We can't live without Hacker News (you probably can't either), but its lack of features can be frustrating. Go figure why developers have made alternate interfaces and Chrome extensions to improve the experience.

The newest Chrome extension adds tiny "tweet" links to the right of the comments in both the listing view and the discussion view [ see below ] so you can tweet an article without copying/pasting.

The tweet includes the article headline and the link to the original -- not HN -- so if you want to promote the HN discussion of your piece, you still have an extra step.

Developer/entrepreneur Wesley Zhao wrote the code in JavaScript in about an hour, he tells LAUNCH [ see his code on GitHub ]. He then posted the Chrome Store link to HN (of course).

"I constantly found myself seeing articles I liked and then going over to Twitter to copy paste the link, then look back to remember what the title was," he says.

Wesley will only add "via @hackernews" to the tweet if users request it.

In September, Wesley built a Chrome extension that turns the Facebook like button into a troll-like face with the words "me gusta." That extension has nearly 5K users.

As for what else he's working on, Wesley would only say a "sports startup."

If you want more Chrome Extensions for HN, check out these:

Hacker News (displays recent stories and submit current tab) -- 619 users

Hacker News One Page (list on the left, article or comments on the right) - 279 users

Hacker News Hotkeys (Gmail style hotkeys) -- 99 users

SCREEN SHOT

CONTACT INFO

Wesley Zhao
Email: wesley dot zhao at gmail dot com
Twitter: @wesleyzhao
GitHub: https://github.com/wesleyzhao
Blog: http://wesleyzhao.com

LAUNCH Blog