7 ms·

Show HN: Orange Juice – Small UX improvements that make HN easier to read

147 points by latchkey 6mo ago

Imustaskforhelp 6mo ago
I use refined Hacker news Extension. https://github.com/plibither8/refined-hacker-news#highlights https://github.com/plibither8/refined-hacker-news#highlights It might be beneficial to tell me what the difference between these two can be? A lot of the features from my first glance (I can be totally wrong though) are within HN refined. I would really appreciate a short summary of differences. Personally I am really happy by HN refined though so kudos to @plibither8
- latchkey 6mo ago
  Refined hasn't received an update in 4 years. https://github.com/plibither8/refined-hacker-news/issues/135#issuecomment-3795584312 https://github.com/plibither8/refined-hacker-news/issues/135... I used refined for years as well. Great product, but the underlying code was meh, and the author abandoned it. If you're using refined today, you're experiencing a lot of bugs as the HN DOM has changed over time. I maintained my own fork for a long time but finally motivated myself to try out AI assisted coding and this is what came out of it. It isn't a port, it is a clean rewrite from the ground up. I took every feature that I enjoyed from refined, re-implemented it from scratch, with a totally different architecture that allows much more control over the DOM and runs a whole lot faster. I had AI write hundreds of of unit tests, so that we can make sure that bugs don't appear in the future. I also fixed a whole ton of edge cases along the way. The entire deployment, all the way to the browser stores, is fully automated with CI/CD, so that we know that the supply chain is safe. In other words, you might as well migrate. If there is something missing that you enjoyed, file an issue, or even better... a PR.
  - smcleod 6mo ago
    I tried contacting the author to see if he would open source it but he's gone dark and doesn't seem to really exist on the Internet anymore. So I grabbed the source code and modernised it, added additional feature and it's what I've been using ever since. I haven't open sourced it out of respect for the original author however the software does not actually have any license that prevents it so I have been considering what the best approach might be (any ideas?). *Edit: Whoops! I was confusing refinedHN with modernHN (https://www.modernhn.com https://www.modernhn.com)
    - Leftium 6mo ago
      Are you referring to https://github.com/plibither8/refined-hacker-news https://github.com/plibither8/refined-hacker-news? It's MIT-licensed open source. I've been using a fork (also MIT): https://github.com/alexferrari88/refined-hacker-news https://github.com/alexferrari88/refined-hacker-news
      - smcleod 6mo ago
        Whoops! I was confusing refinedHN with modernHN (https://www.modernhn.com https://www.modernhn.com)
    - latchkey 6mo ago
      Just use my extension?
      - smcleod 6mo ago
        Whoops! I was confusing refinedHN with modernHN (https://www.modernhn.com https://www.modernhn.com)
  - Leftium 6mo ago
    I just tried switching from a slightly more updated fork of Refined Hacker News (2025)[1] One thing I miss is the orange mark identifying the OP of a post. [1]: https://github.com/alexferrari88/refined-hacker-news https://github.com/alexferrari88/refined-hacker-news
    - latchkey 6mo ago
      I have that in there. https://github.com/OrangeJuiceExtension/OrangeJuice/blob/b84366d8d31059b579a84389da53340205fb064c/src/components/comment/init-comment-ux.ts#L80 https://github.com/OrangeJuiceExtension/OrangeJuice/blob/b84...
      - Leftium 6mo ago
        Ah, I see it must be the bug mentioned in another thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47695328 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47695328 There was no [OP] label when I first reloaded this page, and now after replying, I am marked as the [OP]. edit: it seems the [OP] relies on a URL hash with the ID of the OP. However, this doesn't work for me because I don't navigate to HN posts from the HN site. I usually come from https://hn.leftium.com https://hn.leftium.com. (Or a page like https://hw.leftium.com/#/item/47694036 https://hw.leftium.com/#/item/47694036)
        latchkey 6mo ago
        I'm so confused. Can you explain it to me a bit more clearly what you'd like to see? I literally just took the code from refined. https://github.com/plibither8/refined-hacker-news/blob/ee7ef6d55ae15f26a5bf4123d738b249883f7798/src/features/comments-ui-tweaks.js#L29 https://github.com/plibither8/refined-hacker-news/blob/ee7ef...
        Leftium 6mo ago
        I opened an issue with screenshots: https://github.com/OrangeJuiceExtension/OrangeJuice/issues/16 https://github.com/OrangeJuiceExtension/OrangeJuice/issues/1...
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
Isolated_Routes 6mo ago
This is helpful! Thank you
- latchkey 6mo ago
  :heart:
cobbman 6mo ago
I want hacker news UX to stay as it is, mostly, but these are features I'd welcome.
- latchkey 6mo ago
  Thanks. My feeling as well.
- dang 6mo ago
  What features would you welcome?
  - latchkey 6mo ago
    All the features I've added to this extension. But if you want to pick one: Inline replies. Right now, I have to do a ton of magic to make that happen in order to work around your auth flow. Namely, pulling the auth token out of the other page and then having to keep track of it in session storage. I could delete a whole lot of code if that was just built in.
    - dang 6mo ago
      By inline replies do you mean you click 'reply' and then a textbox opens in place? The browser extension I wrote years ago, and which tomhow and I use for moderation, does this. I feel guilty about not having shared it a long time ago, but there just has never been time. Now that LLMs are starting to let me do things I've wanted to do for years, there's a chance I'll actually get to it before the sun dies.
      - latchkey 6mo ago
        Yes. Here is the implementation I've got... note that I also added links to the rules/guidelines in an attempt to help with that issue too, heh. And yes... AI enables so many things. https://oj-hn.com/assets/inline-reply-light.png https://oj-hn.com/assets/inline-reply-light.png
