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Show HN: TweeView – A Tree Visualisation of Twitter Conversations

55 points by edent 5y ago

yewenjie 5y ago
Is there any browser extension that turns Twitter threads into reddit like simple looking tree-view?
- mmmmkay 5y ago
  came here to say this. This would be great as a browser extension.
  - paulgb 5y ago
    https://treeverse.app/ https://treeverse.app/
    - mmmmkay 5y ago
      the real MVP. Thanks!
    - ssalka 5y ago
      ^I have been using this for a long time, very positive experience with it (maybe gets a bit after excessive expanding/branching on a large thread), and it works with tweets older than 7 days...
- gavinray 5y ago
  Also came here to ask this. Imageboard style replies would be fine too -- where it's flat and there's a single top post and the way replies work is that they "link" to the post number of the person they are replying to and clicking the post number link jumps you to that post. Basically anything but how Twitter currently does it. I've been using computers literally since I was 3 years old and I still don't understand how to navigate and use their UI.
  - kawfey 5y ago
    something that did this for email would be amazing as well. I subscribe to dozens of oldschool ham radio forums, which get threaded to all hell and go on for weeks and months. the native mailing list archiver (like groups.io or mailman using hyperkitty[0] or worse, not [1]) is just chaos. Very hard to read, and everyone email clients decide differently how to format text, whitespace, and previous replies so some messages will be miles long containing the entire context of the message before them. There has to be something out there that turns email forums into a reddit- or HN-like threaded/indented interface. [0]https://mailman.amsat.org/hyperkitty/list/amsat-bb@amsat.org/thread/MPCTWAEPG5OQNMXQB3CXJPP6EEMAXVBJ/ https://mailman.amsat.org/hyperkitty/list/amsat-bb@amsat.org... [1]lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
  - 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
    "Basically anything but how Twitter currently does it." This is what I use when I need to look at a Twitter page. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28071491 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28071491 Saved in a script called "twt", usage as follows twt username |twt > 1.htm firefox ./1.htm Although I use a text-only browser not Firefox so its designed for that. Its not perfect but its better than anything else Ive seen short of https://github.com/twintproject/twint https://github.com/twintproject/twint and its still faster and smaller than installing Python. The future of the web could be that users request JSON and then users create a page to their liking, client-side, using their own Javascript (or whatever language they want to use). As it stands, on todays web a "tech" company, often using Javascript, causes the users browser to request the JSON and then more downloaded Javascript, not controlled by the user, creates a user-hostile page for the user to consume the JSON. Its a Rube Goldberg machine designed for tracking and advertising, not users. Imagine if the user conscisouly requests the JSON and is then in control of designing the page for herself. What were tweets but short strings of text. Hard to believe that now looking at a Twitter page. Thats because the user isnt in control of the design. Remember the "tech" company does not own the data. Its public information. User-generated content wrapped in user-hostile, developer-generated markup.
paulgb 5y ago
Cool, looks like the visualization from Treeverse.app but attached to the Twitter API instead of as a browser extension? (Full disclosure, I wrote Treeverse, but I see you cited it in the readme in keeping with the license so I'm 100% on board with this)
graphviz 5y ago
It's not often that one can comment on "gratuitous use of 4D".
leppr 5y ago
It would be more useful if one could either follow a link to the replies, or read the full tweet text of the corresponding node by clicking on it. Also the node div should have a background color, for when an image doesn't load. As an aside, even though @paulgb says he's not bothered with the use of his library that way, it's so similar that I think common OSS etiquette would've been to acknowledge the original project more prominently.
- edent 5y ago
  Cheers. It is all open source on https://github.com/edent/TweeView https://github.com/edent/TweeView - where I also credit Paul. The main 2D view is based on his work - but the interactive view (and 3D views) are based on other projects.
  - westurner 5y ago
    The 4D view looks a bit like Gource with the wawa aura and all. Is there anything that finds cycles in the tweet graph (quote tweet "edges")? And unshortened link frequencies, maybe
jimmySixDOF 5y ago
As an admirer of Paul Butler's TreeVerse.app (@paulgb), I have to say this is some amazing work done here and also what was done in the past by OP in this same direction. Working with mulidimentional Graph/Tree presentation is so possible now and just makes everything easier to approach as a user confronted with Too Much Information to process. I definitely think TreeView would benefit from some Three.js or Babylon.js WebXR visualization in VR/AR Headsets. There is a lot left "to-be-done" on the UI side to make that a proper useful experience, but it is a much better fit than trying to keyboard/video/mouse your way around a 4000 tweet force-balanced network graph node cluster in normal 2D pancake land mode. Anyway, Thank You So Much OP for making my new favorite opensource project ! Look forward to playing with this as it develops... PS- I'm basing this mostly on the blog posts/video links [1] as the site may be going through a HN_Hug-of-Death moment. Minor Aside: the link to Lucy Pepper on GitHub is broken the updated one is [2] [1] https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/09/visualising-twitter-conversations-in-3d-space/ https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/09/visualising-twitter-convers... [2] https://lucypepper.com/ptf/ https://lucypepper.com/ptf/ EDIT: There is some work already using A-Frame (Three.js frontend) only for AR but it's a start !! [3] [3] https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/09/augmented-reality-twitter-conversations/ https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/09/augmented-reality-twitter-c...

