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Ask HN: A preview that randomly changes how you view the text.
I know pg has better things to do then implement trivial HN features. But if someone's working on a community based startup, this might be a neat feature.
Here's my problem. I'm not a stupid guy, I may not be very smart, but I am not illiterate. However, you might get the impression that I am illiterate.
I can read my own post 100 times and I'll be damned if I'll spot the "teh" that should have been a "the".
But! If the preview changes the color, font, or how the paragraphs are laid out, BINGO! I see all my stupid mistakes. Something about visual memory and how my brain works probably.
So my dream submit form would have a preview which did exactly that, randomly, ad infinitum.
Does anyone else have the same problem, or am I the only one?
- cstejerean 18y agoIt's an interesting idea. I don't remember ever thinking about previewing my text under a different style so I don't know if it would help me, but I would be willing to try it.
- coglethorpe 18y ago> I can read my own post 100 times and I'll be damned if I'll spot the "teh" that should have been a "the". Firefox does come with a spell check plugin...
- biohacker42 18y agoAh but it's not just spelling errors, there's missing s-es on plurals and all kinds of other stuff that's technically spelled correctly.
- tlrobinson 18y agoThis could be implemented a bookmarklet.
- biohacker42 18y agoHmm, I hadn't thought of that, it does sound like a great idea however. I think I'm off to look into bookmarklets.
- deathbyzen 18y agoThis reminds me of the commenting system that I think all the Gawker blogs use. There is a live preview directly above the comment field that shows exactly how the post is going to display on the page. A lot of forums do the same type of thing, but not live. My brother has the same problem though, he can read and re-read right through his mistakes and never catch them unless they are pointed out to him. He's not dumb or illiterate, but I've always thought that he's mildly dyslexic.
- DanHulton 18y agoYou could throw together a greasemonkey script to do this in minutes. - On DOM ready, add a preview div under the textarea. - Bind to the textarea's change event, and have it update the preview div with the contents of the textarea. - Add a [Random!] button next to [add comment] - Bind to the [Random!] button to randomize the font, size, and colour of the preview div. And with jQuery, that's probably 4 lines of code.
- tortilla 18y agoNon-software solution: Try proofreading backwards.