      - krapp 6mo ago
maxloh 6mo ago
I built a Stylus theme to make Hacker News' UI more modern. Some screenshots: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mon-jai/modern-hacker-news/refs/heads/main/docs/home-page.png https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mon-jai/modern-hacker-news... https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mon-jai/modern-hacker-news/refs/heads/main/docs/post-page.png https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mon-jai/modern-hacker-news... https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mon-jai/modern-hacker-news/refs/heads/main/docs/user-page.png https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mon-jai/modern-hacker-news... Repo: https://github.com/mon-jai/modern-hacker-news https://github.com/mon-jai/modern-hacker-news
- latchkey 6mo ago
  This is exactly what I don't want my extension to become. I don't want a new UX, I want the existing UX to be enhanced.
altairprime 6mo ago
Latchkey, would you be comfortable with HN adopting your dark mode styling as a user choice someday, if they came around to liking it? I really like it and I think it’s in the spirit of the site.
- tomComb 6mo ago
  That would be great! Please do.
- latchkey 6mo ago
  Thanks! A lot of it is AI with my own input, but I think it did a great job. The code is all open source and people can do with it what they want. It is GPLv3, but I'd special license it to them as MIT without question.
  - altairprime 6mo ago
    Ah, oh well. Thanks!
  - zvr 6mo ago
    Well, if it's AI-generated, it's not really copyrighted by you and you cannot license it under GPL, since you did not write it. Nice work, nevertheless, and useful!
    - latchkey 6mo ago
      It is AI assisted. I still wrote code and designed the core architecture of how it works.
    - spiderice 6mo ago
      I mean, it's a color scheme. With like 5 colors. So good luck getting it copyrighted anyway.
- satvikpendem 6mo ago
  I'm pretty sure that will never happen, as it would've happened already by now. People can and do already use custom CSS or Dark Reader for dark mode.
Novosell 6mo ago
Did you ai generate the Chrome and Firefox logo? That isn't what they look like, or have ever looked like, from what I know.
- latchkey 6mo ago
  Yes. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  - DrBenCarson 6mo ago
    …why?
    - latchkey 6mo ago
      [flagged]
      - 59nadir 6mo ago
        Why not just use the actual logos? It's not as if you *have* to generate them.
      - semolino 6mo ago
        Taking shortcuts with design tends to result in users trusting your project less.
      - dartharva 6mo ago
        You need AI to just replace the svg?
        satvikpendem 6mo ago
        These days, everyone is using AI for even small things, because honestly it's easier to say to an AI to use original SVGs and have it go out and find the correct ones with a web search tool call than to do it myself, it's simply a waste of my time for small tasks like that.
        6mo ago
ipsum2 6mo ago
It looks pretty good! I'm using it now and its a meaningful improvement to the existing site. Out of curiosity, why did you make a new Github account for the extension instead of developing it on your own account?
- latchkey 6mo ago
  Thanks! Because I see this becoming bigger than me and a separate organization made sense. There is a super thin backend component right now too. There is the potential to also add in some extra features that require a server/db. I'm kind of inspired by the atuin model of things. I've got a LONG list of features I'd like to implement over time.
xydac 6mo ago
its funny how us developers build varied UX, but nothing beats the simplicity of HN's default experience. quick and bloat free.
- latchkey 6mo ago
  That's the beauty of this extension, it keeps things simple.
- hyperhello 6mo ago
  I would actually like a setting for less. I don’t like upvote downvote social dynamics. How about giving me a mode for a simple conversation by time, without the hierarchy.
greenpizza13 6mo ago
I can't figure out how to toggle to Light Mode (maybe it uses the system setting?). HN is something I prefer to be in Light Mode but everything else in dark. Gonna remove until this is configurable.
- latchkey 6mo ago
  Defaults to system. The toggle is in the top right corner of the navbar next to your karma.
Klonoar 6mo ago
What on earth is that Firefox logo...?
- latchkey 6mo ago
  FIXED
ramon156 6mo ago
> Why Install Orange Juice? > Because Hacker News is great, but repetitive UI friction adds up. Orange Juice keeps the original feel while removing the things that cost you time every day. That does not convince me to use your app? This is like calling someone's Kia shit and instead telling them to buy a Tesla, but just stating that it's better. I'll stick to HN, thanks.
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- latchkey 6mo ago
  Sure. What language would convince you? UPDATE: I've changed the copy, it is pushing right now.
- satvikpendem 6mo ago
  To me, that doesn't sound like your analogy at all. It'd be true if the extension for example redirected an HN thread to a reddit thread of the same posted URL, ie a replacement of the original, but the extension simply adds features to the existing site. There have been extensions like this available for years, like Refined HN which this is based off, as well as many third party HN clients. Therefore I think you should try it before judging so harshly.
wesz 6mo ago
The improvements are nice, that's for sure. But i checked out github and it looks like overengineered ai slop, you could implement all the features with 1/10 of the code. But again, nobody cares nowadays which makes me sad. You even generated chrome/firefox logos using ai...
- latchkey 6mo ago
  How is it over-engineered slop? Happy to improve things, but I thought it was pretty clean.
  - wesz 6mo ago
    You claim to have 30+ years of webdev experience and yet 2 MEGABYTES of javascript only for those features doesn't feel/look wrong to you?
    - latchkey 6mo ago
      You're not really answering the question. That's the bundle size, not the amount of code in the project. I've done nothing to try to optimize the bundle size, but I suspect that a lot of it has to do with some of the third party dependencies like mermaid.
