
Show HN: We made an addictive way to browse pictures on reddit - bwm
http://mongout.com
======
thebdmethod
I'm surprised you aren't getting more love on this one. I've already added the
site to my bookmarks bar. I love reddit primarily for the images.

Usually my browsing of reddit is done like this.

1\. Click homepage.

2\. Determine which links are images.

3\. Click image link

4\. Chuckle, or shrug

5\. Two finger swipe back on my trackpad on lion

6\. Scroll

7\. Repeat 2 - 6

Now its

1\. Go to Mongout 2\. Click right 3\. Repeat 2 ... again and again

I'm also a big fan of the progress bar. If there was no bar I'd feel
ungrounded in the infinite space of reddit. Additionally, because its so
addicting to look at reddit images, I can say to myself "I'll look at enough
images that fills one progress bar"

Its super simple, and really well executed. Big time props!

~~~
lachyg
Get Reddit Enhancement Suite => View All Images.

------
m0th87
I can't imagine using this over reddpics. Their tiled interface allows me to
browse posts faster than the normal reddit interface. This in contrast feels
slower than either, since you can only see a single image at a time.

~~~
pssdbt
Or panoptikos.com even...

~~~
AndyKelley
Or scrolldit.com

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yarone
You should preload the next image, so when I hit [right] key, it just shows up
without delay.

~~~
akkartik
right/left was pretty snappy for me, but I found myself wishing it would
preload the reddit page each time. I found myself hitting [up] for every
single image (because I needed the explanation that often..)

~~~
artursapek
That would unnecessarily eat up a ton of bandwidth, I think people using this
will usually go through most photos without pulling up the thread.

------
nostromo
I like it. Imgur actually has left / right arrow support as well. (Example:
<http://imgur.com/gallery/ExxXR> then hit →) I find it works well for a few
chuckles if I happen to be eating at my desk in search of some web bubblegum.

~~~
tuacker
[http://imgur.com/r/<subreddit>](http://imgur.com/r/<subreddit>); shows all
the linked imgur pictures in that particular subreddit and links back to the
posts. Like reddit you can chain subreddits eg <http://imgur.com/r/pics+funny>

------
dotBen
It's probably worth noting that in other parts of the English speaking world,
the word "mong" is derogatory and offensive.

I'm not sure if "MongOut" is a derivative of MongoDB, but if you're aiming at
a maintream global audience you might want to consider the sensitivities.

~~~
bwm
Thanks, we've got similar feedback previously, but decided to stick with the
name as it was memorable. I do realize that this is something that could put
people off though.

~~~
kami8845
psh, who cares MongoDB has the full-blown Mongo in there and they're doing
fine.

~~~
dotBen
"Mongo" != "Mong"

'MongoOut' would be fine

'MongOut' is not.

~~~
aw3c2
at least in Germany Mongo is short for Mongoloid (Down syndrome) and is a
insult.

------
sendos
I just use a bookmarklet I wrote (<https://gist.github.com/1572878>), which
enables me to go to any reddit page, and then click the bookmarklet to see all
the images inline.

~~~
g3orge
Bookmarked

------
MengYuanLong
Very enjoyable.

Feature Requests:

1\. Preload next image? My connection sucks so pre-loading would be extremely
valuable.

2\. I would also love to see the top comment for each photo. Though, I suppose
that may make it less addicting and cause traffic to bleed back to Reddit.

Great work ^_^

~~~
leoedin
Preloading please! Time spent watching a little arrow twirl stops it being
worth using for me.

~~~
nc
We just added preloading for the next image, sometimes you hit one which takes
a while - it's faster than before though!

------
franciscoapinto
Right, I'll just round up my suggestions and those I agreed with from other
comments:

\- In portuguese, and I imagine a lot of other languages, "mongo" is a pretty
nasty word. Think "retard", only worse.

\- Have this linked with your reddit account so you can up/down vote. Also,
then you could, by default, show pics from the user's default subreddits. You
should allow an user to add/remove subreddits to get pics from, independently
from the user's default subreddits.

\- Gamify this. Think up some sort of achievements (opting out has to be an
option, of course). First step: you have that bar filling up, what about
having a counter nearby, which increments everytime the bar fills?

\- You should do some preloading up to a max of USER_CONFIGURABLE_NUMBER
images, have a sane default like 1 or 2.

That's it for now.

Edit:

\- I just got a imgur "this image is no longer available" thingy. I think you
can scratch those from showing up entirely.

\- You could add some sort of sharing feature. A permalink would be a nice
step in that direction. I just found an image I'd like to share with a friend
and I noticed mongout wasn't gonna be a part of that process.

