4 ms·

Show HN: Your personal Hacker News reader - Skim HN

43 points by raimonds 14y ago

james-singh 14y ago
No login? That means I have to personalize it everytime I use it on a different laptop? Btw, I wish there was a google chrome extension for this as well.
- raimonds 14y ago
  Sorry about that! And thanks for your feedback! Good point. I will look into implementing logins.
  - traeblain 14y ago
    Don't need to worry about logins. Nothing is stored here. Best thing to do is to create a custom URL that will always bring the same lists. i.e. When I setup my personalized options, I have: http://www.skimhn.com/djWH3hS5 http://www.skimhn.com/djWH3hS5 That way you don't have to operate with logins and everyone's setup is share-able. (Then you can look in the future of letting the creator define the url.)
dmart 14y ago
I like it, but I wouldn't mind an option to customize the line spacing and font colors (alternating colors, maybe?) - it's pretty dense to skim through.
- raimonds 14y ago
  Thanks for your feedback! That's a good idea!
- rumberg 14y ago
  I used a chrome extension called StyleBot to do a little styling: http://cl.ly/image/3w1y3G0p083J http://cl.ly/image/3w1y3G0p083J
  - raimonds 14y ago
    Wow, that looks gorgeous! Could I use it as a style guide? Could you share specific things you changed?
    - rumberg 14y ago
      I'd love to, raimonds. You can download Stylebot here: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylebot/oiaejidbmkiecgbjeifoejpgmdaleoha?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylebot/oiaejidbm... After installing the extension, just open Stylebot and copy the following design for skimhn.com: http://pastebin.com/5Nupsm3B http://pastebin.com/5Nupsm3B. it's still rough, but it's a start :) The design is using Lato as typeface. You can download it here: http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/lato http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/lato PS: I've been also working on a redesign for Instapaper and Hacker News: Instapaper Articles: http://cl.ly/image/1r1T420S042P http://cl.ly/image/1r1T420S042P Instapaper Features: http://cl.ly/image/172h0b3P2u3D http://cl.ly/image/172h0b3P2u3D Hacker News: http://cl.ly/image/3y3F1v060v1N http://cl.ly/image/3y3F1v060v1N
  - jmias 14y ago
    Cool! using as standalone for now as it evolves no plugins needed (http://hidra.koding.com/ripskimhn/ http://hidra.koding.com/ripskimhn/)
klapinat0r 14y ago
I appreciate the categories, even if it wasn't personalized. One idea for future development might be to add a point score based on Naive Bayes (which has been discussed previously). Not as a filter per say, but just as an indicator. E.g. http://joelgrus.com/2012/02/16/hacking-hacker-news/ http://joelgrus.com/2012/02/16/hacking-hacker-news/ Sure, you can use a bookmarklet or write your own thing, but I've always thought it'd be an interesting idea to have a centralized like/hate server, where you could add different sources, say HN. That might be a different project, but adding a score based on the likelihood of "I'd read this" (not recommendation as I should note) would be a interesting in terms of skimming. Let's say one of your users is in a hurry, he might want to skim the most (homogenous) likely news that'd interest him/her, whereas if it's late at night in leisure time, one might be more interested in new/abnormal stories. Just a though. Good job.
- raimonds 14y ago
  Wow, that's an awesome feedback and great link! Thanks for your kind words! That's a pity there's no API access to user's saved stories (as far as I know). This would be great source for Bayes training. Maybe a chrome extension could train Bayes on HN visited links.
  - klapinat0r 14y ago
    I agree that it's a difficult issue, as some might feel it's an intrusion of privacy if that data is used. Other might feel it's annoying to have to up/downvote stories both on HN and on your site. That's a trade-off. Perhabs both, or allow import of saved data, so users can make a dump from HN and import it in your site. I think the other HN api used to have that (if people trust them to pass their user/pw to HN safely), but seems to be disabled: http://api.ihackernews.com/ http://api.ihackernews.com/. So yeah, the easiest way to start it would be to have people up/down vote on your site, or use a heuristic measure such as: if you click a link, you "like" it, if you're shown a link, but don't click a link you "ignore" it (which should be less negative than hate, as there can be a number of reasons for not clicking a link). As in: I get a list of 10 items from each category, of those 10, which do I click, which don't I. So once an item is shown to me - save it as "bad" by default in the DB. If I click it, change it to a good result. You'd might have to change the weight more than this, but it should be a good start, and requires the least amount of effort for the user.
davidjhall 14y ago
Really like this -- good job. Do you have "not" syntax? I would love to have a skim feed that removes certain news items that overload the front page.
- raimonds 14y ago
  Thanks for the feedback! For "not" syntax prepend keyword with "-". E.g. -title:facebook. Unfortunately there's no syntax for front-page only posts.