      - wesz 6mo ago
        Well, i downloaded firefox extension and checked the size of only *.js files without any additional assests - and it's 2 megabytes. Mermaid is around 800kb, so it still leaves over 1 megabyte of javascript. The amount of abstraction alone for the project of this scope makes me cringe. You introduce unnecessary complexity.
        latchkey 6mo ago
        Thanks for the feedback!
        59nadir 6mo ago
satvikpendem 6mo ago
"Tested, not vibe coded" yet you mention the AI has written all the tests. This extension may not be vibe coded but it's close to that, it seems. Regardless it seems to work well, I replaced the older Refined Hacker News extension with this, which seems like where you initially sourced the code from as the features are very similar, 1:1 even for some. I also use this extension HNRelevant (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/hnrelevant https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/hnrelevant) which shows a list of similar posts, you might want to add that as an optional feature as well. What's the tech stack, pure TS? You also might want to migrate from Biome to oxc, I did recently and it plays well with Vite+ (or just move to Vite+) directly. Noticed a bug, once I edit my own comment and go back to the main post, I show up as [op] not you. Also I should be able to edit my post inline not be moved to a separate page.
- etothet 6mo ago
  I noticed this as well and came here to comment about it. The term "vibe coding" is becoming quite overloaded.
- latchkey 6mo ago
  It is heavily coded with AI, but I'm also a 30+ year web developer. I'm not just one shotting all of the code, I'm reading it too. I'm feeling like it is giving me super powers. See the thread below about refined, which hasn't received an update in 4 years. I have HNRelevant on my list of features that I've been collecting. I tried oxc and didn't like it as much as biome. They admittedly aren't as good at formatting yet. The real winner here is ultracite.
  - satvikpendem 6mo ago
    Sounds good. Another bug or quirk, with Refined, I was able to reply and then tab once to the reply button and hit enter. Now with the "HN's approach to comments and site guidelines." text I can't do that, "comments" and "guidelines" are links so I have to tab three times to get to the reply button which is annoying. Omit that text or change the tab order (this is possible in HTML with the tabindex attribute, just make the reply button higher priority). Also add ctrl/cmd-enter support to submit the reply. Also this orange border when clicking a comment or link on the front page is a bit annoying, especially when it doesn't seem to actually do anything (it's not a tab select style, that shows up as the browser's normal style), and it seems to persist.
odysseus 6mo ago
How about a Safari/Mobile Safari extension so iPhone users can use it?
- latchkey 6mo ago
  Agreed. Unfortunately, the browser extension tool that I use, wxt [0], doesn't support Safari yet. It seems there are some work arounds, but I haven't gotten to it yet. PR's welcome, of course. =) [0] https://wxt.dev/guide/essentials/publishing.html#safari https://wxt.dev/guide/essentials/publishing.html#safari
  - odysseus 6mo ago
    Is it just: pnpm wxt build -b safari xcrun safari-web-extension-converter .output/safari-mv2 And that’s it? Or is there some hidden extra work involved.
    - latchkey 6mo ago
      I don't know. If it is that simple, that would be great. I'll have to dive into it. Part of it is also to ensure that it gets added into the CI/CD workflow and fully automated. Just doing that for Chrome and Firefox took a huge amount of effort to get fully set up and approved. Thankfully, it is now at the point where every PR goes live automatically.
librasteve 6mo ago
dang. just shedding feedbin & reeder (paid) it's 'hide read stories' for me & darkmode
- latchkey 6mo ago
  Thanks! How about inline replies? That's my favorite.
gitgud 6mo ago
Another feature idea for you: There’s an extension that I loved called “Proven” (now archived) which uses keybase.io proofs to show other proven accounts next to hn users https://github.com/dschep/proven https://github.com/dschep/proven Also about this: > Mermaid Diagram Rendering Honest question, how often are people posting raw mermaid diagrams in comments here?… I’ve never seen one
- latchkey 6mo ago
  Is there something else that replaces keybase proofs? I still see a ton of people, including yourself with keybase in their profile, but is anyone still seeing that used? Nobody uses it because it wasn't supported. I had started off doing images, but their CSP policies prevent an extension from embedding images into the dom. SVG is still game on though. That said, I've seen a bunch of people try to create their own ascii art diagrams and wouldn't it be nice to have them just rendered as svg?
darepublic 6mo ago
I would like to see users clustered by their political and programming axes of belief
- ggm 6mo ago
  I would like to see this projected into a "lawful-neutral" meme template
- tptacek 6mo ago
  When someone who programs mostly in Rust responds to someone who programs mostly in Go I would like an animated bouncing icon that says "fight! fight! fight!" and when I press it it should leave a comment that instigates a fight, like "Serde is not really all that good".
  - xpe 6mo ago
    What is the correct pronunciation of serde? Fight amongst yourselves. /s
redlewel 6mo ago
Not bad I do like the transparency on AI usage. So many projects omit this completely and its difficult not to assume someone just claude coded it in an evening to farm clicks. But this looks nice I'll probably check it out
- latchkey 6mo ago
