8 ms·
Ask HN: How do you use HN?
The HN audience is a technical one, and the HN site is a simple one. I'm interested to know how various people use and enhance HN.
Do you use browser plugins or user scripts? Do you use a bot or online service to monitor responses to your comments? What aggregators do you use, curated or not? Browser or app? Which app?
Also, what are your habits around HN? Do you check the front page multiple times a day? Review top stories every week? Comment only on fresh stories or weeks old threads?
There have been related threads recently and further in the past, so please feel free to link to them as well!
- mattl 5y agoI have a guy who looks for OPENSTEP references and sends me a link on WhatsApp to those. Then I swoop in and feast.
- Jugurtha 5y agoYou can add the following RSS feeds: - https://hnrss.org/newest?q=openstep https://hnrss.org/newest?q=openstep (gives you posts referencing openstep) [edit: @themodelplumber posted a comment about GNUStep, the URI can also be: https://hnrss.org/newest?q=openstep+OR+gnustep https://hnrss.org/newest?q=openstep+OR+gnustep] - https://hnrss.org/newcomments?q=openstep https://hnrss.org/newcomments?q=openstep (gives you comments referencing openstep, you can see that yours is in there) [edit: as per @themodelplumber's comment, the URI can be: https://hnrss.org/newcomments?q=openstep+OR+gnustep https://hnrss.org/newcomments?q=openstep+OR+gnustep] You can also keep separate feeds; it is up to you. You can have that in your email client. Say you use Mozilla Thunderbird for email: - Click on the menu - Click New - Click "Feed account" - Enter a name "HN OpenStep" - Click "Next" - Click "Finish" You will have one "HN OpenStep" element appear on the left sidebar in Thunderbird. Click on that, then: - Click "Manage feed subscriptions", from the right pane. - Enter: https://hnrss.org/newest?q=openstep https://hnrss.org/newest?q=openstep in the "Feed URL" field on the window that appears - Click "Add" - Click "Close". You will see "Hacker News - Newest openstep ([number])" appear on the left sidebar, as a child element of "HN OpenStep" 'feed account'. To add the feed for comments: - Click "Manage feed subscriptions", from the right pane. - Enter: https://hnrss.org/newcomments?q=openstep https://hnrss.org/newcomments?q=openstep in the "Feed URL" field on the window that appears - Click "Add" - Click "Close". You will see "Hacker News - New Comments openstep ([number])" appear on the left sidebar, as a child element of "HN OpenStep" 'feed account'. Now you can gormandize. Referencing my reply to someone asking about how to keep tabs on sofware releases here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29478396 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29478396
- mattl 5y agoI don’t have an RSS reader that I use regularly and my email is a mess.
- Jugurtha 5y agoAs I said, you don't have to have an "RSS reader", you can use your email client, such as Thunderbird. These feeds will not interfere with your emails, and they're displayed at the bottom of the sidebar. I'm unsure how this is handled with other email clients, but in case you don't use any, you can visit the URLs in my first reply whenever you want; that or use the site's search functionality at the bottom.
- mattl 5y agoMy email “client” is HEY.com After 30-ish years of email I finally found something good.
- Jugurtha 5y ago>After 30-ish years of email I finally found something good. What an endorsement! If I were them, I'd put this right on the landing page.
- mattl 5y agoVisiting any URLs you posted tell me I need an RSS client.
- themodelplumber 5y agoThat's interesting. I'm curious about OPENSTEP ever since using its relative GNUStep in Dyne:Bolic. But that was just some light desktop usage. Can you share any starting points for understanding this interest in today's context? TIA
- mattl 5y agoGNUStep is not related to OPENSTEP but to OpenStep. OpenStep is the framework, available in a few places but including Windows NT and Solaris plus… OPENSTEP is the desktop operating system based on Mach and BSD with the OpenStep framework.
- themodelplumber 5y agoHuh. So is this something more like a retro-OS interest, as opposed to an interest in the propagation of a specific framework into modern computing?
