3 ms·

I'm not a fan of the style that threaded discussions have (too much padding, and I'm not sure about arrows too), but I always wanted to experiment with that sor

I'm not a fan of the style that threaded discussions have (too much padding, and I'm not sure about arrows too), but I always wanted to experiment with that sort of arrangement of messages, where long chain of one-on-one replies does not get pushed to the right but instead have some sort of linear representation. Will definitely have a closer look on that software. Edit: what this implementation of threads lacks though is an ability to fold all sibling messages before the one that I'm interested in, so that I can have a quick look at the context and avoid a lot of manual scrolling and folding myself. Most implementations (like here on HN for instance) only do folding of child messages, which I personally find a bit less useful.

KajMagnus 7y ago
> too much padding I've been thinking about that — after all, Reddit with its concise design, is pretty nice. I'd want there to be an optional concise theme, so Talkyard could look more like HN or Reddit, for those who prefer that. > fold all sibling messages before the one that I'm interested in Where could be a good place to place a Fold-all-siblings button? There is a Fold-whole-thread button already at the top of each post, to the right of the author name (it looks like: ^ and to un-fold: v ), ... ... but if one has scrolled down a bit, and want to fold all siblings, when the parent post is a bit away, then, could be impractical to have to scroll up to it, and click a button up there? Maybe clicking the arrow could open a power user menu, with "Scroll to parent" as the default, and also a "Collapse siblings" button? Example: If you go here: https://insightful.demo.talkyard.io/-9#post-24 https://insightful.demo.talkyard.io/-9#post-24 and click the arrow to the left, maybe this poweruser popup menu could open? And / or you have other ideas? :- )
- vthriller 7y ago
  I think "show me every parent message prior to this one" would be a better way to describe the feature that I occasionally miss in every implementation of threaded conversations. Sibling folding is just one of the ways to implement that. The problem is that in very large threads it's quite hard to remind yourself about the context of the conversation that you're currently reading: you either need to scroll a lot to get to some grand-grandparent and back, or start manually folding messages above, one by one, subthread by subthread, until the context gets uncluttered. Let met illustrate what I was describing: https://i.imgur.com/pm1SIRJ.png?r https://i.imgur.com/pm1SIRJ.png?r (You could imagine way more replies in those shaded areas—a situation that is not that uncommon here on HN.)
  - KajMagnus 7y ago
    > remind yourself about the context of the conversation > Let met illustrate [...] Thanks for showing / clarifying. I have the precise same problem (here at HN mostly). > "show me every parent message prior to this one" > Sibling folding is just one of the ways to implement that. 3 ideas: 1. What if, at the top of the page, there were buttons like "Scroll to parent"? So that when you look up, to see if you can see the parent post there somewhere, then, instead you see a "Scroll to parent" button. — Once one has scrolled to the parent, maybe to the grandparent, there's a Back button to scroll back down and continue reading. 2. What about keyboard shortcuts? If you click 'P', the page could scroll to the Parent. 'P' once more, scrolls to the grandparent. 'B' scrolls back down to the parent, 'B' again scrolls back so you can continue reading. (But how would Talkyard know which post, of many, you're reading, if the screen is large? How know which parent, of many possible, you have in mind? Maybe there could be one Scroll to Parent button per indentation depth) 3. A button "Show ansectors", for every post. Click it, and Talkyard would popup a dialog, with all ancestors (parent, grandparent, ...) and you could scroll up-up-up inside the dialog and have a look, and close it, once you're done reading — without affecting your scroll position on the "real" page.
    - vthriller 7y ago
      > 2. What about keyboard shortcuts? That just would not work on smartphones. > But how would Talkyard know which post, of many, you're reading, if the screen is large One way is to implement arrow-key navigation and highlight current message in some way (border, bgcolor or whatever), but I'm not sure if that would work well outside of some special keyboard-centric navigation mode designed to cater to fans of software like mutt or vimperator. Zulip comes to mind: in there selected message affects what topic people are going to reply into, and if people are not used to that feature (or to the idea of chats with topics in general), they can easily dismiss or fail to notice that very selection and treat the input box just like they would that in any other chat app, which would result in misdirected replies. Some teams are fine with spending some time babysitting the conversation (change topics of other people's replies after the fact, teach colleagues how to use that particular software etc.), but others would just switch to simpler software, with flatter conversations and/or less navigation features. > 1. What if, at the top of the page, there were buttons like "Scroll to parent"? Do you talk about the very top of the whole page (scroll position 0) or about sticky header at the top of the viewport? If it's the latter, then it's going to be as problematic as keyboard shortcuts (i.e. can't decide which message's parent we need to jump and where to return to). > 3. A button "Show ansectors", for every post. Click it, and Talkyard would popup a dialog, with all ancestors (parent, grandparent, ...) That implementations seems to be both the most robust and the easiest to implement.