  All day long, I read about people vibe coding, so I decided to open my mind and try it out myself and see if I could do some sort of mix between my own skills as a life long web developer and whatever the kids are doing these days. Mostly because I have a strong belief that AI itself won't take our jobs away, but people who know AI will. What I found out is that I'm never going back to a world where I don't integrate AI into my entire coding workflow. All the way from writing documentation to committing code. It makes things way more enjoyable. I truly enjoyed creating this whole project, it scratches my itch, and I hope that it continues to grow and be maintained over many years. I have another web project that's going on 7 years now and gets 88k downloads a month [0]. This is my passion, I'm here until I die, and even that project is now benefitting from AI. [0] https://github.com/lookfirst/mui-rff https://github.com/lookfirst/mui-rff
  - scratchyone 6mo ago
    This is super nice, thank you for including an AI disclosure. I would probably normally avoid something like this bc I would be considered by how much code oversight there is. Very nice to know that it's overseen properly by a human. Installed it and it's quite nice!!! great work :) It would also be nice to be able to hide the checkbox it adds to the homepage. also disabling show focus box doesnt actually seem to work?
    - latchkey 6mo ago
      > It would also be nice to be able to hide the checkbox it adds to the homepage. also disabling show focus box doesnt actually seem to work? This is fixed and being pushed now. Thanks!
mhitza 6mo ago
Pretty cool. This is the glitchy userscript I use on Firefox mobile[1] (with screenshot) to make tap targets bigger and move navigation at the bottom of the page + collapsed. [1] https://gist.github.com/mhitza/0956d7e2c11d3102cbd4cba7f6d067bf https://gist.github.com/mhitza/0956d7e2c11d3102cbd4cba7f6d06...
notatoad 6mo ago
i like some of the things this does, but pretty much all of this is not UX improvements, it's UX opinions. as a personal project to make HN better for you, i guess it's cool. but making every link open in a new tab so my back button never works is definitely not for me.
- latchkey 6mo ago
  That's good feedback, I can change that to a preference. UPDATE: implemented as a preference that you can turn off. just click the app icon in the extensions list. https://github.com/OrangeJuiceExtension/OrangeJuice/releases/tag/v0.22.73 https://github.com/OrangeJuiceExtension/OrangeJuice/releases...
nikolay 6mo ago
So many extensions and services, because YCombinator cannot have a part-time employee working on such an important community: * https://hncompanion.com/ https://hncompanion.com/ * http://oj-hn.com/ http://oj-hn.com/ * https://hnrelevant.imadij.com/ https://hnrelevant.imadij.com/ * https://hnreplies.com/ https://hnreplies.com/
- tomhow 6mo ago
  Dan and I are full time YC employees and other engineers at YC do plenty to keep HN running. HN’s software is continually developed to handle growth in traffic, along with abuse, spam, and (particularly recently) bots and generated content. The lack of new UI features is not due to lack of resources/investment but because it’s always been the HN way to maintain a minimalist design and for the content and discussions to be the primary feature.
  - nikolay 6mo ago
    "Minimalist" in 2026 is different than what it used to be in the '90s.
    - tomhow 6mo ago
      Of course, and part of my reason for being brought onto the team full time is to explore ways we can develop HN for the future. That doesn't mean that every 3rd-party HN project represents a feature that should be added to the core HN UI.
      - nikolay 6mo ago
        I didn't know, and I thought only @dang was working on HN. You must agree that at least some basic features, like a dark theme and indicators for new comments, could be easily handcrafted or implemented with coding agents!
      - krapp 6mo ago
        Just do what Myspace did back in the day and turn an XSS bug into a "feature:" user themes!
mailcraftai 6mo ago
[dead]
wackget 6mo ago
Lots of nice tweaks, but the most important is missing: the ability to move the collapse comment buttons (`[-]`) to the left of commenters' usernames. Doing this makes the collapse buttons all aligned with each other, making them far easier to click in succession. "Comments Owl for Hacker News" extension does this I believe.
- oersted 6mo ago
  The grey bar on the left that the extension adds also collapses the comments. They are aligned vertically and they have a bigger clickable area than [-].
- conorcleary 6mo ago
  but then the upvote button is too close to the collapse thread, plus, why make it easier to hide discussion? => makes it easier for scripts to automate by visual/x,y placement
- latchkey 6mo ago
  Thanks for this suggestion, but I agree with the other commenters.
beatrice111 6mo ago
omg this is amazing, finally there is someone noticing that the ux of hn needs to be improved...
rcarmo 6mo ago
Dark mode!
- latchkey 6mo ago
  Yes!
sgbeal 6mo ago
This is pretty darn cool. i've not yet seen any mention of one particular quirk so will point it out: on Firefox it flashes between "normal" and "upgraded" mode pretty starkly (A) when switching pages and (B) when tapping "add comment" (which is apparently done via page reload rather than the HN API). i've no clue whether an extension/app has any influence over the timing of that so cannot suggest how it might be resolved, but will say that it's particularly jarring.
- latchkey 6mo ago
  Honestly, FF has become a total shit show. Debugging something like that is a real PITA.
fdekerm 6mo ago
[dead]
syngrog66 6mo ago
my top wishlist of HN features: * personal ability to mute/block any account * BONUS: and/or delegate above decision to list-providing service at given externally-hosted URL * intelligently autowrap text of long lines, like its 2026 (heck like 1997)
- krapp 6mo ago
  >personal ability to mute/block any account Plenty of browser plugins that do this. I like HN Comments Owl.
  - syngrog66 6mo ago
    browser plugins are an anti-pattern. and security risk. less depedencies are better. all modern social media platforms, including HN, should have out-of-box way to mute/block and delegate to service as well. There are often categories of folks/accounts I likely dont want to see/hear from or have my content exposed to them where I can help it. HN has demonstrated itself to have a toxic subset in their community, as elsewhere.
e40 6mo ago
Octal on iOS is the best. Been using it for years and I have never found a better reader for hn.

