Submitted by Sueann on 02/02/2010.
I notice that I can't read some posts. If you go down "recent posts" you will see several posts that when you click on them, you go to the top of Dan's post ("Find a virtual slapper...), but it doesn't take you to the post itself, just to Dan's lo....ong original post. Then you can't find the new post because, since you've already opened that page, it doesn't get that orange "New" on it any more. George, can you fix that somehow? I have no idea how these things work. BTW, it only seems to happen if I am trying to read something in Dan's thread.
I am having the EXACT same
Submitted by brooks30 on
I am having the EXACT same problem....please help George!!
By the way thanks in advance :)
The problem is that the links
Submitted by RowdyD on
The problem is that the links don't work for any other than the first page of a thread. This has been going on for a long time and is very frustrating. In order to actually find the message you want to see, you have to go manually to page 2 or 3 and search by titles. Very time consuming!
How things work on this site (and upcoming improvements)
Submitted by admin on
I suspect you are describing the "blocks" on the right side of many of the pages (e.g., "Blog Categories", "Recent blog posts", "Recent Comments", "Active Forum Topics" and "Recent Forum Topics"). Each of these work differently.
First - how the content is organized.
Blog posts are created by Melissa and some guest bloggers, like 'Arwen'. All registered users can comment on these posts, but cannot create a post.
Everyone who is registered can create their own forum "topic" in one of the "topic areas". Registered users can then also comment on these topics.
So there are "Blog Posts" and "Forum Topics", and then comments associated with each. Post and Topics both have categories to help organize them thematically.
Comments can be displayed as "threaded" (replies to comments are "nested" with the comment against which the reply was posted) or "flat" (all the comments are listed in chronological order). You have control over this by a small control at the top of the comments.
Navigation Blocks
"Blog Categories" - This displays links to the categories describing the blog posts.
"Recent blog posts" - This displays the most recent blog posts.
"Recent Comments" - This will take you directly to the comment. I believe this is the functionality you described in your post. Your browser does open the blog or forum post, and then immediately and automatically should scroll you directly to the comment location. If this does not work for your particular browser, please let me know (I have tested it in all the browsers available to me - IE7/8, FF3x, Safari, Opera, and this seems to work in all of them). This is the only block that takes you directly to the comment. All the rest take you to the top of the form topic or blog post.
"Active Forum Topics" - This displays the forum topics that have new comments.
"Recent Forum Topics" - This displays the most recent new forum topics.
Planned enhancements:
I have developed and working in a test site new features that provide more navigation options. Separately for blog posts and forum topics, there will be blocks that list the "Most Recent", "Most Read", and "Most Commented" posts, and these will be "pageable", so you can see the first ten, and then page to the next ten, and so forth.
Recent comments will also have a "paging" function to be able to access far more than just the last ten. Again, the comments are the only link that will take you directly to the comment, rather than the top of the page.
Was this clear? Do you still have questions about the existing functionality? Other than spelling (also in the test site), do you have other requests? We had "voting/recommending" on posts, but no one participated in the past.
George
It would be nice if the forum
Submitted by Clinging to Life on
deleted. see reason at this link
If I understand the previously posted issue correctly,
Submitted by Aspen on
I think the problem is in using the link under "recent comments" to take you directly to that post. I use IE 7 (I think) and it generally does not take me to a new post that is located on page 2 or 3 of a long topic. I have gotten to the point of ignoring any comment that takes me to the top of page 1 of Dan's mammoth "Virtual Slapper" topic because it is like wading through mud to find the new post....apologies to those who've put time and effort into your posts in that topic, but there is just too much scrolling to get to the new post by this point.
The "recent comments" is actually my favorite section and is generally the only one I use when I come to the site to see what I've missed over the last several days. It is fine as it stands, but I would love the option to scroll back even further since sometimes when I log on everyone of those comments is new to me. It makes me wonder how many others are new that I am not seeing but generally not enough to go searching through the topics to find out....ok I'll cop to the laziness :) (and now the extra dose of laziness of not reading all the way through the planned enhancements section to see that you already have this in testing--THANKS)
A quote function would be nice as I tend to try to use the exact wording I am responding to in my answer, but it isn't a big problem to copy/paste if it is cumbersome to add it.
You are doing a great job with the site George. Thanks for the hard work! We appreciate having this forum to come to!! I notice that the ADD forums I check out in general have very poor participation, so I really appreciate having this one.
Aspen exactly states the problem
Submitted by RowdyD on
and I agree with her post in every respect. I use Safari, and clicking on the link in Recent Comments takes me directly to the post ONLY if it's on page 1 of the thread. I've also given up searching for the posts on subsequent pages.
