readReddit, Readable text posts on reddit

readReddit adds a pleasant and clutter free reading mode for reddit text posts and comments.

I greatly enjoy reading stories that are posted on subreddits like /r/WritingPrompts and /r/HFY. What I like less is reading these stories on my computer. Both old and new reddit put too much clutter around text and the formatting itself always feels less than ideal for long pieces of text.

A while ago I had a realization "I can fix this!", which is what I promptly set out to do. I started out with a bit of custom css, then I realized I could do better with some scripting. That sort of spiraled out of control and before I knew it I had made it in a full blown browser extension.

The extension takes text posts or each top level comment and transforms the text from the cluttered reddit format into a nice clutter free and better formatted overlay (see the screenshots).

It is even somewhat "smart" about how it grabs the text, so when you encounter one of those authors who needed to continue in the comments it will also include the text from those comments!