[HN Gopher] Show HN: HNRelevant - Show related HN submissions in...
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       Show HN: HNRelevant - Show related HN submissions in an integrated
       sidebar
        
       While browsing Hacker News, I wished for an easier way to find
       related submissions (instead of googling and going back and forth).
       So I made this small chrome extension that automatically shows
       relevant submissions on page load. It's intergrated as a sidebar
       right in the page (for ease & native look), with customization
       options for fine control.  It's based on HN algolia search API[1]
       and uses the submission title as its initial query with the ability
       to customize the query if you're not satisfied with the initial
       results.  Originally, I took it as an opportunity to try my hands
       at creating a browser extension, but I was quite satisfied with the
       result and so I decided to release it.  [1] HN algolia search API:
       https://hn.algolia.com/api
        
       Author : imadj
       Score  : 70 points
       Date   : 2023-05-28 09:53 UTC (13 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | smcleod wrote:
       | Chrome only it seems.
        
         | imadj wrote:
         | Yeah, it's just a small quality of life thing that I thought
         | I'd share
         | 
         | It probably doesn't need much tweaking to work on other
         | browsers. Will definitely look into it.
        
         | bjord wrote:
         | in my experience, a ton of chrome extensions (at least MV2
         | ones) work in FF basically out of the box
         | 
         | it's not necessarily true the other way around, though, because
         | there are some weird things that google chooses not to support
         | (e.g. promises, they require that you use callbacks instead)
        
         | imadj wrote:
         | Just an update: It's now available as a userscript for other
         | browsers. Tested on Firefox with Tampermonkey.
        
           | smcleod wrote:
           | Oh nice! Thank you!
        
         | jack_riminton wrote:
         | Chrome extensions also work on other Chromium based browsers
         | e.g. Edge, Brave, Opera, Vivaldi etc.
        
       | return_to_monke wrote:
       | I think this should have an option only to request the
       | submissions when the user wants it to.
       | 
       | Sending a full history somewhere (in this case hn search) doesn't
       | seem like a great idea
        
         | imadj wrote:
         | Hm, I didn't take this into consideration
         | 
         | Since I would like it to be more auto-pilot, will probably
         | introduce an option to opt for 'manual' mode for those
         | interested
        
       | aaron695 wrote:
       | [dead]
        
       | theolivenbaum wrote:
       | Cool project! Was thinking about something similar since we tried
       | an embeddings index on HN titles for our demo (hn.curiosity.ai),
       | and was really impressed with the results. If you want I can
       | expose an API for you to use too
        
         | jimmySixDOF wrote:
         | Interesting. i just was trying the 'similar stories' and while
         | the list returned was around a certain theme - it didn't have
         | anything to do with the featured article. But I like the
         | implementation in general.
        
       | jackthetab wrote:
       | Tres cool. And the query results look pretty relevant/interesting
       | so far.
       | 
       | Is there a way to shrink the sidebar font wrt to the main content
       | font; similar to Chrome Reading List sidebar? I don't see any
       | mechanism in the code to do that. ATM it's (naturally) the same
       | size as the rest of the page which gives the sidebar the same
       | "importance" as the main content.
       | 
       | I'm thinking something simple, like dropping in a CSS snippet, as
       | opposed to a whole framework of different CSS stanzas _a la_
       | Obsidian.
        
       | theolivenbaum wrote:
       | Cool project! I was thinking about something similar since we
       | played with an embeddings index model on HN titles for our demo
       | at hn.curiosity.ai If you want I could expose an API for you to
       | use on the extension
        
       | tough wrote:
       | dan usually does this manually on hot threads. Really nice to
       | have it as a plugin
       | 
       | thanks for sharing
        
         | skilled wrote:
         | I'm pretty sure he has said it is an automated process, I can't
         | find the comment now but he did mention that he uses a custom-
         | built interface for moderation that he hopes to release one
         | day.
        
           | toomuchtodo wrote:
           | https://github.com/plibither8/refined-hacker-news
        
       | hxugufjfjf wrote:
       | Is there a specific reason that projects like these seemingly
       | often are Chrome only. I use Firefox and I feel <<left out>> on a
       | near weekly basis.
        
         | arek_nawo wrote:
         | As a Web Extension dev, I can say that Chrome is definitely the
         | go-to platform for developing new extensions, as you basically
         | target most of the market this way (incl. Chrome, Edge, Brave,
         | etc.). Any additional browser, means ofc additional dev time
         | and testing, some of which can be really funky, like Safari.
         | 
         | That said, from the two (the other one being Safari), Firefox
         | is much easier to port the extension to and there's even
         | webextension-polyfill that gets you >95% of the way there (most
         | of the time).
        
           | CharlesW wrote:
           | > _That said, from the two (the other one being Safari),
           | Firefox is much easier to port the extension to..._
           | 
           | Is it? Has anyone in this thread tried this? (I have not.) ht
           | tps://developer.apple.com/documentation/safariservices/saf...
        
         | rnmmrnm wrote:
         | it's <200 js code lines just port it.
        
           | hxugufjfjf wrote:
           | Yes, so one could either make the argument of why don't
           | projects like this <<just>> do that? Or the other way around.
        
         | eshnil wrote:
         | FF is my primary browser too, but with the user base down to
         | 3%, it's not exactly relevant any more.
        
           | hxugufjfjf wrote:
           | Oh ... my naive ass thought it was like 50/50 between Chrome
           | and Fx :(
        
           | ncr100 wrote:
           | "3 of 100 people" - I'm one of those three.
        
             | bjord wrote:
             | I would be willing to bet that the 3% stat doesn't hold
             | true for HN users
        
         | imadj wrote:
         | Well, speaking for myself, it's just the browser I use, I don't
         | necessarily love it but it the standard browser with the least
         | headache.
         | 
         | As for the extension, it doesn't depend on anything other than
         | hackernews and the search api, so a port should be easy.
         | 
         | Update: It's now available as a userscript, tested on _Firefox_
         | with Tampermonkey
        
         | esafak wrote:
         | How hard is it to create a cross-browser plug-in?
        
           | dingledork69 wrote:
           | Trivial
        
         | dubeux wrote:
         | There's a script available now - just installed it in FF with
         | Greasemonkey.
        
       | ad0n wrote:
       | Awesome! May you release this as an UserScript so we can install
       | it using Violentmonkey/Tampermonkey?
        
         | imadj wrote:
         | A userscript is available now in the repo here:
         | https://github.com/imdj/HNRelevant/blob/main/HNRelevant.user...
         | 
         | I tested it on Firefox with Tampermonkey, but I'll admit that
         | I'm not that familiar with userscripts extensions, so if you
         | try it, let me know what you think
        
           | geekodour wrote:
           | Thanks for the work! love it! I tried it with violentmonkey,
           | had some issues, small changes fixes it. Made a PR for
           | changes https://github.com/imdj/HNRelevant/pull/4 :)
        
       | yoavm wrote:
       | Please consider replacing the 8mb gif animation with a normal
       | video file. It will both load faster and allow users to pause,
       | start from the beginning etc.
        
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       (page generated 2023-05-28 23:01 UTC)