147 points by latchkey 6mo ago

I use refined Hacker news Extension. https://github.com/plibither8/refined-hacker-news#highlights https://github.com/plibither8/refined-hacker-news#highlights It might be beneficial to tell me what the difference between these two can be? A lot of the features from my first glance (I can be totally wrong though) are within HN refined. I would really appreciate a short summary of differences. Personally I am really happy by HN refined though so kudos to @plibither8

latchkey 6mo ago
Refined hasn't received an update in 4 years. https://github.com/plibither8/refined-hacker-news/issues/135#issuecomment-3795584312 https://github.com/plibither8/refined-hacker-news/issues/135... I used refined for years as well. Great product, but the underlying code was meh, and the author abandoned it. If you're using refined today, you're experiencing a lot of bugs as the HN DOM has changed over time. I maintained my own fork for a long time but finally motivated myself to try out AI assisted coding and this is what came out of it. It isn't a port, it is a clean rewrite from the ground up. I took every feature that I enjoyed from refined, re-implemented it from scratch, with a totally different architecture that allows much more control over the DOM and runs a whole lot faster. I had AI write hundreds of of unit tests, so that we can make sure that bugs don't appear in the future. I also fixed a whole ton of edge cases along the way. The entire deployment, all the way to the browser stores, is fully automated with CI/CD, so that we know that the supply chain is safe. In other words, you might as well migrate. If there is something missing that you enjoyed, file an issue, or even better... a PR.
- smcleod 6mo ago
  I tried contacting the author to see if he would open source it but he's gone dark and doesn't seem to really exist on the Internet anymore. So I grabbed the source code and modernised it, added additional feature and it's what I've been using ever since. I haven't open sourced it out of respect for the original author however the software does not actually have any license that prevents it so I have been considering what the best approach might be (any ideas?). *Edit: Whoops! I was confusing refinedHN with modernHN (https://www.modernhn.com https://www.modernhn.com)
  - Leftium 6mo ago
    Are you referring to https://github.com/plibither8/refined-hacker-news https://github.com/plibither8/refined-hacker-news? It's MIT-licensed open source. I've been using a fork (also MIT): https://github.com/alexferrari88/refined-hacker-news https://github.com/alexferrari88/refined-hacker-news
    - smcleod 6mo ago
      Whoops! I was confusing refinedHN with modernHN (https://www.modernhn.com https://www.modernhn.com)
  - latchkey 6mo ago
    Just use my extension?
    - smcleod 6mo ago
      Whoops! I was confusing refinedHN with modernHN (https://www.modernhn.com https://www.modernhn.com)
- Leftium 6mo ago
  I just tried switching from a slightly more updated fork of Refined Hacker News (2025)[1] One thing I miss is the orange mark identifying the OP of a post. [1]: https://github.com/alexferrari88/refined-hacker-news https://github.com/alexferrari88/refined-hacker-news
  - latchkey 6mo ago
    I have that in there. https://github.com/OrangeJuiceExtension/OrangeJuice/blob/b84366d8d31059b579a84389da53340205fb064c/src/components/comment/init-comment-ux.ts#L80 https://github.com/OrangeJuiceExtension/OrangeJuice/blob/b84...
    - Leftium 6mo ago
      Ah, I see it must be the bug mentioned in another thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47695328 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47695328 There was no [OP] label when I first reloaded this page, and now after replying, I am marked as the [OP]. edit: it seems the [OP] relies on a URL hash with the ID of the OP. However, this doesn't work for me because I don't navigate to HN posts from the HN site. I usually come from https://hn.leftium.com https://hn.leftium.com. (Or a page like https://hw.leftium.com/#/item/47694036 https://hw.leftium.com/#/item/47694036)
      - latchkey 6mo ago
        I'm so confused. Can you explain it to me a bit more clearly what you'd like to see? I literally just took the code from refined. https://github.com/plibither8/refined-hacker-news/blob/ee7ef6d55ae15f26a5bf4123d738b249883f7798/src/features/comments-ui-tweaks.js#L29 https://github.com/plibither8/refined-hacker-news/blob/ee7ef...
        Leftium 6mo ago
        I opened an issue with screenshots: https://github.com/OrangeJuiceExtension/OrangeJuice/issues/16 https://github.com/OrangeJuiceExtension/OrangeJuice/issues/1...

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Isolated_Routes 6mo ago

This is helpful! Thank you

latchkey 6mo ago
:heart:

cobbman 6mo ago

I want hacker news UX to stay as it is, mostly, but these are features I'd welcome.

latchkey 6mo ago
Thanks. My feeling as well.
dang 6mo ago
What features would you welcome?
- latchkey 6mo ago
  All the features I've added to this extension. But if you want to pick one: Inline replies. Right now, I have to do a ton of magic to make that happen in order to work around your auth flow. Namely, pulling the auth token out of the other page and then having to keep track of it in session storage. I could delete a whole lot of code if that was just built in.
  - dang 6mo ago
    By inline replies do you mean you click 'reply' and then a textbox opens in place? The browser extension I wrote years ago, and which tomhow and I use for moderation, does this. I feel guilty about not having shared it a long time ago, but there just has never been time. Now that LLMs are starting to let me do things I've wanted to do for years, there's a chance I'll actually get to it before the sun dies.
    - latchkey 6mo ago
      Yes. Here is the implementation I've got... note that I also added links to the rules/guidelines in an attempt to help with that issue too, heh. And yes... AI enables so many things. https://oj-hn.com/assets/inline-reply-light.png https://oj-hn.com/assets/inline-reply-light.png
    - krapp 6mo ago

