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dangwu / Octal

Hacker News Client for iOS
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Comment bubbles in 3.29.0 #177

Open luckman212 opened 3 years ago

luckman212 commented 3 years ago

Saw the new version out today! Glad Apple finally opened the gates back up.

One change that I noticed right away was the move of the comment count bubble to a smaller section below the story title. This makes it much slower to scroll through and look at the active topics. Especially because the numbers are no longer vertically aligned, so your eye has to jump around.

Can you please consider changing this back or making it optional?

dangwu commented 3 years ago

Not sure about this one. I like the more streamlined comments because they don't taking up so much width. I'll keep this in mind.

luckman212 commented 3 years ago

Ok, I'll try to get used to it. It does look pretty! But I still think the old view was more usable.

Klohto commented 3 years ago

+1. The new look is nice but the old view allowed for faster scrolling and it was clear by a quick glance which topic is active/popular. Now I have to stop on every topic, evaluate and then continue. It makes the whole experience slower.

dangwu commented 3 years ago

I'll come up with a layout to right-align the comment counts and make them easier to see.

dangwu commented 3 years ago

The new release today (3.30.0) moves upvotes/comments to a separate footer line, which hopefully helps at least a little.

On a related note, here's a new design I'm fiddling with. Curious about your thoughts:

Simulator Screen Shot - iPhone 11 Pro - 2020-10-20 at 13 32 24

luckman212 commented 3 years ago

I don't want to sound rude or unappreciative but- I just don't like that layout. The buttons look bulky and look like they take up unnecessary vertical space.

I really liked the old layout, can I ask why you felt it needed to be changed?

dangwu commented 3 years ago

I see. I get a lot of feedback that the upvote and comment buttons are too hard to tap, so this was a possible UI to resolve that. Everyone wants a different thing from the UI and it's impossible to make everyone happy...

The reason I didn't like the comment bubbles is they took up too much horizontal space. On small phones with a Full layout size, this left barely any horizontal space for the actual story titles.

dangwu commented 3 years ago

Also, I'm not totally against putting them back. Will keep experimenting.

luckman212 commented 3 years ago

Ok, in the end this is your baby so of course whatever you think is best. I still love the app and it's the best of its kind! 🚀

Klohto commented 3 years ago

The latest update (3.30.0) addresses my issues fairly well. The comment count stands out much more, so it's easy to evaluate.

As for the proposed layout, definitely don't want to dismiss it, but I agree with @luckman212.

upvote and comment buttons are too hard to tap

Having an easy upvote button is kinda turning HN to Reddit :/ Isn't the whole idea of HN to have quality content and not get influenced easily by headlines?

upvote and comment buttons are too hard to tap

The old layout had a big comment button, right? :)

The hckrnews.com UI doesn't even have upvote buttons, just link to the story and comments. image

And on the official news.ycombinator.com it's clearly visible that the UI focuses more on discussion than an accesible rating option. image image

Whatever you choose though, it's still going to be best client on App Store :1st_place_medal:

luckman212 commented 3 years ago

Along with @Klohto, the latest update is working better for me too! I use the Compact layout, so I don't bother with the images. Just have to train my eye to look down the left side of the screen instead of the right where the comments bubble used to be.

My "only" request from here would be an option in prefs to show the comment count first (far left) followed by upvotes, since for me that's the strongest signal.