
Show HN: Reddit Grid – A better way to browse subreddits that are very visual - epenance
https://redditgrid.com
======
SparkyMcUnicorn
I hate to be a downer, and I really like what you've made...

You're currently breaking the Reddit API access rules. In order to follow the
rules, you would need to name your app "Grid for Reddit" or something along
those lines.
[https://www.reddit.com/wiki/api](https://www.reddit.com/wiki/api)

Edit: I'm not sure how the API rules play out if you're not using the API
directly (like tacking on the json parameter), so maybe you're ok?

~~~
ringaroundthetx
Aside from a general PSA, who cares? Here are the TOS
[https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSezNdDNK1-P8mspSbmt...](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSezNdDNK1-P8mspSbmtC2r86Ee9ZRbC66u929cG2GX0T9UMyw/viewform)
the consequences are basically limited to them disabling API access until
compliance is restored.

Rules don't exist if there aren't consequences.

~~~
pretendscholar
It's polite to follow the rules when you build on top of someone else's work.

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winkywooster
Cool idea, but it'd be nice to be able to click on an image to take you back
to the comments page for it.

~~~
jzymbaluk
Definitely. This is a very pretty redesign, but I think the real secret sauce
of Reddit is post titles, and comments, and you definitely lose something not
being able to see either of those.

~~~
Mahn
Let's be honest though, this grid-like interface is going to be used mostly
for the NSFW subreddits, where the title and the comments aren't really that
important.

~~~
Uw7yTcf36gTc
how about for some sauce? yes, nsfw is the real use of this website, but I
think having a way to get to the comments that usually have the source is
missing a key part.

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TN1ck
Cool, really nice execution!

In my bachelor thesis I did some internal search-engine frontend some
gamification and the like. I recently came around to build a quick and dirty
reddit backend for the content, it also can be considered a visual browser for
subreddits. For anyone interested:

Github: [https://github.com/TN1ck/bachelor-
thesis](https://github.com/TN1ck/bachelor-thesis) Runs at: [https://bachelor-
tom-nick.herokuapp.com/#/](https://bachelor-tom-nick.herokuapp.com/#/)

It's in german though, but just click on 'Anmelden' and it should work, there
is no auth layer currently.

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ballenf
This basically turns reddit into Tumblr.

One request, a small border between images. Multi-image posts get so confusing
when you don't know where they stop until clicking. ("Is that cat part of the
joke above, because if so I don't get it?")

Name idea:

    
    
        greddit
        griddit

~~~
epenance
Actually wanted those names, but both domains were taken :(

~~~
antihero
griddet? grettid?

~~~
pavel_lishin
At that point, it's better to move off the "grid" idea; if I'm looking for
grid + reddit, I will not remember "griddet" or "grettid" (or was it grottid?
regreddit? griblets?)

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mmjaa
Nice .. but alas, it doesn't support chaining subreddits, e.g.
reddit.com/r/CabinPorn+LavaPorn .. that's kind of a neat feature in reddit
itself, so I'd request this also be possible in redditgrid too ..

~~~
wlkr
I may completely misunderstand what you mean because I'm not a frequent
Redditor but I was able to select multiple options for display in the grid, it
just seems some subreddits are not supported. E.g.
[https://redditgrid.com/r/geologyporn%2BCabinPorn](https://redditgrid.com/r/geologyporn%2BCabinPorn)

~~~
epenance
All reddit that has images should be supported even though it might not show
up in the search bar you can just add it to the url manually. Could get the
reddit endpoint for autocompleting subreddits to function so ended up making a
small database of my own with the the top 6k subreddits

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iamben
Can I second the request for gaps between the images - would really help
identify images that are split into frames. I'd also like a link to the
comments, and/or the title of the post - sometimes those are really relevant
(or required for part of the joke / explanation).

Otherwise really slick! Well done!

~~~
epenance
Maybe ill add that as a feature you can enable, it was actually there in my
prototype but i ended up removing it.

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anton_tarasenko
Very nice!

Imgur allows browsing Reddit subreddits too. For example:

* [https://imgur.com/r/dataisbeautiful/top/all](https://imgur.com/r/dataisbeautiful/top/all)

* [https://imgur.com/r/EngineeringPorn/top/all](https://imgur.com/r/EngineeringPorn/top/all)

* [https://imgur.com/r/TechnologyPorn/top/all](https://imgur.com/r/TechnologyPorn/top/all)

It shows only images hosted by Imgur. Supports Reddit-like path requests,
like:

* [https://imgur.com/r/dataisbeautiful/top/all](https://imgur.com/r/dataisbeautiful/top/all)

* [https://imgur.com/r/dataisbeautiful/hot/all](https://imgur.com/r/dataisbeautiful/hot/all)

* [https://imgur.com/r/dataisbeautiful/new](https://imgur.com/r/dataisbeautiful/new)

* [https://imgur.com/r/dataisbeautiful/top/month](https://imgur.com/r/dataisbeautiful/top/month)

~~~
falcolas
The imgur albums won't show what's posted directly to Reddit's image hosting
though, will they?