maxloh 6mo ago

I built a Stylus theme to make Hacker News' UI more modern. Some screenshots: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mon-jai/modern-hacker-news/refs/heads/main/docs/home-page.png https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mon-jai/modern-hacker-news... https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mon-jai/modern-hacker-news/refs/heads/main/docs/post-page.png https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mon-jai/modern-hacker-news... https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mon-jai/modern-hacker-news/refs/heads/main/docs/user-page.png https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mon-jai/modern-hacker-news... Repo: https://github.com/mon-jai/modern-hacker-news https://github.com/mon-jai/modern-hacker-news

latchkey 6mo ago
This is exactly what I don't want my extension to become. I don't want a new UX, I want the existing UX to be enhanced.

altairprime 6mo ago

Latchkey, would you be comfortable with HN adopting your dark mode styling as a user choice someday, if they came around to liking it? I really like it and I think it’s in the spirit of the site.

tomComb 6mo ago
That would be great! Please do.
latchkey 6mo ago
Thanks! A lot of it is AI with my own input, but I think it did a great job. The code is all open source and people can do with it what they want. It is GPLv3, but I'd special license it to them as MIT without question.
- altairprime 6mo ago
  Ah, oh well. Thanks!
- zvr 6mo ago
  Well, if it's AI-generated, it's not really copyrighted by you and you cannot license it under GPL, since you did not write it. Nice work, nevertheless, and useful!
  - latchkey 6mo ago
    It is AI assisted. I still wrote code and designed the core architecture of how it works.
  - spiderice 6mo ago
    I mean, it's a color scheme. With like 5 colors. So good luck getting it copyrighted anyway.
satvikpendem 6mo ago
I'm pretty sure that will never happen, as it would've happened already by now. People can and do already use custom CSS or Dark Reader for dark mode.

Novosell 6mo ago

Did you ai generate the Chrome and Firefox logo? That isn't what they look like, or have ever looked like, from what I know.

latchkey 6mo ago
Yes. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- DrBenCarson 6mo ago
  …why?
  - latchkey 6mo ago
    [flagged]
    - 59nadir 6mo ago
      Why not just use the actual logos? It's not as if you *have* to generate them.
    - semolino 6mo ago
      Taking shortcuts with design tends to result in users trusting your project less.
    - dartharva 6mo ago
      You need AI to just replace the svg?
      - satvikpendem 6mo ago
        These days, everyone is using AI for even small things, because honestly it's easier to say to an AI to use original SVGs and have it go out and find the correct ones with a web search tool call than to do it myself, it's simply a waste of my time for small tasks like that.
      - 6mo ago

ipsum2 6mo ago

It looks pretty good! I'm using it now and its a meaningful improvement to the existing site. Out of curiosity, why did you make a new Github account for the extension instead of developing it on your own account?

latchkey 6mo ago
Thanks! Because I see this becoming bigger than me and a separate organization made sense. There is a super thin backend component right now too. There is the potential to also add in some extra features that require a server/db. I'm kind of inspired by the atuin model of things. I've got a LONG list of features I'd like to implement over time.

xydac 6mo ago

its funny how us developers build varied UX, but nothing beats the simplicity of HN's default experience. quick and bloat free.

latchkey 6mo ago
That's the beauty of this extension, it keeps things simple.
hyperhello 6mo ago
I would actually like a setting for less. I don’t like upvote downvote social dynamics. How about giving me a mode for a simple conversation by time, without the hierarchy.

greenpizza13 6mo ago

I can't figure out how to toggle to Light Mode (maybe it uses the system setting?). HN is something I prefer to be in Light Mode but everything else in dark. Gonna remove until this is configurable.

latchkey 6mo ago
Defaults to system. The toggle is in the top right corner of the navbar next to your karma.

Klonoar 6mo ago

What on earth is that Firefox logo...?

latchkey 6mo ago
FIXED

ramon156 6mo ago

> Why Install Orange Juice? > Because Hacker News is great, but repetitive UI friction adds up. Orange Juice keeps the original feel while removing the things that cost you time every day. That does not convince me to use your app? This is like calling someone's Kia shit and instead telling them to buy a Tesla, but just stating that it's better. I'll stick to HN, thanks.

deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
latchkey 6mo ago
Sure. What language would convince you? UPDATE: I've changed the copy, it is pushing right now.
satvikpendem 6mo ago
To me, that doesn't sound like your analogy at all. It'd be true if the extension for example redirected an HN thread to a reddit thread of the same posted URL, ie a replacement of the original, but the extension simply adds features to the existing site. There have been extensions like this available for years, like Refined HN which this is based off, as well as many third party HN clients. Therefore I think you should try it before judging so harshly.

wesz 6mo ago

The improvements are nice, that's for sure. But i checked out github and it looks like overengineered ai slop, you could implement all the features with 1/10 of the code. But again, nobody cares nowadays which makes me sad. You even generated chrome/firefox logos using ai...