~~~
bwm
Thanks for your feedback.

\- We didn't realise that mongo had such a negative connotation Portuguese -
in british english it doesn't. We'll probably stick with it for the time being
but change it if we offend people.

\- Yes, we really want to add in a way to select different subreddits. Not too
sure about letting people sign in though but definitely a good idea.

\- We might go for non-obtrusive game mechanics, so the progress bar + points
+ leaderboard + tweet progress. It just didn't make it into this release.

\- Preloading images is a good idea that we didn't think about.

~~~
ajanuary
Mongo most definitely has negative connotations in British English, though not
as much as Mong afaik

------
Bockit
I've been using Flipboard[1] on the iPad to read pic heavy subreddits that I
don't necessarily want to see everything from but like to browse from time to
time.

Yahoo pipes[2] turns the subreddit's top stories .json representation into an
RSS feed, and then Twitterfeed[3] posts that RSS feed to a custom twitter
account which I can then follow on Flipboard.

I got this setup from <http://miguelrios.org/reddit-in-flipboard/> and a handy
trick is to combine subreddits. So for example I have the 'SFW Porn Network'
reddits all combined using the + e.g., /r/earthporn+cityporn+... etc.

[1]: <http://flipboard.com/>

[2]: <http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/>

[3]: <http://twitterfeed.com/>

~~~
barlo
Don't know if this will help at all, but you can append .rss/.json/ to any
reddit URL. e.g:

<http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/.rss>
<http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/.json>

------
goo
Awesome work! -- I've also built something that is, awkwardly, nearly exactly
the same. Check out <http://imgist.com>

~~~
goo
Some of the challenges I ran into, and surmounted, include preloaded images,
URLs that allow you to link directly to the image, getting facebook sharing to
register the image you are currently viewing when you want to share the image,
zooming and unzooming large images, and saving favorites in user accounts.

Another challenge was elegantly showing the UI elements without in any way
distracting from the image -- I think by fading them out after a couple
seconds of mouse inactivty, we accomplished that pretty well. Left/right keys
are obviously the best way to do things, but we also wanted "point and click"
users to get it right away as well, so we allowed for that in the UI. I think
mongout's way of doing it is pretty elegant though, with the picture of the
arrow keys.

Things I still intend to iron out are the ability to mix and match arbitrary
subreddits and non-reddit sources, and an integration with facebook accounts.

This has been my main side project for the past year, and I'd love to chat
about any and all aspects of it :)

------
jbox
Reminds me of the iPad app Prism: [http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/prism-the-
image-browser/id488...](http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/prism-the-image-
browser/id488236799?mt=8)

------
scoot
Well done. Kept me engaged to the last picture. A couple of observations
though:

The left-right keys still advance to the previous / next picture in the
background, when the comments are in the foreground. Suggest that a left or
right hides the comments as well as moving forward or back.

I second the comment made elsewhere on pre-loading the next picture to save
your users waiting for the load-time.

How do I navigate the comments with the keyboard? I use the cursor keys to
scroll down, and it doesn't work, as up / down is mapped to show / hide
comments.

~~~
dmoy
> Suggest that a left or right hides the comments as well as moving forward or
> back.

Agree, this behavior was very unintuitive.

------
peterwwillis
This is basically why I hate the internet.

------
aaronf
I like the idea - but it doesn't feel "addictive" yet.

Feature request: filter out photos of cats.

~~~
jessriedel
I'd like the complement "nothing but cats" photo stream.

~~~
goo
<http://imgist.com/aww/>

------
mwhooker
Here's a lower-fi version

[http://107.20.224.248:8000/#pics;funny;humor;comics;reddit.c...](http://107.20.224.248:8000/#pics;funny;humor;comics;reddit.com;geek;offbeat)

hack the URL to control subreddits

source here <https://github.com/mwhooker/procrastinatr>

~~~
drx
Any plans to support setting subreddits on the hifi version?

Nice site, btw.

