Hey all, I made a Firefox extension (signed by Mozilla) specifically to add Show/Hide Child Comments functionality similar to how RES had it (where the parent comment is still visible).

It’s not very useful, but I could use some feedback on tightening up the Javascript. I’m not a JS beginner, but I know I can do better, so any tips are welcome!

EDIT: Also, if anyone has any suggestions for the extension, I’m open to those as well.

  • cyberic@discuss.tchncs.de
    10·
    3 months ago

    I really miss the RES feature of keyboard navigation (mainly j, k, to move between posts.) Thanks for making this!

      • towerful@programming.dev
        1·
        3 months ago

        I haven’t tried this yet, but I’m excited for it’s potential.
        Having a bunch of RES-like enhancements with toggles, and the ability for users to (manually & anonymously, via a button) “submit” their preferences to a central database would be an awesome way to gather Lemmy user feedback on various upcoming features.
        This would give fantastic options for Lemmy developers to implement, popularity of features, and easy ways for users to choose what they want (as long as any permanent Lemmy implementations come with an enable/disable toggle)

    • kn0wmad1c@programming.devOPEnglish
      2·
      3 months ago

      Hey, just a heads up - I updated the extension to add some rudimentary keyboard navigation. Your j and k are there, and also you can use m to toggle the child comments for the selected comment.

      • Baizey@feddit.dk
        3·
        3 months ago

        If you wanna tighten up your extension build process feel free to steal my build setup :) (https://github.com/Baizey/UniversalAutomaticCurrencyConverter )

        It’s using esbuild and I’m using it to bundle for both chrome and Firefox separately (they expect slightly different manifest files), has multi entry points support (background, content, options and popup) and builds for ts/js

        • kn0wmad1c@programming.devOPEnglish
          1·
          3 months ago

          Your repo made me want to convert the extension to TS, which I’ve never written in before.

          So I did that, and I’m getting to learn a new syntax! Thanks :D

  • LarkinDePark@lemmygrad.ml
    3·
    3 months ago

    I tend to think that extensions for websites should be treated as feature requests by the website. Reddit for example should have just incorporated RES features.

    One I liked was tags for users to I could remember who they are better.

    • towerful@programming.dev
      5·
      3 months ago

      An extension is a great way for users to try features before companies implement them.
      I have huge respect for games that enable modding, then - respectfully - incorporate mod QoL features into the main game. It shows they are listening to the community.

      An extension is actually a great way to propose a feature, allow users to try it, and if it’s popular then you have a great case for devs to implement it.

      And I wish that Reddit had spent time & money implementing RES features natively. It was basically a “Reddit but useable” feature list.

      • v9CYKjLeia10dZpz88iU@programming.dev
        1·
        3 months ago

        I thought that the idea of just explaining to instance hosters that they can start user-like scripts on every page might be a good enough plugin system for LemmyUI until there’s more effort into a real plugin system. Users don’t have to install extensions, and people running instances can make decisions for improving the UI.

        With a centralized services like reddit, this doesn’t work very well. Though the fediverse allows lots of customizations when it’s related to themes.