taiga forum

2011-04-05 07:56:25 pm

just pushed out a minor update to unread view. now unread view never automatically refreshes. the number of unread threads in both the title and the top right of the page still changes, so you can tell when there are new unread threads without even switching to the tab. then a simple manual reload will show them. this should take care of the performance issues/massive waste from it reloading all the time even when no one is looking.

it may take a few hours for this update to take effect.

arkarian

2011-04-05 08:30:38 pm

red chamber dream

btw this is just a temporary fix until we redesign unread view. if anyone has any input on how they think unread view should work it would be greatly appreciated.

tomatobob

2011-04-05 09:08:19 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

What do you figure needs redesigning with unread view? I guess I can only really comment on the look of it, but it looks ok, kind of like an extended forum index. Though looking at it now I have to wonder if three links to the first unread post in a thread is really necessary.

Admittedly it is a bit annoying to open a thread on page 2 in a tab and get kicked back to page 1. Looking through the sda thread, tjp's "gray out" suggestion seems pretty good. Just eliminating auto refreshes seems like a good move.

If there are concerns about page or paging in general length you could make the individual categories collapsible or something, reducing it other to just the board name with the number of unread threads nest to it, or reducing to the two or three most recent threads with an option to blow it out to full. Might allow people to prioritize a bit, minimizing boards they care a bit less about so they can get to them later after going through their preferred ones.

Granted I have absolutely no idea how any of this shit works or anything and I'm just spitballing here, so I dunno.

What do you figure needs redesigning with unread view? I guess I can only really comment on the look of it, but it looks ok, kind of like an extended forum index. Though looking at it now I have to wonder if three links to the first unread post in a thread is really necessary.

Admittedly it is a bit annoying to open a thread on page 2 in a tab and get kicked back to page 1. Looking through the sda thread, tjp's "gray out" suggestion seems pretty good. Just eliminating auto refreshes seems like a good move.

If there are concerns about page or paging in general length you could make the individual categories collapsible or something, reducing it other to just the board name with the number of unread threads nest to it, or reducing to the two or three most recent threads with an option to blow it out to full. Might allow people to prioritize a bit, minimizing boards they care a bit less about so they can get to them later after going through their preferred ones.

Granted I have absolutely no idea how any of this shit works or anything and I'm just spitballing here, so I dunno.

arkarian

2011-04-05 09:10:43 pm

red chamber dream

the main drawback of the old unread view was that many users on taiga forums left it open all the time, and it constantly refreshed on all their browsers at once. that put significant stress on the server, slowing everything else on all taiga forums down. so we have to redesign it so that it's not continually updating, but also make it easy for users to see new threads there.

nate

2011-04-05 09:30:23 pm

i'm thinking something very close to board view. the problem is how to handle paging.

sabata2

Edit history:

sabata2: 2011-04-05 11:06:01 pm

sabata2: 2011-04-05 11:05:58 pm

sabata2: 2011-04-05 11:05:57 pm

2011-04-05 11:05:10 pm

ANKOKU

Allow collapsing of the super forums.

IE. 5 unread in Super Metroid, collapses to 1 under the Super title. (Maybe include a [5] after it to show how many?) So:
[v] Super Metroid [5]

And if you're no longer going to auto refresh... I dunno, I really liked that.

tomatobob

2011-04-05 11:39:44 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Actually thinking about it a little more, collapsing boards probably wouldn't change anything since on more active forums since you'd end up having to page them all individually to keep browsers from absolutely shitting themselves if people keep several open at a time. I often have over 80 threads sitting there over on sda and I know that would not end well.

Quote from nate:

i'm thinking something very close to board view. the problem is how to handle paging.

Would it be possible to make it kind of a board then? When opened it just marks things as read or unread while you're there instead of moving things around or clearing the threads you tab open like it does currently, then once the user has left the unread view or refreshed it would update.

Going with the youtube comment type thing Parax mentioned over on sda where it'll inform you of new posts and give you the option to reload and show them would be a nice way to keep the user informed while I would assume reducing the load on the server.

I feel like that would open up some other kind of performance issue though somehow lol.

Actually thinking about it a little more, collapsing boards probably wouldn't change anything since on more active forums since you'd end up having to page them all individually to keep browsers from absolutely shitting themselves if people keep several open at a time. I often have over 80 threads sitting there over on sda and I know that would not end well.

[quote="nate"]i'm thinking something very close to board view. the problem is how to handle paging.[/quote]
Would it be possible to make it kind of a board then? When opened it just marks things as read or unread while you're there instead of moving things around or clearing the threads you tab open like it does currently, then once the user has left the unread view or refreshed it would update.

Going with the youtube comment type thing Parax mentioned over on sda where it'll inform you of new posts and give you the option to reload and show them would be a nice way to keep the user informed while I would assume reducing the load on the server.

