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Show HN: HN Special – A visual theme and Chrome extension for Hacker News
- mrleinad 13y agoPlease,please,please implement the Firefox version..
- Jeremy1026 13y agoAm I the only one that can't read the visited links without some serious eye strain?
- terabytest 13y agoIs the color too light?
- hieronymusN 13y agoIt does need some more contrast. Also, while I do appreciate the elegance overall (I'm a UI designer as well), the vertical space could be tightened up a bit to get some more comments on a scree. Perhaps adding some options to the extension to allow toggling between a "Tight" and "Airy" stylesheet?
- ExisTy 13y agoIt doesn't bother me -that- much, they're visited after all.
- aeon10 13y agoI really love the infinite scrolling. I think there should be a bit more contrast. It is hard to read the light colored orange on white. Also the visited (light light orange) is a pain. And maybe highlighting the points a thread has would be a nice feature too. Maybe another darker color for that.
- sideproject 13y agoInfinite scrolling is good, until you want to use the search box!
- nisdec 13y agoYep. I would suggest to add a position: fixed to the header. And place the searchbox there of course.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- terabytest 13y agoI was thinking about maybe adding a "Low contrast" option to the menu or something like that, which enables a version of the theme with easier to read colors. What do you mean about highlighting the points in a thread? Making the count below the title more visible?
- xauronx 13y agoIt looks so crisp and nice, but the upvote arrows are soooooo bad. If you could replace those it would be amazing.
- terabytest 13y agoOh yeah, I'll try replacing those soon.
- sideproject 13y agoNice one. BUT!, it's strange, maybe because I'm SOO used to HN (like I'm soo used to Google), I had to change back. Is it just a case of "you'll get used to it"?
- terabytest 13y agoI think so. Maybe try it out for a day or so. If anything's wrong, please let me know what you think! Oh, by the way: even if you like the features but not the theme, you can easily disable the theme only from the settings menu at the top (the gear icon in the header)!
- seanalltogether 13y agoWhat you're probably missing is the change in information density. Most HN redesigns jack up the font size and the padding between links.
- jwarren 13y agoNice, but I find it a bit too hard to read. On my Stylebot style, I reduced the orange to just a highlight colour. I find it pretty pleasurable to use. Feel free to take anything from it that you want: http://stylebot.me/styles/2800 http://stylebot.me/styles/2800 Some of the selectors in the CSS are very contrived. I found it was the only way to select what I wanted in a document made of tables within tables with barely any classes. Also, I totally feel you on this! The underlying HTML for HN is absolutely terrible.
- terabytest 13y agoOh yeah, I see. I think I'm going to try and implement a low contrast theme, with grey links and easier to read text. Thanks for the link, I'll have a look at it!
- joyeuse6701 13y agoHigh contrast! Let me see the website not squint and guess!
- dokem 13y agoI added a bit more font weight to everything[1]. Repo[2] for anyone that wants to try it out. It's a bit hacky though, I just modified the generated css rather than the styl input. http://i.imgur.com/4W6aZEZ.png http://i.imgur.com/4W6aZEZ.png https://github.com/reidHoruff/hn-special https://github.com/reidHoruff/hn-special
- fotcorn 13y agoI always use http://hckrnews.com/ http://hckrnews.com/ and not the normal frontpage. Many small gems without many upvotes get lost on news.ycombinator.com.
- omgmog 13y agoIt's nice, but thin fonts are very hard to read (screenshot: http://uk.omg.li/QPvZ http://uk.omg.li/QPvZ)
- terabytest 13y agoOh, damn that's a mess. What OS is that?
- omgmog 13y agoChrome 28 on Mountain Lion http://uk.omg.li/QP02 http://uk.omg.li/QP02
- terabytest 13y agoThat's very strange, I'm running the same setup as well. Have you installed any system tweaks that change the way fonts are rendered?
- omgmog 13y agoYes, but a font-weight of 100 is never a good or useful thing, it's terribly unreadable
- robin_reala 13y agoProbably Windows. Chrome uses GDI on Windows instead of DirectWrite for some unfathomable reason: https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=25541 https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=25541
- omgmog 13y agoNope, it's Chrome 28 on Mountain Lion http://uk.omg.li/QP02 http://uk.omg.li/QP02
- marcofloriano 13y agoAmazing ! Already using it, thank you very much.
- Duelist 13y agoGood job on the extension. I did have a couple of suggestions: 1. Have an alternate "dark" theme version for those of us who like dark backgrounds as opposed to bright eye-popping colors. 2. Similar to the "Open links in new tabs" option, would it be possible to add a "Open comments in new tabs" option?
- terabytest 13y agoThanks! I'll try implementing a low-contrast version with less harsh colors soon! About the "Open comments in new tabs" option, yes, that's a very good idea. I'll do that as well!
- Rulin 13y agoHere's a dark theme I created in Stylish. Code: http://pastebin.com/BhZTuwJV http://pastebin.com/BhZTuwJV Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/cnrYGdR.png http://i.imgur.com/cnrYGdR.png
- davidcollantes 13y agoThis is lovely. Thank you! Would it be possible to port this as a Safari extension? Thanks again.
- terabytest 13y agoProbably, yeah. I'm not sure how development for Safari works, but I could give it a try soon.
- k-mcgrady 13y agoI just installed it and really like it however when I scroll (quite slowly) down the main page though the text and background blur together so that I can't see anything. I'm not sure if it's because of the thin fonts of the font colours (the headlines seems to blur the most) but it's quite annoying. I'd normally scroll at that speed and be able to skim the headlines. It's impossible to do with the blurring.