- mattl 5y agoFor me? Yeah. I’ve been using NeXT stuff forever and continue to do so. Even now with Apple branding. I’m also just aging out.
- pizza 5y agoobsessively, I just check it dozens of times a day probably edit: oh, and always always set the topcolor to the same as the background color :) #f6f6ef
- reayn 5y agolol same, i find myself mostly just lurking too. HN has filled that hole for me that reddit and 4chan left behind, I don't feel as bad for checking it so much every day though, the content here is a step up for sure.
- jacquesm 5y ago
- kamaal 5y agooh, how i hope we had means to tweak other colors too :)
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- themodelplumber 5y agoGood questions, I'd be interested to see how others answer. I've changed how I use HN use a lot from way back when. I really don't use the front page as much as I used to. Date search based on various keywords and New are more interesting to me. My perspective on HN changed as well. At first I was guilty about it. My use correlated with procrastination times :-). But I have come to see HN as a source/expression of a variety of psychological relief mechanisms. When I use the counterparts of those mechanisms too much in my daily grind (a set of subjective perceptions), HN is a good source of the opposite, e.g. others' objective judgments (not objective as in "reliable", but rather objective as in "not mine") and specific types of new-to-me perceptions. The general topic being so impersonal is also helpful and helps take the focus off of "my life stuff" which by itself can be draining. I'm looking at chaining the use of HN with other activities these days, taking advantage of the awareness of its pros for use as leverage. Can't share much ATM though except that it's based on similar effort/relief mechanisms lined up intentionally. As always thanks to everyone involved in participating and keeping the site running.
- sokoloff 5y agoI mostly use the default web interface and /news link. I’ll also check my threads link a few times a day when I’m actively in a thread. For researching a specific tech topic, I use algolia’s HN interface.
- smoldesu 5y agoI'm a very heavy believer in multiple desktops, so I incorporate HN into it quite heavily. My first desktop is always a dashboard, and typically contains my email client and the HN frontpage, alongside any monitoring tools I need for work. HN is a nice aggregation of all the news in my periphery without being overwhelming. The only script I use is one to modify the CSS such that it has the Nord theme[0] instead of the eye-searing default. I normally refresh the frontpage a few times a day, and if I'm particularly bored I'll sometimes venture into the /new posts. [0] https://www.nordtheme.com/ https://www.nordtheme.com/
- majso 5y agoI am using RSS feed (Innoreader). https://hnrss.org/frontpage https://hnrss.org/frontpage I am also using Refined Hacker News extension where I have custom Dark Mode css.
- jcun4128 5y agoPrimarily read front page on desktop but I also have a TTS thing [0] that runs in the morning made it a while ago. I have it running on a Pi Zero non-wireless with GPIO audio pin mod. Eventually I will parse the popular threads to gain insight, I upvote the ones I want to look into later. Word freq counter and intent [0] https://github.com/jdc-cunningham/python_aws_polly_hacker_news_article_reader https://github.com/jdc-cunningham/python_aws_polly_hacker_ne...
- notatoad 5y ago200% browser zoom. otherwise i just use the site as normal. It sits in the bookmarks bar on my "play" chrome profile, not my "work" profile, so i visit when i'm switched away from my work browser for a bit of downtime.
- notacoward 5y ago[flagged]
- dang 5y ago> that moderation focuses on legalism instead of actual damage to productive discourse It's pretty bizarre to run into such a completely opposite description of everything one is trying to do. The only thing we care about is the intended spirit of the site. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20spirit%20letter%20law&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
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- qocococo 5y agoI use a custom CSS skin to make the text legible and accessible I typically create new accounts for comments because there are no privacy controls (edit/delete) after a comment is old enough
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- kamaal 5y ago>>I use a custom CSS skin to make the text legible and accessible How do you do this?
