
Show HN: Autobahn - Save Time on Hacker News - vlad
http://vlad.github.com/autobahn
======
vlad
For the past three weeks, I've worked on a Google Chrome extension called
Autobahn that makes Hacker News even more awesome:

    
    
      - Ban stories by domain name
      - View user profiles in a popover
      - Links to comments and submissions in the popover
      - E-mails and urls in profiles are clickable
      - Twitter profile links and usernames
      - Follow button shown for twitter users
      - Photo shown for twitter users
    

Visit the web site: <http://vlad.github.com/autobahn>

See the screenshots and YouTube videos in the Google Chrome Store to get it or
learn more:

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dfpgenhhdldjhafbbk...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dfpgenhhdldjhafbbkodilldkedfgbbj)

Your feedback is appreciated!

~~~
scrrr
This isn't life-changing, but very convenient and unobtrusive in a good way.
Well done, vlad! :)

~~~
vlad
Thank you very much. That's what I wanted to release for version 0.1. :) Stay
tuned!

------
grantjgordon
Cool chrome extension, dude! You might want to reconsider the music on your
"save time on hacker news" video. It feels... like a sad foreign film about a
mime. It's entirely possible that you meant it to be a parody of an obvious
cultural reference that I'm missing, but I'm not sure this is the feeling you
want associated with your project.

~~~
Mithrandir
Note: it's this video
([http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=c...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=c8X80_038lU))
not this one
([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Jl7AW5gXIo&feature=relmf...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Jl7AW5gXIo&feature=relmfu)).
For me, the second video popped up first, so I was quite confused by your
comment.

Also, excellent job on the extension, vlad!

~~~
vlad
Thank you! It was over three weeks of work (mostly UI/visual/product design,
narrowing down features to launch with, testing, etc.) and I was freaking out
because it had no upvotes on the new page. :)

------
FrojoS
Does it support a view where you only see new posts since the last visit? Or
alternatively sort by the most recent posts?

This is something that bothers me. Say, there is an interesting discussion
with ~100 comments and I read all of them. Then I come back later to ~110
comments, I have to find the new comments manually.

------
someperson
This is pretty cool extension. I can finally block forbes.com :)

Though unfortunately it's not working for me on Lubuntu 11.10, Chromium.
("Lu15.0.874.106 (Developer Build 107270 Linux) Ubuntu 11.10"). Saving
preferences doesn't work - all choices just disappear after clicking 'save'...

Also feature request: I'd love to be able to highlight domains like I'm not
able to ban them.

My use-case is that there is a certain type of article by arstechnica, NYT
(and a few other sites) that have quality investigative/in-depth reporting
that I particular enjoy. Unfortunately, only small subset of those
publications total output is that kind of reporting, so I use HN as a filter.
This would allow me to quickly figure out what I want to read :-)

~~~
someperson
like I'm NOW* able to ban them

~~~
vlad
1) Are you using <http://news.ycombinator.com> or a forwarder like
hackrnews.com ?

2) Are you using the http version of news.yc ? Support for
<https://news.ycombinator.com> is coming in the next version (last time I
checked, only http was supported.)

Thanks!

~~~
someperson
Yep, using <http://news.ycombinator.com>

I can't seem to save any changes from the extension options (all unchecked.
Checking then saving just unticks everything).

I'll test on another setup in a few hours after work

~~~
someperson
Updated Lubuntu to 12.04 from 11.10. Extension works now. (Not exactly sure
what was going on..)

------
mrinterweb
A feature that I've wanted would be to add a link to hide articles you choose
to ignore. That way when you come back to the site a the second, third, forth,
Nth time of the day, you don't need to rescan the same links you have already
looked at.

~~~
danmaz74
You could find this useful: [http://blog.hashtagify.me/2012/05/27/save-time-
on-hacker-new...](http://blog.hashtagify.me/2012/05/27/save-time-on-hacker-
neww-mark-all-read/)

------
rcfox
Very nice! I'd prefer to see the user's karma on the little popup though,
rather than beside the link I clicked.

~~~
gala8y
Same here. Please show karma in the popup. Left lower corner (orange bar of
the popup where you have submissions and comments) seems perfect for this.

Edit: Only now I see that karma is shown next to user name (thought you were
not showing karma at all).

------
gioele
Why an extension and not a greasemonkey userscript?

------
chrischen
Suggestion: you should let me go to the actual HN user page.

~~~
vlad
Thanks! You can do the following:

1) Click Options under Autobahn in the list of installed extensions, and turn
the instant profile feature off (each feature has its own checkbox).

or

2) You can right-click a username and select Open Link in New Tab.

~~~
chrischen
I'd like to have the instant profile but also have the ability to go to the
user's hn profile.

------
Jd
I built something like this:

<https://github.com/fractastical/Hacker-News-Filter>

Filters by domain, keyword, and karma points.

On the friends branch you can also create your groups of friends and the main
page will show how many of your friends have commented on any given story.

~~~
vlad
Thanks. Autobahn does not make extra calls to Hacker News because Paul Graham
has voiced complaints about such behavior (e.g. scrapers). I've avoided
requesting additional pages beyond what the user normally navigates to.
However, new features are definitely coming!

I launched with many super-polished features in 0.1 and I will try to keep the
same standard. I'll check yours out!

~~~
Jd
Yep, I avoided scraping with the first version but with the friends feature it
was unavoidable -- that's why i've left it on a branch and haven't merged to
head yet; no easy solution there and I was in fact temporarily ip banned while
testing the features.

------
milkmiruku
Looks interesting, but I don't get the profiles in the latest Chromium
nightly, 22.0.1195.0 (145429).

~~~
MichaelGG
Same here, I'm running 20.0.1132 on Win7. (I also have Adblock, Ghostery, and
FB Disconnect installed, in case those are somehow creating some
interference.)

Edit: Nevermind. Figured out you have to click on the username. But, it also
intercepts middle-mouse clicks, so I can't quickly open in a new tab.

~~~
milkmiruku
Ah, bingo, got it, thanks.

------
nmcfarl
To connect some dots that were not clear to me: The user photos, are from
twitter, and are collected from links listed in your profile's about box.

Simple - but it took me a minute to connect all the dots...

------
chrischen
I installed it but it doesn't seem to be working. No errors in the background
html page for it either.

EDIT: nvm, I have to click on the username for the pop up thing.

------
vineet
Interesting.

However, more than filtering out the bad stuff I would love to see content
highlighted by one of the people whose opinions I am more interested in.

------
baseh
nice extension - the ban function is cool (now I can ban all that parse spam).
Popover function is great. There is one popover chrome addon called
ezlinkpreview that I use which is cool too(for bigger monitors) shows windows
side by side.

------
luastoned
Are you planning to add support for Firefox?

------
k33n
This is great!

~~~
vlad
Thank you!

------
altrego99
Can it be modified for Firefox too?

------
iamgopal
also could add "slow" update option which do not refresh stories for a long
time...

------
Mizza
This is a parody, right?

~~~
vlad
A parody of what? I'm not sure what you mean.

