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StackOverflow also has an extremely busy design, and it seems to work. I remember reading a blog post, or maybe listening to a talk, where Jeff Atwood explaine

by tikhonj 14y ago

StackOverflow also has an extremely busy design, and it seems to work. I remember reading a blog post, or maybe listening to a talk, where Jeff Atwood explained that this was on purpose because programmers like having lots of buttons and things (I'm paraphrasing really poorly here), but it seems to have carried over reasonably well to the other StackExchange sites.

hollerith 14y ago
>StackOverflow also has an extremely busy design, and it seems to work. The design's being so busy has prevented me from exploring the site. I wish I knew of a browser extension or a bookmarklet to make the site more sedate by, e.g., deleting some of the elements on the page.
- bcoates 14y ago
  I sometimes use adblock as an incredibly blunt instrument to delete unwanted page elements.
  - illuminate 14y ago
    Isn't that what https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/elemhidehelper/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/elemhidehelpe... is for?
- skeletonjelly 14y ago
  User CSS in browser has existed for a while IIRC. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylebot/oiaejidbmkiecgbjeifoejpgmdaleoha?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylebot/oiaejidbm... https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/stylish/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/stylish/
mnicole 14y ago
> StackOverflow also has an extremely busy design, and it seems to work. People often make the argument about HN being ugly and hard-to-use vs. those who think it is perfect for what it does (even saying that making it simpler would make it too easy for non-technical people to get involved, which always confused me). Personally, I think all three of these services could be much cleaner and user-friendly without Fisher-Pricing it.
- lutusp 14y ago
  > This is a similar to the argument people make about HN being ugly and hard-to-use vs. those who think it is perfect for what it does. Apropos, my favorite suggestion for improvement in HN would be a menu item that lists direct replies to one's posts (something that Reddit does). Without this feature, some HN threads just expire because it becomes too difficult to follow them as time passes.
  - scott_s 14y ago
    The "threads" link at the top is a decent approximation.
    - lutusp 14y ago
      Yes, for my posts, but not so effective for replies to them, especially those older than 24 hours.
      - maxerickson 14y ago
        Here's a bookmarklet that might help some: https://gist.github.com/maxerickson/4718499 https://gist.github.com/maxerickson/4718499 It turns the time stamps on a Hacker News comment page into buttons that hide/show comments that are the same age or older than the clicked time stamp. It works on the threads page. There are probably some bugs, but it mostly works fine.
      - hollerith 14y ago
        I use HN Notify: it sends me an email notification every time someone replies to one of my submissions or comments. http://hnnotify.com/ http://hnnotify.com/
  - mnicole 14y ago
    And now I can't reply to scott_s's reply (another weird quirk that I don't understand, since it doesn't seem to be tied to how nested the comment is), but even something as simple as renaming those links would help people ('threads' to 'your comments' and 'comments' to 'recent comments'). Edit: Now the reply link shows up. What's with the timer?

by tikhonj 14y ago

hollerith 14y ago

>StackOverflow also has an extremely busy design, and it seems to work. The design's being so busy has prevented me from exploring the site. I wish I knew of a browser extension or a bookmarklet to make the site more sedate by, e.g., deleting some of the elements on the page.

bcoates 14y ago
I sometimes use adblock as an incredibly blunt instrument to delete unwanted page elements.
- illuminate 14y ago
  Isn't that what https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/elemhidehelper/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/elemhidehelpe... is for?
skeletonjelly 14y ago
User CSS in browser has existed for a while IIRC. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylebot/oiaejidbmkiecgbjeifoejpgmdaleoha?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylebot/oiaejidbm... https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/stylish/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/stylish/

mnicole 14y ago

> StackOverflow also has an extremely busy design, and it seems to work. People often make the argument about HN being ugly and hard-to-use vs. those who think it is perfect for what it does (even saying that making it simpler would make it too easy for non-technical people to get involved, which always confused me). Personally, I think all three of these services could be much cleaner and user-friendly without Fisher-Pricing it.

lutusp 14y ago
> This is a similar to the argument people make about HN being ugly and hard-to-use vs. those who think it is perfect for what it does. Apropos, my favorite suggestion for improvement in HN would be a menu item that lists direct replies to one's posts (something that Reddit does). Without this feature, some HN threads just expire because it becomes too difficult to follow them as time passes.
- scott_s 14y ago
  The "threads" link at the top is a decent approximation.
  - lutusp 14y ago
    Yes, for my posts, but not so effective for replies to them, especially those older than 24 hours.
    - maxerickson 14y ago
      Here's a bookmarklet that might help some: https://gist.github.com/maxerickson/4718499 https://gist.github.com/maxerickson/4718499 It turns the time stamps on a Hacker News comment page into buttons that hide/show comments that are the same age or older than the clicked time stamp. It works on the threads page. There are probably some bugs, but it mostly works fine.
    - hollerith 14y ago
      I use HN Notify: it sends me an email notification every time someone replies to one of my submissions or comments. http://hnnotify.com/ http://hnnotify.com/
- mnicole 14y ago
  And now I can't reply to scott_s's reply (another weird quirk that I don't understand, since it doesn't seem to be tied to how nested the comment is), but even something as simple as renaming those links would help people ('threads' to 'your comments' and 'comments' to 'recent comments'). Edit: Now the reply link shows up. What's with the timer?