~~~
bwm
Thanks. We actually had subreddit support in an earlier version but decided to
take it out for the sake of simplicity. It's definitely a feature that we'd
like to add back in though.

------
artursapek
Very nicely made. My only criticism is the purple progress bar- what's the
point of it? I thought I was going to run out of images when it filled up, but
it just kept going. Is that filling an indication that it's going to
yesterday's posts? It feels unneeded, it's distracting.

~~~
aspensmonster
The point of it is to get you to keep clicking next.

~~~
artursapek
Shouldn't interest do that?

~~~
aspensmonster
Why have one motivation when you can have two!

------
joshu
I love the idea of this, but one of the problems with building products like
this is that it's basically other people's content (or other people's other
people's content...) and is probably hard to scale a business around properly.

------
bwm
We've got some pretty granular analytics on the site. It'll be interesting to
measure how much people are engaging with it. We'll probably write a blog post
sometime over the next few days regarding this if anyone is interested.

------
symkat
I made something similar last week (<http://image-roulette.com/>), but it just
uses imgur itself, instead of the reddit-curated images.

I think your approach was better.

------
jkap
You mean other than just using reddit?

~~~
Stormbringer
Well, all the "christians suck, athiest rule!" posts do give it a more hostile
tone. I'm not aware of any other subreddits with what amounts to hate-speech
being allowed on the front page.

Yes, we, the rest of the world understand that the 'religious issue' in the US
has become tied in with the 'political issue'. But (again speaking on behalf
of the rest of the world) we just wish the US would grow the @@@@ up and get
the @@@@ over it.

~~~
jkap
I was trying to make a joke about the addictiveness of reddit, but I agree,
several of the subreddits are just complete bigoted shit. I've taken to just
unsubscribing from them rather than getting angry everytime a post comes up.

------
program
Put on bigger controls for embedded devices that have no keyboard.

~~~
bwm
We'll be adding in swipe left/right controls for touch devices.

------
wasd
Down arrow isn't working for me. What is it supposed to do?

~~~
nostromo
Up shows comments on reddit. Down then hides those comments. Until you press
up, down doesn't do anything.

Btw: appropriate user name.

------
samnm
The only thing I really want is better urls. If I see an image/thread I want
to share I would love to just be able to simply copy the url.

------
jmau5
You must be against the advancement of the human race. Don't we all spend
enough time on Reddit already?

Just kidding, this is excellent. Great job!

------
nodata
1\. Make ESC close zoomed images.

2\. Let me get the URL of the reddit page somehow.

3\. Add tooltips for the arrows - what does the down arrow do?

------
monkeypizza
If you only want to see the images I made a bookmarklet [1] that inlines them,
& does imgur images smartly too. It's good for f7u12, at least.

[1] <http://fuseki.net/home/linked-images-bookmarklet.html>

------
malingo
Wow, the image came up when I first loaded that page was absolutely NSFW.
Yikes. Be careful.

~~~
nc
We've added a NSFW filter (based on whether a reddit post title has the word
NSFW in it). Should cut down a lot of those.

------
shaunpud
Seriously, I enjoy visiting HN and loading all the articles and comments in a
new tab that appeal to me then slowly going through them but since first
landing on this beauty I've been clicking through images for the last hour!

------
paintAcquaint
This site's really slick! Do you think you could add an auto-play feature so
it'll be a slideshow? I've got two monitors hooked up and it'd be a good
screen filler to have that just running on one screen.

~~~
artursapek
reddit/imgur might not like that.

------
dman7
Neat! Intuitive, no explanation needed except for the diagram of the arrow
keys below. Suggestion: Add a timer to show people how much time they waste
(of course, not everybody wants to see that).

------
denysonique
Would be cool if you added pushState or /#/ history. You can for example use
history.js: <https://github.com/balupton/history.js>

------
FigBug
I made something similar, but as a desktop app. It does all web pages, not
just images.

<https://github.com/FigBug/Allochthon/wiki>

------
fluidcruft
Thanks. There went 40min.

------
johtso
Slick site! It would be good if going back through the navigation history took
you through the images you had viewed. Currently it just goes in and out of
thread view.

------
mrphoebs
I love the interface. It would be great if you could add the ability to login,
upvote/downvote (near the comments icon). Realtime reddit content would be
great.

------
noonat
I like this a lot. It's very difficult to hit the arrow buttons on an iPhone,
though. An alternative navigation method or larger hit areas would be helpful.

------
nc
Thanks for the feedback!

We've pushed up a new version:

\- preloads the next image, slightly faster than before.

\- smarter ordering, the newest and best content is pushed in hourly.

\- finally, a tweet button to spread the love.

------
davidcollantes
I am in love with it. Never browsed Reddit with so much enthusiasm as I am
doing it now. Like it so much, I created an account; I never cared for one
before.

Thank you!

------
erenemre
Delicious. An easy up/down vote way would be great.

------
mrchess
Might defeat the purpose but you should add top comments as well. Part of the
fun of browsing is the added contextual humor :)

------
kcvv
I've been using <http://pics.fefoo.com> for a long time for the same purpose.

