
The Webpage, an online RSS reader and news aggregator, styled like a newspaper - DarkCrusader2
https://news.russellsaw.io
======
arussellsaw
Hello! author here, i just wanted to address a few things i've seen in the
comments:

* i absolutely built this for fun, it's an idea i had late at night and needed to scratch that itch

* the scolling sucks, laying out arbitrarily sized articles into a given layout is a challenge, and the scrolling hides a lot of the sins. I'm going to switch to truncating articles this evening, and linking to a single article page.

* thanks for the suggestions on hyphenation, i've been playing with a few different approaches but none have worked with all the browsers i tried, i'll give a few suggestions a go this evening!

~~~
bovermyer
Have you tried using a CSS "masonry" approach to address the varying sizes of
the articles?

For example: [https://w3bits.com/css-masonry/](https://w3bits.com/css-
masonry/)

~~~
pp19dd
Also, check out Isotope. Seems to handle different-sized "cells" fairly neatly
- [https://isotope.metafizzy.co/layout-
modes.html](https://isotope.metafizzy.co/layout-modes.html)

------
chrismorgan
The content is wrapping at every character, rather than on word boundaries or
with hyphenation.

The relevant styles:

    
    
      .subcol {
        hyphens: auto;
        word-break: break-all;
      }
    

`word-break: break-all` should be replaced with `overflow-wrap: break-word`.
Those two properties are quite subtle in their meaning and interactions.

~~~
gedy
Also toss in for full effect:

    
    
        text-align: justify;
        -webkit-hyphens: auto; /* Safari */

------
rob74
Looks cool, just one suggestion about the photos: that effect looks like the
dithering of a dot matrix printer and not like a newspaper photo, for that I
would go with this kind of effect:
[https://i.pinimg.com/474x/9d/76/f0/9d76f0c303e7ea8352d10465d...](https://i.pinimg.com/474x/9d/76/f0/9d76f0c303e7ea8352d10465d8462b5d.jpg)
\- I think it's called a "screening" effect?

~~~
xori
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halftone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halftone)

They used to generate this by holding a "screen" up to create the grid.

------
rchaud
I remember the Wall Street Journal's tablet apps having a layout just like
this, so it resembled their broadsheet look. It was a pleasure to read, as
clicking on individual stories took you to the full story, still laid out like
a newspaper, and not to their website inside of a web wrapper view.

For whatever reason, they changed that and now the app looks like their
website, except with more ads and tracking.

------
metabagel
You might have to be a subscriber to access it, but I suggest taking a look at
the L.A. Times enewspaper for inspiration. It’s like a full color scan of the
newspaper. If you click in an article, you are taken to a separate page to
read the article in full.

[https://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/latimes/default.aspx...](https://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/latimes/default.aspx?pubid=50435180-e58e-48b5-8e0c-236bf740270e)

~~~
jsmith45
Wow. clearly designed only for touch screens. Needing to click and drag the
mouse to pan on a desktop is absolutely terrible.

------
ape4
Could work nicely with that eink project that was showing the NY Times full
size.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22831323](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22831323)

------
wtmt
Not sure if I’d use it with the scrolling, since this format is ill suited for
smaller screens, but I love this idea!

One more suggestion for you to consider: a variant where each article is a
link that takes the reader to a separate article page (like a normal web page)
may be good. The use case is to have this print layout to skim through
headlines and snippets, and dig into an article by itself if one wants to read
more (and the article doesn’t fit within the non-scrolling area).

------
jrochkind1
I'm interested in the concept, but I think the execution needs some
improvement to be comfortable. For instance, no actual online newspaper right
now has internal scrollbars; there are probably reasons for this.

Online newspapers look something like print newspapers, but the most
successful designs are successful at adapting the design for the particular
affordances of the screen. (Granted, internal scrollbars ARE something you
can't do in print, unique to the screen! They just aren't, I think, something
anyone wants...)

------
ahuth
This is really cool! It would be nice to see h tags used for article headings.
That way people using assistive technology can navigate around faster.

And this may be a good opportunity to use the article tag.

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btbuildem
Newspapers have margins!

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Aeolun
This seriously needs some paragraph breaks in the articles. Every article
reads like one huge sentence.

I think print newspapers do this with a slight indent to every paragraph.

------
jaspax
"RSS Feeds for the 20th Century" feels pretty dated. I want to see "RSS Feeds
for the 19th Century".

------
leshokunin
Love the idea. Really hard to navigate and read, because content ends up in
little boxes. But I love it as a bit of fun!

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anigbrowl
I do not hate it despite its limitations

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neilsense
I got caught out by the nested scrolling

------
heinrichhartman
Pretty sure it violates copyright of the publishers.

Given that Google is not allowed to show more than the headline and a few
words in their search results in the EU, I suspect this is just plain illegal.

This is sad. We should have better laws. Hope you don't get sued.

EDIT: Please let me know if my understanding is incorrect.

------
saadalem
Woooooooooooooooooow. I could be downvoted, but I can't say nothing other than
that. WELL DONE !

------
Leths
Hi, this was fantastic but it doens't work anymore. Any reason why? Victim of
success ?

------
donohoe
If you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all :)

That said; I've been on HN long enough where news sites (some of which I
worked at) took this approach on some products where they directly took print-
styles and applied them digitally. They were vocally criticized (rightly so)
for completely mis-understanding the new digital medium.

This is a fun and interesting project - buts its entirely unusable and
provides a very poor reading experience.

Among many other points, it misses the point that the full-page physical
newspaper was entirely scannable in large areas. This is the opposite of that.

Kudos to the developer trying something for fun but I hope this isn't a
serious approach to reading news.

~~~
metabagel
The L.A. Times has a really polished version of this, which I sometimes prefer
over the regular articles. It has the effect of a full color scan of the
entire newspaper. If you click in an article, you are taken to a standalone
page for reading. You might have to be a subscriber to access it.

------
gregoire
Reminds me of this old Mac and iPad app:
[https://acrylicapps.com/pulp/](https://acrylicapps.com/pulp/)

------
chadlavi
Would love to be able to use a personalizable version of this

------
agumonkey
Funny how this is a good settling of information presentation .. most websites
are low signal high noise (visuals count as noise for me now, I'm old).

------
iamshs
I love it. Instant fan. Different experience than usual.

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newsrss
Unfortunately images look like crap, due to them being way too low resolution.

Probably because the images used are dithered and upscaled from small original
images.

------
shanecleveland
I've always loved the idea of having a personally-curated newspaper laid out
in the traditional way. This could be fun. Thanks for sharing.

------
azmodeus
Feels great not having the usual information overload that websites have.
Lovely project well done!

------
chanmad29
This looks so much like an e-paper but only better and way easier to navigate!

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baybal2
I wonder, can somebody turn it into an XSL stylesheet?

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bobbydreamer
Good work. Scrolling was tricky in mobile.

~~~
floatingatoll
Phone or tablet?

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quaffapint
What, no comics?

~~~
ccozan
Or the crosswords section?

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pseingatl
Offline already?

------
totetsu
Interesting, but hard to read.

~~~
DagAgren
It takes a lot of work, in terms of text content editing, typography and
layout to make a newspaper actually readable. It is a lot of work, and takes a
lot of very specialised skill.

This page does none of that, and it makes something that is otherwise very
invisible suddenly come into stark contrast when it is missing.

------
chimen
A scroll trap

