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I just want to say that you NAILED a UX issue I see with Hackernews comments, at least for me - when I am reading through the comments on a HN post, I often fin
by Nemi 6y ago
I just want to say that you NAILED a UX issue I see with Hackernews comments, at least for me - when I am reading through the comments on a HN post, I often find myself several layers deep into a conversation that I realize I am not interested in any more. Either some facet of the topic, or maybe a side conversation (like the one we having now about HackerDaily). I want to "jump out" of this conversation and back to the "main topic", but I have to scroll up until I get to root of this topic and click the collapse sign (-) next to the parent to easily get to the next conversation tree. However, I may be pages and pages down from where this conversation started and have to page up and up and up. Alternatively, I can page down and down and down to try to find where this topic ends. Neither works very well.
But what you do is provide a line of minus signs (-) at the top left that grows and shrinks with the tree and at any time I can click one of these to collapse a parent post! This is great! Being a UX aficionado I am tickled that you have not only seen the same pain, but found an elegant solution for it. Well done!
- 0-_-0 6y agoIsn't that the same thing that the [-] sign doesn in HN? Works the same way for me.
- Nemi 6y agoBut scroll down. As you scroll down, the line of minus signs grows. When you are 6 comments deep into a conversation (where each comment is a reply to the last. The comments are all indented to the right), there is a line of 6 minus signs at the top left (------). If you click on the second minus sign on the left, it collapses the conversation up to that parent without having to scroll up to that level.
- 0-_-0 6y agoI see! I can see the - signs but clicking them does nothing...
- Nemi 6y agoYeah, I had this problem too on one page. I clicked on another article and it worked. Looks like it is a little buggy (founder take note!)
- RubenvanE 6y agoYes, I am aware of the issue (see my recent comment on one of the parent comments). I am afraid that it is an issue with the way some browsers render the CSS sticky position. If you have any CSS knowledge, I would greatly appreciate your input! For my information, which browser do you use?
- 0-_-0 6y agoI tried both Google Chrome and Firefox (also, Brave)
- RubenvanE 6y agoThank you, this truly warms my heart! I have poured too many hours of my life into this little detail. It still doesn't work great though: 1. It is hard to click on on mobile devices 2. It sometimes renders behind the comment or is not clickable (not always, just sometimes). I am afraid this has something to do with the way browsers render the CSS sticky position, so I might not be able to fix this. I am not very experienced in CSS though, so if you've any advice on how to fix this I would truly appreciate it! Because of the above two issues I might need to go back to just a fixed minus button. :(
- dang 6y agoMy current thought about how to fix this is to have a link called 'parent' or 'up' next to each comment timestamp. Clicking on it would scroll you one level up. Disadvantage: you'd have to click it once for each level you want to go up. Advantage: it's simpler than any alternative I know of. What percentage of this problem would that fix?