Products · Pattern or everyday thing
Plain text
Raised as a usability problem by 23 people on Hacker News over 15 years (2011–2025), in 19 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Plain-text emails look bad and are unreadable on mobile devicesUnreviewed
20112026- Plain text emails force copy-pasting links and images and show walls of unformatted text2024-05-07
- Plain text email makes it unclear how to add structure like paragraphs and headings, and how text should reflow2024-05-07
- Nested quotes wrap jumbled on small phone screens in plain-text email2022-09-12
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 24 complaints
- Wrapping existing code in a call needs many cursor moves, sometimes 10+ left-arrow presses2025-01-07
- Plain text email makes it unclear how to add structure like paragraphs and headings, and how text should reflow2024-05-07
- Plain text emails force copy-pasting links and images and show walls of unformatted text2024-05-07
- Forgets the custom commands and scripts, especially when tired or stressed2023-06-19
- Hard to navigate and query entries quickly; too many added tools2023-06-19
- Can't find a way to register callbacks on file save2023-05-21
- Nested quotes wrap jumbled on small phone screens in plain-text email2022-09-12
- Plain text is hard to read on phones, ultra-wide screens, and RTL languages, and fails screen readers2022-09-12
- Can't access subscription page to cancel or update; contact link broken2022-06-02
- Sections are unlabelled, making screen reader navigation harder, and ASCII art is read aloud2022-03-21
- Fixed 13px font and pixel max-width make text too small and layout unreadable on the user's display2022-03-21
- Manually copying unfinished items and carrying todos over each day is tedious2021-12-23
- Raw HTML with postprocessing was a pain to read, so the author couldn't manage their narrative2021-04-07
- Transactions are hard or impossible to sort, so browsing by date or account needs extra tooling2021-01-13
- Plain text pages render at default mobile width, making text super annoying to read2020-05-09
- Can't easily view or edit plain text todo lists on phone or work computer2019-12-02
- Plain-text emails look bad and unreadable on mobile devices2019-07-24
- People misstate tabular data and struggle to make lists in plain text2019-07-24
- Browsing linked notes is clunky to unusable in plain text2019-04-14
- Attaching metadata to code in plain text adds visual and syntax clutter2018-04-03
- Config syntaxes vary widely, so mistakes are easy to make and hard to debug2017-04-04
- Must manually add newlines inside paragraphs, making editing frustrating2015-04-18
- Editing with two plain text editor windows side by side was clunky2014-05-07
- Unhelpful 'page expired' error after submitting a screenshot quickly2011-04-06