HACKER Q&A
📣 codingclaws

Can we get an option to show root comments only on HN?


When there are more than about 300 comments on a post it is difficult to read the root (1st level) comments that pertain directly to the post/article. These are the comments I want to read the most. I end up just scrolling past everything the whole time. It would be great if there was a link at the top that linked to the comments with something like a &root-only=1 in the URL.

  👤 activiation Accepted Answer ✓
That would be nice... Most of the time I just click the link to hide all replies to each top comment... It's getting repetitive
👤 fsflover
I'm using "next" instead and it's not so bad.
👤 DoreenMichele
You can read the top comment, click the minus button [-] to collapse the thread, read the next top comment, rinse and repeat.
👤 hayst4ck
If you want these types of things, then it's likely only going to be through somebody creating an extension to modify the HN interface.

I think client side modification is probably better (albeit inefficient) engineering anyway.

👤 gnicholas
I also have this perspective. The HackerNewt app is perfect for people like us.

They posted a Show HN here a few weeks ago, which is how I learned about them. Highly recommended!

👤 Leftium
https://hw.leftium.com/ shows only root comments.

Example: https://hw.leftium.com/#/item/36200884

Can even show just root replies to a comment: https://hw.leftium.com/#/item/36201108

Each page has a link to the original HN page.

---

My app doesn't show the default HN feed; it shows the list of all items that have hit the front page in reverse chronological order (like https://hckrnews.com/).

If you want the default feed, use https://hackerwebapp.com/ (I forked my app from this app)