- krapp 5y ago>Do you use browser plugins or user scripts? https://github.com/insin/hn-comments-owl https://github.com/insin/hn-comments-owl I've also been writing a Godot app for HN off an on for a while now. It isn't ready for prime time but here's what it looks like[0]. >Also, what are your habits around HN? I tend to lurk the new comments page. I check this site constantly, and use it as a distraction from more worthwhile projects. It's pathetic, this place is basically intellectual junk food. [0]https://imgur.com/a/ciLRZO1 https://imgur.com/a/ciLRZO1
- creakingstairs 5y ago> I've also been writing a Godot app Cool! I've heard that Tesla has been using Godot for some of their UI. How has your experience been with Godot as a way to build apps so far? Are there any declarative frameworks like React?
- krapp 5y ago>How has your experience been with Godot as a way to build apps so far? Building the actual GUI is a pain. Godot isn't really optimized for that, so complex grid-based layouts and text flow don't work the way you would expect. Themes and styling, and loading fonts especially, is kind of awful. I wound up writing my own ad-hoc text based data format rather than using Godot's own system. The most frustrating thing beyond that was dealing with HN's API, though. Godot doesn't support Markdown or HTML, though, it supports BBCode of all things, and HN's API emits raw HTML, so I had to write a messy BBCode to HTML converter. Upside is links work. I started using C# but abandoned it for GDScript because I found myself working against the engine by importing things through NuGet like the HTTP libraries, and the end result was just too much unnecessary complexity and size. A current release build is about 39Mb with GDScript, but IIRC about twice that with C#. If I were working on a serious app, though, I might consider using C# anyway, just using Godot as a thin presentation layer. But GDScript works fine for an app that mostly just pulls JSON from an API and writes it into textboxes. It took me a bit to really learn how the expected signals-based architecture was supposed to work, and then realize that what I really wanted to use was callbacks, because the relationship between API and elements was 1:1 rather than 1:many. So anyone building apps is going to need to know when the typical game architecture advice works against them. Other than that, it's a blast. I've seen a few applications show up on /r/Godot so people are using it that way. >Are there any declarative frameworks like React? .....not really. It's still a game engine that just a few people are hacking apps on, but I don't doubt someone is going to write some plugins along that line in the future, if it becomes more popular as an application framework.
- sam0x17 5y agoI do use Dark Reader so I get an interesting dark mode for HN
- Overtonwindow 5y agoI use it for my news. Over the past couple years I’ve become so fed up with main stream media, but I find I can keep abreast of most issues by following HN, and the comments. The population is diverse enough that I get lots of different views.
- didip 5y agoJust the website. Using it like an RSS reader. Unfortunately the search bar is not as usable, but I can search using Google by prefixing with "hacker news".
- cobertos 5y agoI use the prefix site:news.ycombinator.com a lot
- jallen_dot_dev 5y agoI scan the first 2 pages for any topics I think are interesting, and open them in new tabs. Then I come back to them at least a couple days later (after most people have commented) to read through the comments. This means I usually don't comment myself because it would be days late. I pretty much only comment if I think I have something clever or insightful to say on the topic. I'll usually go through my HN tabs once they start to hit a critical mass and I have some time to kill, beginning with the oldest tab.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- alexmingoia 5y agoI read only the top threads from yesterday in my morning email digest from Mailbrew.
- tjbiddle 5y agoOpen the first page, scroll down and open all interesting articles in a new tab. Work my way through them. Exit. Sometimes I'll scan the second page if I didn't find enough on the 1st.
- emerged 5y agoI do the same except via hckrnews.com which displays which post is the most recent you’ve already seen from a prior visit.
- dbattaglia 5y agoJust the vanilla web UI, mostly on mobile Safari. I pin it to my desktop and check it a few times a day when I’m bored. Every once in a while I remember the “new” section is a thing.
- gricardo99 5y agoSame. There’s also “best”[1], which I also remember now and then. 1 - https://news.ycombinator.com/best https://news.ycombinator.com/best
- switz 5y agoIf I see an interesting article, I'll generally open the comments in a new tab and then immediately open the article, so when I'm done with the article I can hit back and go directly to the comments.
- tomcam 5y agoThe way my dad used to drink when he was alive. Straight up, no chasers, dozens of times a day.