KajMagnus 7y ago

> too much padding I've been thinking about that — after all, Reddit with its concise design, is pretty nice. I'd want there to be an optional concise theme, so Talkyard could look more like HN or Reddit, for those who prefer that. > fold all sibling messages before the one that I'm interested in Where could be a good place to place a Fold-all-siblings button? There is a Fold-whole-thread button already at the top of each post, to the right of the author name (it looks like: ^ and to un-fold: v ), ... ... but if one has scrolled down a bit, and want to fold all siblings, when the parent post is a bit away, then, could be impractical to have to scroll up to it, and click a button up there? Maybe clicking the arrow could open a power user menu, with "Scroll to parent" as the default, and also a "Collapse siblings" button? Example: If you go here: https://insightful.demo.talkyard.io/-9#post-24 https://insightful.demo.talkyard.io/-9#post-24 and click the arrow to the left, maybe this poweruser popup menu could open? And / or you have other ideas? :- )

vthriller 7y ago
I think "show me every parent message prior to this one" would be a better way to describe the feature that I occasionally miss in every implementation of threaded conversations. Sibling folding is just one of the ways to implement that. The problem is that in very large threads it's quite hard to remind yourself about the context of the conversation that you're currently reading: you either need to scroll a lot to get to some grand-grandparent and back, or start manually folding messages above, one by one, subthread by subthread, until the context gets uncluttered. Let met illustrate what I was describing: https://i.imgur.com/pm1SIRJ.png?r https://i.imgur.com/pm1SIRJ.png?r (You could imagine way more replies in those shaded areas—a situation that is not that uncommon here on HN.)
- KajMagnus 7y ago
  > remind yourself about the context of the conversation > Let met illustrate [...] Thanks for showing / clarifying. I have the precise same problem (here at HN mostly). > "show me every parent message prior to this one" > Sibling folding is just one of the ways to implement that. 3 ideas: 1. What if, at the top of the page, there were buttons like "Scroll to parent"? So that when you look up, to see if you can see the parent post there somewhere, then, instead you see a "Scroll to parent" button. — Once one has scrolled to the parent, maybe to the grandparent, there's a Back button to scroll back down and continue reading. 2. What about keyboard shortcuts? If you click 'P', the page could scroll to the Parent. 'P' once more, scrolls to the grandparent. 'B' scrolls back down to the parent, 'B' again scrolls back so you can continue reading. (But how would Talkyard know which post, of many, you're reading, if the screen is large? How know which parent, of many possible, you have in mind? Maybe there could be one Scroll to Parent button per indentation depth) 3. A button "Show ansectors", for every post. Click it, and Talkyard would popup a dialog, with all ancestors (parent, grandparent, ...) and you could scroll up-up-up inside the dialog and have a look, and close it, once you're done reading — without affecting your scroll position on the "real" page.
  - vthriller 7y ago
    > 2. What about keyboard shortcuts? That just would not work on smartphones. > But how would Talkyard know which post, of many, you're reading, if the screen is large One way is to implement arrow-key navigation and highlight current message in some way (border, bgcolor or whatever), but I'm not sure if that would work well outside of some special keyboard-centric navigation mode designed to cater to fans of software like mutt or vimperator. Zulip comes to mind: in there selected message affects what topic people are going to reply into, and if people are not used to that feature (or to the idea of chats with topics in general), they can easily dismiss or fail to notice that very selection and treat the input box just like they would that in any other chat app, which would result in misdirected replies. Some teams are fine with spending some time babysitting the conversation (change topics of other people's replies after the fact, teach colleagues how to use that particular software etc.), but others would just switch to simpler software, with flatter conversations and/or less navigation features. > 1. What if, at the top of the page, there were buttons like "Scroll to parent"? Do you talk about the very top of the whole page (scroll position 0) or about sticky header at the top of the viewport? If it's the latter, then it's going to be as problematic as keyboard shortcuts (i.e. can't decide which message's parent we need to jump and where to return to). > 3. A button "Show ansectors", for every post. Click it, and Talkyard would popup a dialog, with all ancestors (parent, grandparent, ...) That implementations seems to be both the most robust and the easiest to implement.