- orf 13y agoI've just installed it and I'm liking it. The links are a bit hard to read on the home-page (they are a bit faded) but otherwise it looks good. Thanks!
- terabytest 13y agoI'm glad you like it!
- jjindev 13y agoI like it also. My Special Eyes have trouble with default HN. For me, like orf, the faded colors are a bit of a strain. Also, if I don't open a story in a new tab, but go out and back, I sometimes have trouble finding the entry I just used (and its comments). A color for "just visited" would be nice.
- beaker52 13y agoI agree. The faded orange needs to be a few % less gray/white.
- BWStearns 13y agoVery cool, I like the borderless body area. I agree with Orf on the hard to read (perhaps a little darker links/textbox font?). The other thing is that endless scroll doesn't seem to be working for me.
- Ashuu 13y agoToo much orange. Difficult to read fonts. If only it had some more soothing colors, I would use it daily! Nice though!
- daGrevis 13y agoI really like it. To be honest, I prefer it more than Georgify [1]. [1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/georgify/ofjfdfaleomlfanfehgblppafkijjhmi?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/georgify/ofjfdfale... The only problem I have with it is that after opening comment section, the design pops-out and overwrites the original design.
- terabytest 13y agoHow do you mean? Are comments hard to read?
- daGrevis 13y agoTechnically speaking, old design for comments are loaded and then, using JavaScript, it's replaced with the new design.
- toyg 13y agoDid you test it on a MBPr ? The screenshot looks really blurry here. EDIT: it's just the screenshot, the actual extension works fine. A bit more contrast would be appreciated though. Maybe a different background color for links ?
- terabytest 13y agoGlad it's working fine for you!
- terabytest 13y agoMany thanks to everyone for the feedback! I'll try implementing the ideas you've given me (easier to read colors and other tweaks). For those who've installed the extension, it should auto-update when new features come up and you should be notified of the presence of new modules and the low-contrast theme.
- HugoDias 13y agoPlease, make it 100% width ! PLEASE!
- terabytest 13y agoGood idea!
- mindrag 13y agoVery cool! I just forked it, thinking of implementing collapsible comments.
- gizmolord7 13y agoMinimal and very Elegant. Seen links are hardly visible, would be more awesome if you bring in more contrast! Good job !
- kyle_martin1 13y agoI like the overall design but the links are too light orange which make it hard to read. Design's number one goal is to 'get out the way of the user'. Change the link color to something with more contrast against the white background. Then I'll really like it.
- MichaelAza 13y agoGreat work, though it's a shame it's a browser extension. You can't use it on Firefox or mobile. There's a site, tomodo.com, that allows you to modify webpages much like a greasemonkey script or a browser extension and then publish it as a native website. I'd suggest you'll look into that.
- weavie 13y agoWow. Thanks for sharing. That's going to become my goto site now!
- hadem 13y agoLooks like there is a Hacker News mod already. http://hnews.tomodo.me http://hnews.tomodo.me
- Zikes 13y agoThat doesn't look safe at all.
- importMe 13y agoHere[1] is a theme I made for HN that can be installed on Firefox using Greasemonkey, or on Chrome using Tampermonkey. [1] https://github.com/dparpyani/HackerNews-Dark-Theme https://github.com/dparpyani/HackerNews-Dark-Theme
- arpit105 13y agoThank God for the new interface. Despite the bright orange, I will never go back to original Hacker News. Please implement it for HN India too :)
- heydonovan 13y agoFantastic! I've only one suggestion. I'm using a Macbook Pro (Retina), and the up-arrow icons are extremely blurry. Other than that, everything looks amazing. :)
- andrewb 13y agoJust installed it and think it's superb. I hope HN takes some influence from your extension.
- Rulin 13y agoI usually like my news sites to have a darker theme, so I quickly threw this together in the Stylish Plugin, to work with your HN Special Extension http://pastebin.com/BhZTuwJV http://pastebin.com/BhZTuwJV . Just added the style to work with URL's on the domain "ycombinator.com"
- Rulin 13y agohere's a screenshot for those who just want an easy comparison http://i.imgur.com/cnrYGdR.png http://i.imgur.com/cnrYGdR.png
- mradmin 13y agoI'm just say that the colour contrast is atrocious. I've got pretty good eye sight and the text on that screenshot looks blurry. Both the unvisited and visited link states fail at AA colour contrast accessibility levels. [edit] - It took me a while to find the install link. I thought it was a heading. Why don't you use an underline for links?
- chenster 13y agoI like it. It's about time someone do something about it or I was planning to do something like that myself. It would be awesome one could customize the color and fonts and stuffs like that. The active hyperlink is too fade to read. Please change that.
- jackmaney 13y agoOw...that visual theme hurts my eyes.
- milhous 13y agoIt's really nice, but not a regular Chrome user. Somebody loves the OS X Mavericks theme!
- rhokstar 13y agoExcellent work! HN is like Craigslist in a UI/UX sense, very conservative (or they don't care at all).
- AJay17 13y agoI love it!
- dysoco 13y agoLately I've realized that most of new extensions and applications are specifically designed for Chrome. I stay loyal to Firefox, but it looks like it has fallen a bit behind.
- qwertzlcoatl 13y agoSame here. There are quite some extension I find attractive but can't use because I remain celibate to Firefox.
- qwertzlcoatl 13y agoCollapsible comments are my top priority for a hacker news extension. It looks really neat though.
- inevitable 13y agohttp://cheeaun.github.io/hackerweb/ http://cheeaun.github.io/hackerweb/