latchkey 6mo ago
How is it over-engineered slop? Happy to improve things, but I thought it was pretty clean.
- wesz 6mo ago
  You claim to have 30+ years of webdev experience and yet 2 MEGABYTES of javascript only for those features doesn't feel/look wrong to you?
  - latchkey 6mo ago
    You're not really answering the question. That's the bundle size, not the amount of code in the project. I've done nothing to try to optimize the bundle size, but I suspect that a lot of it has to do with some of the third party dependencies like mermaid.
    - wesz 6mo ago
      Well, i downloaded firefox extension and checked the size of only *.js files without any additional assests - and it's 2 megabytes. Mermaid is around 800kb, so it still leaves over 1 megabyte of javascript. The amount of abstraction alone for the project of this scope makes me cringe. You introduce unnecessary complexity.
      - latchkey 6mo ago
        Thanks for the feedback!
      - 59nadir 6mo ago

satvikpendem 6mo ago

"Tested, not vibe coded" yet you mention the AI has written all the tests. This extension may not be vibe coded but it's close to that, it seems. Regardless it seems to work well, I replaced the older Refined Hacker News extension with this, which seems like where you initially sourced the code from as the features are very similar, 1:1 even for some. I also use this extension HNRelevant (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/hnrelevant https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/hnrelevant) which shows a list of similar posts, you might want to add that as an optional feature as well. What's the tech stack, pure TS? You also might want to migrate from Biome to oxc, I did recently and it plays well with Vite+ (or just move to Vite+) directly. Noticed a bug, once I edit my own comment and go back to the main post, I show up as [op] not you. Also I should be able to edit my post inline not be moved to a separate page.

etothet 6mo ago
I noticed this as well and came here to comment about it. The term "vibe coding" is becoming quite overloaded.
latchkey 6mo ago
It is heavily coded with AI, but I'm also a 30+ year web developer. I'm not just one shotting all of the code, I'm reading it too. I'm feeling like it is giving me super powers. See the thread below about refined, which hasn't received an update in 4 years. I have HNRelevant on my list of features that I've been collecting. I tried oxc and didn't like it as much as biome. They admittedly aren't as good at formatting yet. The real winner here is ultracite.
- satvikpendem 6mo ago
  Sounds good. Another bug or quirk, with Refined, I was able to reply and then tab once to the reply button and hit enter. Now with the "HN's approach to comments and site guidelines." text I can't do that, "comments" and "guidelines" are links so I have to tab three times to get to the reply button which is annoying. Omit that text or change the tab order (this is possible in HTML with the tabindex attribute, just make the reply button higher priority). Also add ctrl/cmd-enter support to submit the reply. Also this orange border when clicking a comment or link on the front page is a bit annoying, especially when it doesn't seem to actually do anything (it's not a tab select style, that shows up as the browser's normal style), and it seems to persist.

odysseus 6mo ago

How about a Safari/Mobile Safari extension so iPhone users can use it?

latchkey 6mo ago
Agreed. Unfortunately, the browser extension tool that I use, wxt [0], doesn't support Safari yet. It seems there are some work arounds, but I haven't gotten to it yet. PR's welcome, of course. =) [0] https://wxt.dev/guide/essentials/publishing.html#safari https://wxt.dev/guide/essentials/publishing.html#safari
- odysseus 6mo ago
  Is it just: pnpm wxt build -b safari xcrun safari-web-extension-converter .output/safari-mv2 And that’s it? Or is there some hidden extra work involved.
  - latchkey 6mo ago
    I don't know. If it is that simple, that would be great. I'll have to dive into it. Part of it is also to ensure that it gets added into the CI/CD workflow and fully automated. Just doing that for Chrome and Firefox took a huge amount of effort to get fully set up and approved. Thankfully, it is now at the point where every PR goes live automatically.

librasteve 6mo ago

dang. just shedding feedbin & reeder (paid) it's 'hide read stories' for me & darkmode

latchkey 6mo ago
Thanks! How about inline replies? That's my favorite.

gitgud 6mo ago

Another feature idea for you: There’s an extension that I loved called “Proven” (now archived) which uses keybase.io proofs to show other proven accounts next to hn users https://github.com/dschep/proven https://github.com/dschep/proven Also about this: > Mermaid Diagram Rendering Honest question, how often are people posting raw mermaid diagrams in comments here?… I’ve never seen one

latchkey 6mo ago
Is there something else that replaces keybase proofs? I still see a ton of people, including yourself with keybase in their profile, but is anyone still seeing that used? Nobody uses it because it wasn't supported. I had started off doing images, but their CSP policies prevent an extension from embedding images into the dom. SVG is still game on though. That said, I've seen a bunch of people try to create their own ascii art diagrams and wouldn't it be nice to have them just rendered as svg?

darepublic 6mo ago

I would like to see users clustered by their political and programming axes of belief

ggm 6mo ago
I would like to see this projected into a "lawful-neutral" meme template
tptacek 6mo ago
When someone who programs mostly in Rust responds to someone who programs mostly in Go I would like an animated bouncing icon that says "fight! fight! fight!" and when I press it it should leave a comment that instigates a fight, like "Serde is not really all that good".
- xpe 6mo ago
  What is the correct pronunciation of serde? Fight amongst yourselves. /s

redlewel 6mo ago

Not bad I do like the transparency on AI usage. So many projects omit this completely and its difficult not to assume someone just claude coded it in an evening to farm clicks. But this looks nice I'll probably check it out