- mikewarot 5y agoCheck the Threads I've commented on, then go through the first page of Ask, then start at the front, and read through 10 pages deep (to #300) All via the web interface in Chrome on Windows. Then off to Facebook, Reddit, YouTube, NetFlix, Prime Video, Gmail, repeat... long Covid, nothing but time and worry on my hands.
- furgooswft13 5y agoI just refresh /newcomments
- synergy20 5y agoJust use the browser, first page only most of the time, if I feel bored then second page, very few times third page. More than 3/4 of the time I just read the first comment directly. I rarely read the original source unless it's really interesting or relevant. I always wonder how the new submissions got promoted to the home page, as I seldom read the "News" category myself.
- jjj123 5y agoI use an RSS feed. No idea how posts are filtered or sorted because sometimes I see flagged posts (which I like to see). I have an account and usually only comment with replies, and rarely participate in conversations past a single reply (sorry) because I find otherwise I get too invested in them. I spend more time reading the comments than the articles, half because I can learn more from the comments and half because I have a morbid love/hate fascination with the typical “facts over feelings” HN poster.
- sys_64738 5y agoMe too. rss is the most important feature any website can offer. No rss means I don’t consume that webpage.
- hkchad 5y agoSame
- toastedwedge 5y agoI also "same" this.
- ShamelessC 5y ago> sometimes I see flagged posts I'm curious about this. I use an app called Feedly on android that pulls from HN's RSS feed and I am pretty sure I _only_ see flagged posts. Is it possible that Feedly has some sort of popularity ranking from another source?
- difosfor 5y agoI've been reading it using the Feedly RSS reader app since a long time. Works like a charm.
- senorsmile 5y agoSame.
- chenxiaolong 5y agoI use the RSS feed (with Miniflux as my RSS reader) and check for new entries at least daily.
- tjwds 5y agoSeconding this, but using Feedbin as my aggregator and Reeder on macOS and iOS.
- jimmyvalmer 5y agonnhackernews in emacs. I see a side of HN the typical front-pager doesn't see, and the RSSer wishes he could see more efficiently,
- Ancapistani 5y agoI just use Hckrnews.com as a front end.
- hellisothers 5y agohttps://hckrnews.com/ https://hckrnews.com/ It filters/shows the articles that are the most popular, occasionally I’ll go check the regular site but this works best to get good signal for me.
- cosentiyes 5y agoThis is the way. I don't use the regular site at all.
- amerine 5y agoI almost exclusively use RSS to stay up to date and only interact with the site when commenting like this ;-)
- jareklupinski 5y agoI use RSS (feedly), but I stopped clicking directly into links that interest me I now always open the comments section first and skim the first few messages for notes like (dupe) or "wow what scam / clickbait / trash"
- gits1225 5y agoI browse HN using my page: http://hn.abyjames.com/ http://hn.abyjames.com/ that keeps track of threads like this that appear on https://news.ycombinator.com/active https://news.ycombinator.com/active so that I don't have to frequently keep checking what's happening.
- ravish0007 5y ago3 times a day, morning+afternoon/evening+night, I'll catch up after scrolling to "last visit" on hckrnews.com.
- stephenitis 5y agoI browse hackernews through this tool. https://hckrnews.com/ https://hckrnews.com/
- andrewinardeer 5y agoRSS + Pushover for custom notifications
- redis_mlc 5y ago[dead]
- masteruvpuppetz 5y agoI use https://hckrnews.com/ https://hckrnews.com/ to see new stories and open them in a new tab. Once a month go to https://hnhiring.com/ https://hnhiring.com/ and see what's trending in jobs.
- rcarmo 5y agoI use RSS to read the headlines and click through to read the comments on my iPad. Biggest annoyances are the light theme and small type/long lines, which I really wish were changed sometime this century…
- drewcoo 5y agoIt's a link aggregator, to peruse when I take breaks. It's a bathroom wall that I skim to get the zeitgeist. Sometimes I scrawl something on it myself.