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For those on mobile: The Master does his job and then stops. He understands that the universe is forever out of control, and that trying to dominate events goe

For those on mobile: The Master does his job and then stops. He understands that the universe is forever out of control, and that trying to dominate events goes against the current of the Tao. Because he believes in himself, he doesn't try to convince others. Because he is content with himself, he doesn't need others' approval. Because he accepts himself, the whole world accepts him. — Tao Te Ching, Stephen Mitchell translation (http://taoteching.org.uk/index.php?c=30&a=Stephen+Mitchell http://taoteching.org.uk/index.php?c=30&a=Stephen+Mitchell) reply

lucb1e 7y ago
Maybe a little meta, but I'd like to get a second opinion before I bother the moderators by email. (1) Does anyone know why the preformatted sections (<pre>) are limited to a width smaller than the width of the post? At all widths, it's roughly 75% of the comment's width. For mobile, this is especially bad, but I'm not sure why it's there on normal screens resolutions either. (2) You could test different widths. Right click the preformatted section and choose "inspect element". You should have the <code> block highlighted. Move to the parent element, the <pre>. On the right, you should see a max-width with some pixel value. Try setting that to "100%" (without quotes) rather than some pixel amount. Does that work fine for you? Would you like that change? It would be great if someone could somehow test this on mobile as well, but on desktop (if I resize the browser) it seems to work well.
- notatoad 7y ago
  to get even more meta: can we please have a proper blockquote format on HN so that people stop doing this silly code formatting?
  - lucb1e 7y ago
    I'm personally fine with using the > symbol at the beginning of quoted lines, not sure why people see the need to indent every line with four spaces, that's torture for both the writer and the reader (sideways scrolling long lines, and monospaced doesn't read nicely either). But I'm fine either way, so if there is a small css change that people seem to be in favor of which I (or someone else) can propose, that's probably easier than selling a new feature to the whole community, so I'd like to focus on that here.
- xwdv 7y ago
  The creators of hackernews have a hard on for touching the site’s source code as little as possible, aspiring to be some sort of hacker craigslist. Unfortunately, they should have made better design choices from the beginning, now we are stuck with shitty formatting for mobile devices, which did not exist in the great numbers that we see today, and is the most common way the site is consumed. Don’t know what can be done to fix this, short of physical violence.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  Longstanding request, and I've emailed HN on this point repeatedly. I'm given to understand changes may be in the offing, though whether or not this specifically is addressed, I'm not sure. On desktop browsers with extension support, you can use Stylus to fix this specific annoyance by setting "pre-wrap: word". And yes, blockquote support would be hugely appreciated. FYI: https://lobste.rs https://lobste.rs offers full Markdown for comments.
  - adtac 7y ago
    lobste.rs is infinitely more advanced than HN, interface-wise (and it's also perfectly lightweight, so that's no excuse for HN to hide under)
    - dredmorbius 7y ago
      Legacy and data conversion may well be issues. Front end is not back end, etc.
      - ryacko 7y ago
        Archive, transfer user database, and deprecate is common for web forums if an upgrade is needed.
    - codelani 7y ago
      anyone have an invite code handy?
  - darkerside 7y ago
    Continuing the tangent... I wonder why HN isn't open source?
    - nf8nnfufuu 7y ago
      It used to be, maybe it still is https://github.com/wting/hackernews https://github.com/wting/hackernews (7 years ago) Iirc they didn't want to publish details of the ranking algorithm at some point, to prevent "hacking" of submissions. Maybe they stopped publishing the code since then.

lucb1e 7y ago

Maybe a little meta, but I'd like to get a second opinion before I bother the moderators by email. (1) Does anyone know why the preformatted sections (<pre>) are limited to a width smaller than the width of the post? At all widths, it's roughly 75% of the comment's width. For mobile, this is especially bad, but I'm not sure why it's there on normal screens resolutions either. (2) You could test different widths. Right click the preformatted section and choose "inspect element". You should have the <code> block highlighted. Move to the parent element, the <pre>. On the right, you should see a max-width with some pixel value. Try setting that to "100%" (without quotes) rather than some pixel amount. Does that work fine for you? Would you like that change? It would be great if someone could somehow test this on mobile as well, but on desktop (if I resize the browser) it seems to work well.

notatoad 7y ago
to get even more meta: can we please have a proper blockquote format on HN so that people stop doing this silly code formatting?
- lucb1e 7y ago
  I'm personally fine with using the > symbol at the beginning of quoted lines, not sure why people see the need to indent every line with four spaces, that's torture for both the writer and the reader (sideways scrolling long lines, and monospaced doesn't read nicely either). But I'm fine either way, so if there is a small css change that people seem to be in favor of which I (or someone else) can propose, that's probably easier than selling a new feature to the whole community, so I'd like to focus on that here.
xwdv 7y ago
The creators of hackernews have a hard on for touching the site’s source code as little as possible, aspiring to be some sort of hacker craigslist. Unfortunately, they should have made better design choices from the beginning, now we are stuck with shitty formatting for mobile devices, which did not exist in the great numbers that we see today, and is the most common way the site is consumed. Don’t know what can be done to fix this, short of physical violence.
dredmorbius 7y ago
Longstanding request, and I've emailed HN on this point repeatedly. I'm given to understand changes may be in the offing, though whether or not this specifically is addressed, I'm not sure. On desktop browsers with extension support, you can use Stylus to fix this specific annoyance by setting "pre-wrap: word". And yes, blockquote support would be hugely appreciated. FYI: https://lobste.rs https://lobste.rs offers full Markdown for comments.
- adtac 7y ago
  lobste.rs is infinitely more advanced than HN, interface-wise (and it's also perfectly lightweight, so that's no excuse for HN to hide under)
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    Legacy and data conversion may well be issues. Front end is not back end, etc.
    - ryacko 7y ago
      Archive, transfer user database, and deprecate is common for web forums if an upgrade is needed.
  - codelani 7y ago
    anyone have an invite code handy?
- darkerside 7y ago
  Continuing the tangent... I wonder why HN isn't open source?
  - nf8nnfufuu 7y ago
    It used to be, maybe it still is https://github.com/wting/hackernews https://github.com/wting/hackernews (7 years ago) Iirc they didn't want to publish details of the ranking algorithm at some point, to prevent "hacking" of submissions. Maybe they stopped publishing the code since then.