments, then please make them expanded if Javascript is disabled.