43 points by raimonds 14y ago

No login? That means I have to personalize it everytime I use it on a different laptop? Btw, I wish there was a google chrome extension for this as well.

raimonds 14y ago
Sorry about that! And thanks for your feedback! Good point. I will look into implementing logins.
- traeblain 14y ago
  Don't need to worry about logins. Nothing is stored here. Best thing to do is to create a custom URL that will always bring the same lists. i.e. When I setup my personalized options, I have: http://www.skimhn.com/djWH3hS5 http://www.skimhn.com/djWH3hS5 That way you don't have to operate with logins and everyone's setup is share-able. (Then you can look in the future of letting the creator define the url.)

dmart 14y ago

I like it, but I wouldn't mind an option to customize the line spacing and font colors (alternating colors, maybe?) - it's pretty dense to skim through.

raimonds 14y ago
Thanks for your feedback! That's a good idea!
rumberg 14y ago
I used a chrome extension called StyleBot to do a little styling: http://cl.ly/image/3w1y3G0p083J http://cl.ly/image/3w1y3G0p083J
- raimonds 14y ago
  Wow, that looks gorgeous! Could I use it as a style guide? Could you share specific things you changed?
  - rumberg 14y ago
    I'd love to, raimonds. You can download Stylebot here: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylebot/oiaejidbmkiecgbjeifoejpgmdaleoha?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylebot/oiaejidbm... After installing the extension, just open Stylebot and copy the following design for skimhn.com: http://pastebin.com/5Nupsm3B http://pastebin.com/5Nupsm3B. it's still rough, but it's a start :) The design is using Lato as typeface. You can download it here: http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/lato http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/lato PS: I've been also working on a redesign for Instapaper and Hacker News: Instapaper Articles: http://cl.ly/image/1r1T420S042P http://cl.ly/image/1r1T420S042P Instapaper Features: http://cl.ly/image/172h0b3P2u3D http://cl.ly/image/172h0b3P2u3D Hacker News: http://cl.ly/image/3y3F1v060v1N http://cl.ly/image/3y3F1v060v1N
- jmias 14y ago
  Cool! using as standalone for now as it evolves no plugins needed (http://hidra.koding.com/ripskimhn/ http://hidra.koding.com/ripskimhn/)

klapinat0r 14y ago

I appreciate the categories, even if it wasn't personalized. One idea for future development might be to add a point score based on Naive Bayes (which has been discussed previously). Not as a filter per say, but just as an indicator. E.g. http://joelgrus.com/2012/02/16/hacking-hacker-news/ http://joelgrus.com/2012/02/16/hacking-hacker-news/ Sure, you can use a bookmarklet or write your own thing, but I've always thought it'd be an interesting idea to have a centralized like/hate server, where you could add different sources, say HN. That might be a different project, but adding a score based on the likelihood of "I'd read this" (not recommendation as I should note) would be a interesting in terms of skimming. Let's say one of your users is in a hurry, he might want to skim the most (homogenous) likely news that'd interest him/her, whereas if it's late at night in leisure time, one might be more interested in new/abnormal stories. Just a though. Good job.

raimonds 14y ago
Wow, that's an awesome feedback and great link! Thanks for your kind words! That's a pity there's no API access to user's saved stories (as far as I know). This would be great source for Bayes training. Maybe a chrome extension could train Bayes on HN visited links.
- klapinat0r 14y ago
  I agree that it's a difficult issue, as some might feel it's an intrusion of privacy if that data is used. Other might feel it's annoying to have to up/downvote stories both on HN and on your site. That's a trade-off. Perhabs both, or allow import of saved data, so users can make a dump from HN and import it in your site. I think the other HN api used to have that (if people trust them to pass their user/pw to HN safely), but seems to be disabled: http://api.ihackernews.com/ http://api.ihackernews.com/. So yeah, the easiest way to start it would be to have people up/down vote on your site, or use a heuristic measure such as: if you click a link, you "like" it, if you're shown a link, but don't click a link you "ignore" it (which should be less negative than hate, as there can be a number of reasons for not clicking a link). As in: I get a list of 10 items from each category, of those 10, which do I click, which don't I. So once an item is shown to me - save it as "bad" by default in the DB. If I click it, change it to a good result. You'd might have to change the weight more than this, but it should be a good start, and requires the least amount of effort for the user.

davidjhall 14y ago

Really like this -- good job. Do you have "not" syntax? I would love to have a skim feed that removes certain news items that overload the front page.

raimonds 14y ago
Thanks for the feedback! For "not" syntax prepend keyword with "-". E.g. -title:facebook. Unfortunately there's no syntax for front-page only posts.