~~~
ananthdeodhar
I was going to mention pics.fefoo.com too, but you beat me to it. :)

------
cefarix
I just wasted 3 hours on this (in a good way).

------
MichaelApproved
Tech issue, can't scroll comments on the iPad.

~~~
8ig8
Confirmed. Came to log the same report.

I was happy to see the onscreen arrows since many experimental UIs seem to be
relying on the keyboard exclusively. I figured those keys meant some thought
went into iOS support.

Regardless, I'm still having fun just clicking thru the pics. Thanks.

------
lucisferre
Addictive is an understatement. You should all be killed before you murder and
further productivity!

Seriously, nice job, very cool.

------
lowglow
What about imgur's ad revenue? If you're circumventing that, then you're
shooting your very platform in the foot.

------
rheeseyb
Great job guys. Add in the support for subreddits and you've got yourself an
instantly addictive product!

~~~
nc
Why thank you sir.

------
realschool
My internet connection maybe slow, but there was a lot of load time between
pictures.

But did use it for like 10 minutes.

------
vivekjishtu
<http://pics.fefoo.com/>

I had made something similar a while back.

------
g3orge
wow. this is amazing, I always wanted some like this. Is there any way we can
choose subreddit?

------
dholowiski
So did I: <http://imgonly.info>

------
pentarim
Y u post it here instead of reddit? jackiechan.jpg (its nice btw :)

------
__abc
Isn't the addictive way to browse pictures on reddit, reddit?

------
ryanmarsh
Thank you, I just lost an hour of my life. Addictive, check.

------
jasimq
Good work. It's pretty clean.

Consider mapping a key to share links too

------
raheemm
Great site! What's the stack this is built on?

~~~
nc
Thanks! Ruby & CoffeeScript / Rails 3 & Backbone.js. Hosted on Heroku.

------
daniel_iversen
Awesome man, well done its so captivating!!

------
overworkedasian
you might as well use this: <http://imgur.com/gallery>

------
marknutter
Now all it needs is some good content

------
fbpcm
I love not having to use my mouse.

------
henryl
I would put the title on top.

------
shinji97
I think you need a favicon =)

------
vld
Make this for 9gag! Please.

------
overworkedasian
so basically, you are just relinking imgur images? really?

------
tr
you should show the top couple comments

------
gitarr
I do not like these kind of services because they take away ad revenue from
the sites providing and generating that content.

"Mongout" seems to do this for reddit and imgur, both sites where I willfully
disable my ad-blocker.

~~~
rplnt
And if the author didn't talk with imgur's owner then it's very likely his
domain will get banned (+bonus points for not linking to imgur). I know a site
which can't hotlink imgur images and I'd imagine there's plenty of them.

------
shubsengupta
I really like this idea and the simplicity of it! Great work, and can't wait
to see what future iterations bring!

------
wavephorm
Sorry, clicking next, and waiting 5 seconds before seeing the next image is
not what I'm after.

~~~
MrMatters
Weird. You only posted two minutes ago, but our experiences seem to have been
much different as it loaded the next images instantly for me. The only delay
was for comment pages, but that's to be expected.

------
jeffdechambeau
Something needs to happen when you fill the bar, otherwise, why is it
changing?

~~~
nc
Definitely. We'll probably add a counter next to it to show the number of sets
you've viewed (as suggested by franciscoapinto)

~~~
jeffdechambeau
More than that. Make it feel like I'm accomplishing something.

Outstanding job, the interface is as simple as it could be.

------
Baba_Chaghaloo
It is addictive but the little arrows are a pain on the iPhone.