I'm at work and know Reddit's temperament for images, so I don't feel
comfortable comparing the output between the two services.

------
lurker-
This is really great, and surprisingly fast (images seem to load much faster
than on Reddit, at least for me).

Can you share more info about how/where it's hosted and the stack used
(besides angular)?

~~~
epenance
Angular in the frontend with state stored in a ngrx store, backend is a simple
api made with Laravel with some heavy caching in front to make it swift.

------
ZeeshanAK
This is beautiful. If you could also add the post caption on hovering the
image, it would be great.

~~~
kaliatech
Agreed. This is excellent, but being able to link back to the original post on
certain images would make it perfect.

~~~
epenance
That is indeed the next feature I'm working on :l

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mfoy_
How can you get to the related reddit discussion from a picture in your grid?
If I'm like 50+ images deep and I want to see what people said about it...
odds are browsing the actual subreddit is going to take ages.

~~~
epenance
There is a feature in the pipeline to add a link to the comments

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koolba
This is pretty cool. The NSFW side reminds me of PaintBottle[1].

[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5569546](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5569546)

------
zaidf
Hooked!

Btw, I notice a bunch of subreddits have the word "porn" at the end of their
name. Trimming that from the name may help you expand your audience. To give
you an example, I shared a link to
[https://redditgrid.com/r/AbandonedPorn](https://redditgrid.com/r/AbandonedPorn)
with a friend on fb only to have them reply: "I’m guessing this is not safe
for work".

~~~
rs232
All -porn subreddits are mirrored as -fans:
[https://redditgrid.com/r/AbandonedFans](https://redditgrid.com/r/AbandonedFans)
although sorting may vary.

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kowdermeister
This is brilliant :) Simple idea with great execution.

One feature request would be to add an autoplay functionality so I could
display it on a large projector for example.

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mistermann
Wow, this is really a simple concept but so visually impressive! Hope you add
some of the functionality people have listed here (easy chaining, ability to
click through, auto-scroll, I'd suggest adding even more transition types over
time). Seems like it chokes on certain subreddits, except if included as a
chain for some reason, but I imagine there are some bugs here and there to
work out.

Very good job!

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bllguo
Weird, I was just looking for something like this. Have you seen scrollldit?

Both that and this are missing the ability to go back to the comments though

~~~
epenance
Simply pressing the back button on your device should take you back, and also
just removing the subreddits in the top also takes you back.

As for the comments that is the feature im currently working on adding.

------
ubershmekel
I made something similar though not as good.

[http://redditile.com/r/food](http://redditile.com/r/food)

[https://github.com/ubershmekel/redditile](https://github.com/ubershmekel/redditile)

------
mrfusion
Wow this is way more useful:
[https://redditgrid.com/r/comics](https://redditgrid.com/r/comics)

Feels like reading the fumnys.

~~~
logicallee
no kidding. WOW!!! IMO this (
[https://redditgrid.com/r/comics](https://redditgrid.com/r/comics) ) needs to
be the frontpage of redditgrid. It immediately sells it 100%. then some text
saying what else you can look at.

so nice.

~~~
epenance
I'll make sure to add it tonight to the dashboard

~~~
logicallee
Hmmmm, I actually didn't mean "put it ON the front page" I was thinking "make
it the front page". As in, that should be the view that opens when visiting
the root - [https://redditgrid.com](https://redditgrid.com) should actually
open [https://redditgrid.com/r/comics](https://redditgrid.com/r/comics) and
require a click to get to the current dashboard.

Of course, you know best. I was thinking about how insanely well this view
sells your interface. At the moment if someone visits the root page, there is
at least 1 click/tap before an example is visible.

It's really obvious there is a lot more (since the current tags are very
prominent) so I recommend it.

But great job :)

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cgati
Nice work! I once made a similar page (although for a specific subreddit) to
show an endless page of perfectly looping gifs. It's certainly not perfect and
just a quick afternoon hack when I was first getting into JavaScript.. you may
have to resize the page to get the images to fill the screen at first.
[https://cgati.com/loops/](https://cgati.com/loops/)

------
insomniacity
Your SSL cert breaks on www.redditgrid.com. Obviously it's not what you
linked, but people will end up there eventually.