latchkey 6mo ago
All day long, I read about people vibe coding, so I decided to open my mind and try it out myself and see if I could do some sort of mix between my own skills as a life long web developer and whatever the kids are doing these days. Mostly because I have a strong belief that AI itself won't take our jobs away, but people who know AI will. What I found out is that I'm never going back to a world where I don't integrate AI into my entire coding workflow. All the way from writing documentation to committing code. It makes things way more enjoyable. I truly enjoyed creating this whole project, it scratches my itch, and I hope that it continues to grow and be maintained over many years. I have another web project that's going on 7 years now and gets 88k downloads a month [0]. This is my passion, I'm here until I die, and even that project is now benefitting from AI. [0] https://github.com/lookfirst/mui-rff https://github.com/lookfirst/mui-rff
- scratchyone 6mo ago
  This is super nice, thank you for including an AI disclosure. I would probably normally avoid something like this bc I would be considered by how much code oversight there is. Very nice to know that it's overseen properly by a human. Installed it and it's quite nice!!! great work :) It would also be nice to be able to hide the checkbox it adds to the homepage. also disabling show focus box doesnt actually seem to work?
  - latchkey 6mo ago
    > It would also be nice to be able to hide the checkbox it adds to the homepage. also disabling show focus box doesnt actually seem to work? This is fixed and being pushed now. Thanks!

mhitza 6mo ago

Pretty cool. This is the glitchy userscript I use on Firefox mobile[1] (with screenshot) to make tap targets bigger and move navigation at the bottom of the page + collapsed. [1] https://gist.github.com/mhitza/0956d7e2c11d3102cbd4cba7f6d067bf https://gist.github.com/mhitza/0956d7e2c11d3102cbd4cba7f6d06...

notatoad 6mo ago

i like some of the things this does, but pretty much all of this is not UX improvements, it's UX opinions. as a personal project to make HN better for you, i guess it's cool. but making every link open in a new tab so my back button never works is definitely not for me.

latchkey 6mo ago
That's good feedback, I can change that to a preference. UPDATE: implemented as a preference that you can turn off. just click the app icon in the extensions list. https://github.com/OrangeJuiceExtension/OrangeJuice/releases/tag/v0.22.73 https://github.com/OrangeJuiceExtension/OrangeJuice/releases...

nikolay 6mo ago

So many extensions and services, because YCombinator cannot have a part-time employee working on such an important community: * https://hncompanion.com/ https://hncompanion.com/ * http://oj-hn.com/ http://oj-hn.com/ * https://hnrelevant.imadij.com/ https://hnrelevant.imadij.com/ * https://hnreplies.com/ https://hnreplies.com/

tomhow 6mo ago
Dan and I are full time YC employees and other engineers at YC do plenty to keep HN running. HN’s software is continually developed to handle growth in traffic, along with abuse, spam, and (particularly recently) bots and generated content. The lack of new UI features is not due to lack of resources/investment but because it’s always been the HN way to maintain a minimalist design and for the content and discussions to be the primary feature.
- nikolay 6mo ago
  "Minimalist" in 2026 is different than what it used to be in the '90s.
  - tomhow 6mo ago
    Of course, and part of my reason for being brought onto the team full time is to explore ways we can develop HN for the future. That doesn't mean that every 3rd-party HN project represents a feature that should be added to the core HN UI.
    - nikolay 6mo ago
      I didn't know, and I thought only @dang was working on HN. You must agree that at least some basic features, like a dark theme and indicators for new comments, could be easily handcrafted or implemented with coding agents!
    - krapp 6mo ago
      Just do what Myspace did back in the day and turn an XSS bug into a "feature:" user themes!

mailcraftai 6mo ago

[dead]

wackget 6mo ago

Lots of nice tweaks, but the most important is missing: the ability to move the collapse comment buttons (`[-]`) to the left of commenters' usernames. Doing this makes the collapse buttons all aligned with each other, making them far easier to click in succession. "Comments Owl for Hacker News" extension does this I believe.

oersted 6mo ago
The grey bar on the left that the extension adds also collapses the comments. They are aligned vertically and they have a bigger clickable area than [-].
conorcleary 6mo ago
but then the upvote button is too close to the collapse thread, plus, why make it easier to hide discussion? => makes it easier for scripts to automate by visual/x,y placement
latchkey 6mo ago
Thanks for this suggestion, but I agree with the other commenters.

beatrice111 6mo ago

omg this is amazing, finally there is someone noticing that the ux of hn needs to be improved...

rcarmo 6mo ago

Dark mode!

latchkey 6mo ago
Yes!

sgbeal 6mo ago

This is pretty darn cool. i've not yet seen any mention of one particular quirk so will point it out: on Firefox it flashes between "normal" and "upgraded" mode pretty starkly (A) when switching pages and (B) when tapping "add comment" (which is apparently done via page reload rather than the HN API). i've no clue whether an extension/app has any influence over the timing of that so cannot suggest how it might be resolved, but will say that it's particularly jarring.

latchkey 6mo ago
Honestly, FF has become a total shit show. Debugging something like that is a real PITA.

fdekerm 6mo ago

[dead]

syngrog66 6mo ago

my top wishlist of HN features: * personal ability to mute/block any account * BONUS: and/or delegate above decision to list-providing service at given externally-hosted URL * intelligently autowrap text of long lines, like its 2026 (heck like 1997)

krapp 6mo ago
>personal ability to mute/block any account Plenty of browser plugins that do this. I like HN Comments Owl.
- syngrog66 6mo ago
  browser plugins are an anti-pattern. and security risk. less depedencies are better. all modern social media platforms, including HN, should have out-of-box way to mute/block and delegate to service as well. There are often categories of folks/accounts I likely dont want to see/hear from or have my content exposed to them where I can help it. HN has demonstrated itself to have a toxic subset in their community, as elsewhere.

e40 6mo ago

Octal on iOS is the best. Been using it for years and I have never found a better reader for hn.