Thanks, George, for addressing this. I appreciate your work to keep the site going, as it's been a tremendous help to me. And I appreciate all those who make helpful and respectful posts.
Question about forum tab
Submitted by RowdyD on
George, is it also theoretically possible to track comments through using the Forum tab at the top of the blog's page? From using that tab some, it looks to me as if posts should also be listed there as "new," but I often don't find recent comments there. This could also be a way to find comments I've missed out on. For example, shouldn't I be able to find the recent comments that appear on pp. 2 or 3 of a thread there? Or comments I may have missed out on when there's a flurry of new comments since my last visit? I don't find them there either.
Is there a key for what the little icons mean on the forum page?
Change in "recent comment" functionality
Submitted by admin on
You will notice a change in the "recent comments" block on the right side of the page. Before, it should only the last 10 comments. Since we have had quite a bit of activity recently, that would list only the last few hours, and there was no way to find recent comments made immediately before these last ten.
The block now lists the last twelve comments, with a "view more" link to a page that has the last 180 days of comments, 20 to a page, in reverse chronological order.
With respect to the issue of clicking on the comment link and being taken to the top of the post rather than directly to the comment, I did verify that this functionality works fine in Firefox and Internet Explorer 7, but does not work in Chrome and Safari (these both use the same webkit html rendering engine). I will try to determine why, and whether there is an alernative solution for getting you directly to the comment location (without switching to Firefox).
Doesn't work for me
Submitted by RowdyD on
I'm using Firefox, and I still can't get beyond the first page of the thread by clicking on the most recent comment.
Thanks for trying to fix this, George. I feel sorry for the people whose posts don't get read because of this problem, but for me it's just too frustrating to have to search so hard to find them.
comment navigation bug fixed
Submitted by admin on
For those of you who were having trouble getting directly to the comment from the "recent comments" block on the right side of the page (rather, you were being taken to the top of the page), I just fixed that bug. I found one line of code that kept some browsers from navigating directly to the comment, and it should now be fixed. Try it an let me know if you are still having issues.
Melissa and I are still working on a major overhaul of the site (including technology updates, layout and design refinements, and adding requested features), but neither Melissa nor I have had the time to complete it. She has been busy finishing her book (writing is done - just detailed layout and typography left), and I have been somewhat consumed with my day job.
George, it didn't help
Submitted by Sueann on
Thanks for trying to fix the bug. (I'm the one who started this thead). I clicked on the most recent post (Lost) and it took me to the top of that thread just like before. I use internet explorer 8, I think. I know you work really hard for no pay and all of us appreciate it, but you did ask if it was better.
Try now
Submitted by admin on
The reason it didn't work for you in this instance was that the comment was on "page 2" of the blog post. This post had over 50 comments. The setting of "comments per page" was at 50 (not thinking that any post would ever reach 50 comments). I increased the default setting to 200. Now, clicking on the "lost" comment should take you directly to the post in all browsers. If you have adjusted your own "comments per page" to 50 (that is a user-by-user customizable setting), then setting it to 200 will solve the problem for you on these lengthier posts. Let me know if this does not work for you.
Cool, that works
Submitted by Sueann on
I was originally having the most problem with Dan's thread (Find a Virtual Slapper...) because it is huge! I didn't understand why that one and not the others, but it must have had over 50 posts.
George, I don't know you, but thanks for all you do.
Admin Question
Submitted by Sueann on
George, why do some posts appear vertical? By that I mean one word then the next word underneath it, like a string, instead of being written across the the page? I don't think it's my computer because I've seen it on library computers as well. No biggie, just asking. I usually don't end up reading those posts because it's harder.
narrow comments "fixed" on site
Submitted by admin on
A made some design changes that should keep the deeply-threaded comments from appearing too narrow (I think this is what you are seeing). I have decreased the indent for each level of nested comments, and for nesting more than 6 deep, the indent is narrowed even further.
Also, I have added a vertical grey line next to each indent. Hopefully, people will realize that we do have threaded comments, and they should respond to the appropriate comment or original post, rather than where-ever they happen to be. Hopefully, that will make comments more legible and make following complex threads a little easier.
If this doesn't fix it for you, please let me know what you are seeing and where.
Hopefully, this and these changes have improved usability somewhat.
George
I can't / not able to reply
Submitted by going crazy on
I can't / not able to reply to original blog posts. There is no reply button until someone else replies then I can reply to the reply. Is there a reason why?
Thanks
Threaded comments
Submitted by admin on
Got it. Thank you.
Submitted by going crazy on
Got it. Thank you.