~~~
epenance
Thanks for pointing it out! Updated the certificate and now redirecting to
non-www always :)

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pavel_lishin
Out of curiosity, how are you generating the subreddit suggestions?

I added two game-centered ones, and all of my suggestions for more subreddits
are NSFW: [https://i.imgur.com/PWoBSg3.png](https://i.imgur.com/PWoBSg3.png)

~~~
IE6
This was essentially my comment. All of the suggestions that appeared in the
drop down were porn.

------
jesalg
Nice execution! I made something like this a long time ago:
[http://www.ruddl.com/](http://www.ruddl.com/) Although I haven't maintained
it in a while. Curious what kind of tech stack you are using?

~~~
epenance
Angular Frontend, Laravel backend with Memcache to control my caching

------
varikin
I would add some sort of nsfw filter. I click on SFW and Album Art
(/r/AlbumArtPorn) and the top post right now has the NSFW tag. Grid showed
that nice and big right at the top. Would be better to default to
blurring/hiding NSFW tagged posts.

~~~
epenance
Good point, I'll look into checking the NSFW tag on each post too

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overcast
Slick interface, needs subreddit chaining. Though I question the use of
"reddit" in the name. Not sure how hardcore they are with protecting
trademarks, but I wouldn't chance it. Probably also violating API rules.

~~~
epenance
It's already possible to chain subreddit just add a + between the names in the
url or use the search.

About the trademark ill definitely have to look into it, wanted griddit but it
was taken..

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guohuang
great idea! just one UI suggestion, can you blur the background when popping
up the image? that will make my eyes feel better.

other than that, great job!

~~~
epenance
It's done :)

~~~
guohuang
wow, that is quick, looks good, Thanks!

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kup0
Wow, I didn't realize how much I would like this, but for browsing art,
webcomics, and photography, it's perfect.

~~~
epenance
I'm really glad you liked it!

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Waterluvian
I went to the site, clicked "Earth", got a grid of cool images. Clicked
"Select Subreddits" to see what other options there are under this category.
All I get is a long list of porn subreddits. From a user experience POV that's
both not what I would expect the behaviour to be, nor would I ever want that
to be.

Porn is fine, but it shouldn't be so prevalent unless I specifically choose to
go into the NSFW area of your website.

~~~
logicallee
I completely agree with this. There is also a very prominent NSFW selector at
the top; I think it should default to OFF.

It really does a disservice to the web site to have it default to on.

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anotheryou
I want an option for rows or just one collumn. I always get confused scanning
without a clear view-order.

~~~
epenance
Ill make sure to add that option as a feature in the future!

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antihero
Ooh, it's like Panoptikos but supports HTTPS. It would be cool if gif autoplay
was an option.

~~~
epenance
I'll be adding that as a toggle feature :)

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digi_owl
Seems to not pick up the images hosted directly by Reddit under their
i.reddit.com url.

~~~
epenance
That is not unlikely, atm I'm writing models for each image host to make sure
i get all the edge cases, they are not very polite in how they return their
data :P

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Kaladin
Is the source code open source? It would be a great learning method for me.
Thank you.

~~~
epenance
At the moment the source is not open for the public, I might release it in the
future though

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chrixian
I like it.. you could probably apply a similar thing to Tumblr...

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gallerdude
Awesome experience, but I do wish you could do some level of sorting.

~~~
epenance
Its in the pipeline :) What kind of sorts would you like?

~~~
gallerdude
Personally, I only browse reddit using the top sorts (day, week, month, all),
and it's a cool way to know you're seeing the absolute best at different
scales.

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gremlinsinc
Wondering if/how you plan on monetizing this?

~~~
epenance
Currently the idea is to add enough features for people to think it's worth
something, other than that I've been thinking of adding coin-hive with a
option to opt out in case you are on a mobile or such

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5_minutes
It’s just great to see those NSFW there.

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ElectronShak
This is nice!

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rjplatte
Yet another hack to make porn on reddit easier.

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senectus1
awful to use on mobile...

~~~
epenance
What makes you say that?

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kevando
hahah I love Reddit.. SFW: 1 row. NSFW: 3 rows

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Dowwie
So essentially discard the community and hoard its content