55 points by edent 5y ago

yewenjie 5y ago

Is there any browser extension that turns Twitter threads into reddit like simple looking tree-view?

mmmmkay 5y ago
came here to say this. This would be great as a browser extension.
- paulgb 5y ago
  https://treeverse.app/ https://treeverse.app/
  - mmmmkay 5y ago
    the real MVP. Thanks!
  - ssalka 5y ago
    ^I have been using this for a long time, very positive experience with it (maybe gets a bit after excessive expanding/branching on a large thread), and it works with tweets older than 7 days...
gavinray 5y ago
Also came here to ask this. Imageboard style replies would be fine too -- where it's flat and there's a single top post and the way replies work is that they "link" to the post number of the person they are replying to and clicking the post number link jumps you to that post. Basically anything but how Twitter currently does it. I've been using computers literally since I was 3 years old and I still don't understand how to navigate and use their UI.
- kawfey 5y ago
  something that did this for email would be amazing as well. I subscribe to dozens of oldschool ham radio forums, which get threaded to all hell and go on for weeks and months. the native mailing list archiver (like groups.io or mailman using hyperkitty[0] or worse, not [1]) is just chaos. Very hard to read, and everyone email clients decide differently how to format text, whitespace, and previous replies so some messages will be miles long containing the entire context of the message before them. There has to be something out there that turns email forums into a reddit- or HN-like threaded/indented interface. [0]https://mailman.amsat.org/hyperkitty/list/amsat-bb@amsat.org/thread/MPCTWAEPG5OQNMXQB3CXJPP6EEMAXVBJ/ https://mailman.amsat.org/hyperkitty/list/amsat-bb@amsat.org... [1]lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
  "Basically anything but how Twitter currently does it." This is what I use when I need to look at a Twitter page. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28071491 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28071491 Saved in a script called "twt", usage as follows twt username |twt > 1.htm firefox ./1.htm Although I use a text-only browser not Firefox so its designed for that. Its not perfect but its better than anything else Ive seen short of https://github.com/twintproject/twint https://github.com/twintproject/twint and its still faster and smaller than installing Python. The future of the web could be that users request JSON and then users create a page to their liking, client-side, using their own Javascript (or whatever language they want to use). As it stands, on todays web a "tech" company, often using Javascript, causes the users browser to request the JSON and then more downloaded Javascript, not controlled by the user, creates a user-hostile page for the user to consume the JSON. Its a Rube Goldberg machine designed for tracking and advertising, not users. Imagine if the user conscisouly requests the JSON and is then in control of designing the page for herself. What were tweets but short strings of text. Hard to believe that now looking at a Twitter page. Thats because the user isnt in control of the design. Remember the "tech" company does not own the data. Its public information. User-generated content wrapped in user-hostile, developer-generated markup.

paulgb 5y ago

Cool, looks like the visualization from Treeverse.app but attached to the Twitter API instead of as a browser extension? (Full disclosure, I wrote Treeverse, but I see you cited it in the readme in keeping with the license so I'm 100% on board with this)

graphviz 5y ago

It's not often that one can comment on "gratuitous use of 4D".

leppr 5y ago

It would be more useful if one could either follow a link to the replies, or read the full tweet text of the corresponding node by clicking on it. Also the node div should have a background color, for when an image doesn't load. As an aside, even though @paulgb says he's not bothered with the use of his library that way, it's so similar that I think common OSS etiquette would've been to acknowledge the original project more prominently.

edent 5y ago
Cheers. It is all open source on https://github.com/edent/TweeView https://github.com/edent/TweeView - where I also credit Paul. The main 2D view is based on his work - but the interactive view (and 3D views) are based on other projects.
- westurner 5y ago
  The 4D view looks a bit like Gource with the wawa aura and all. Is there anything that finds cycles in the tweet graph (quote tweet "edges")? And unshortened link frequencies, maybe

jimmySixDOF 5y ago

As an admirer of Paul Butler's TreeVerse.app (@paulgb), I have to say this is some amazing work done here and also what was done in the past by OP in this same direction. Working with mulidimentional Graph/Tree presentation is so possible now and just makes everything easier to approach as a user confronted with Too Much Information to process. I definitely think TreeView would benefit from some Three.js or Babylon.js WebXR visualization in VR/AR Headsets. There is a lot left "to-be-done" on the UI side to make that a proper useful experience, but it is a much better fit than trying to keyboard/video/mouse your way around a 4000 tweet force-balanced network graph node cluster in normal 2D pancake land mode. Anyway, Thank You So Much OP for making my new favorite opensource project ! Look forward to playing with this as it develops... PS- I'm basing this mostly on the blog posts/video links [1] as the site may be going through a HN_Hug-of-Death moment. Minor Aside: the link to Lucy Pepper on GitHub is broken the updated one is [2] [1] https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/09/visualising-twitter-conversations-in-3d-space/ https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/09/visualising-twitter-convers... [2] https://lucypepper.com/ptf/ https://lucypepper.com/ptf/ EDIT: There is some work already using A-Frame (Three.js frontend) only for AR but it's a start !! [3] [3] https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/09/augmented-reality-twitter-conversations/ https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/09/augmented-reality-twitter-c...