App: Comments Owl for Hacker News
Developer: Jonathan Buchanan
Genres: Utilities

Browser extension which makes it easer to follow Hacker News comments threads across multiple visits, by automatically highlighting new comments and showing which items have new comments. It also adds the ability to annotate and mute other users, plus other UX tweaks.

Features:

List pages

• Show new comment counts since you last viewed each item - clicking on the "X new" link will highlight new comments and collapse trees without any new comments
• Prevent accidental flagging and hiding on mobile by making the "flag" and "hide" controls require confirmation, or hiding them

Item pages

• Highlight new comments and collapse trees without any new comments when you revisit an item - you can configure whether or not this happens automatically when you revisit without using an "X new" link
• Default comment folding controls are replaced with a Reddit-style left-aligned control, with a slightly larger hit target
• Manually highlight the X most-recent comments if it's your first visit or there are no new comments to show
• Mute users to hide their comments and replies to them - muted users can be managed on your own profile page
  • Logged out users get a new 'muted' link in the header they can use to manage their muted users
• Add notes to users on their profile page - the first line will be displayed next to their comments
• Toggle display of "reply" links below comments, to make more room for comments on the screen
• Increased distance between the upvote and downvote arrows at mobile sizes
• Increase the contrast of submission text

Navigation

• Hide navigation links you don't use
• Add an "upvoted" link to the navigation for more convenient access to items you recently upvoted
• Improved mobile navigation - navigation links are displayed underneath other header contents

Release notes:
• Added an option to disable or require confirmation for hiding on list pages
• Added an option to increase the contrast of submission text (enabled by default)