I feel like that would open up some other kind of performance issue though somehow lol.

arkarian

2011-04-06 10:40:42 pm

red chamber dream

drew a (really shitty and simplistic) mockup of what per-board unread might look like:

attachment:

GgacnpLP77JV-RCppVkmjEYSfDk.jpg

arkarian

2011-04-06 10:41:57 pm

red chamber dream

i was thinking when you open a thread, a new one could take its spot in unread view, or something like that. does anyone have any suggestions on what should be changed/added? do you even like this idea?

Quietus

2011-04-07 05:36:25 am

Super Secret Area - Dead Ahead!

I like the idea. While I don't always read some boards, and often mark them as read without looking, I don't quite want to ignore them, so I'd at least be able to mark a whole board as read in one hit.

tomatobob

2011-04-07 05:58:11 am

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Mockup looks like it has the right idea. Liking the ignore and mark as read options there.

Quote from arkarian:

i was thinking when you open a thread, a new one could take its spot in unread view, or something like that.

Sounds like a good idea if you're ditching pages, and it looks that way. So basically have each section display its five most recent posts, then as one is opened, it clears and the next in line moves up, right? Maybe leave the threshold up to a forum's admins if only to avoid some inconvenience with more active forums.

What happens if someone's got an empty unread page open and there's a new post, though? I'm guessing you give a little (X) new posts message and point them to the Get More button. I don't really know what else could be done since the goal is to avoid automatic reloads and it sounds fair enough.

Toozin

2011-04-07 12:26:52 pm

Not impossible

just highly unlikely

I dunno if this would be overly complicated or muck up what you're trying to do here, but with that setup a possible option would be to let people mark threads as priority, so that no matter what it'll appear in your unread shortlist, even if other threads got posted in earlier. You'd probably want to limit the number of priority threads per user, probably to five.

arkarian

2011-04-07 06:01:13 pm

red chamber dream

think that was already mentioned on sda actually. it's a good idea.

Mista_Smegheneghan

2011-04-09 04:40:24 pm

Ready to internet!

Okay, I went to the Taiga Forum website to look up info about ordering it, but it said there's no posts there. A forum I go to is about to kick out an abusive admin who also happens to pay for the forum software, and I'm helping search for new forum software. I want to suggest the Taiga forum type, but need more info on pricing. Who could I contact in order to get more info? (sorry if this is slightly off-topic, but I don't know where else to ask :/)

arkarian

Edit history:

arkarian: 2011-04-09 04:45:42 pm

2011-04-09 04:44:25 pm

red chamber dream

pricing/order info is available here. can point people to the support forum if they want to see what tf is like or need to ask any questions.

other info on tf is here: http://www.taigaforum.com/whytaiga.html
that page is a little oudated now (tons of features have been added since). i really need to update it.

nate

2011-04-09 05:00:14 pm

it's the same product that's behind the m2k2 and sda forums. there wasn't anything special added because it's m2k2 (other than stuff like the logo at the upper left obviously which you can customize).

Poision Envy

2011-04-11 01:18:41 am

Club 27 Goals

It'd be cool if when you're looking at your list of private messages it would have a number show up when an unread private thread gets a response in the title bar. Similar to how if you are just looking at your unread posts it shows a number in the tab's title.

sabata2

2011-05-01 06:41:12 pm

ANKOKU

Since our Unread Posts page no longer updates itself, can we have it so that if you click [In Tabs] it will refresh the visible threads?
It basically already does that with the number displayed next to unread and in the tab title, but it still shows all the threads that used to be there.

nate

2011-05-02 01:46:18 am

great idea. i've pushed this out. it should be active within the next few hours.

sabata2

2011-05-02 04:30:24 pm

ANKOKU

Found an odd glitch and have no idea what's causing it.

The Tab Titles will randomly swap between what should be there and "||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||"
No idea why.

And maybe it's because I hadn't yet entered the tabs before my Unread tab reloaded, but it only removed 2 of the 5 threads that were spawned from [in tabs]

nate

2011-05-02 05:17:26 pm

that's the workaround for the chrome tab redraw bug. if i don't do that then the tab titles will seldom if ever update. you can just ignore it.

sabata2

2011-05-05 01:19:12 pm

ANKOKU

Yeah after testing it quite a few more times, the newly implemented Auto-Refresh of the Unread Tab only removes a single thread from the page, as the other 4 (or fewer) haven't been viewed yet.

Can it be changed so that it forces the removal of 5 threads from the list, and THEN refreshes?

nate

2011-05-05 02:05:03 pm

not really. i just changed it so that it waits five seconds before reloading. this update should creep out over the next few hours.

theoretically this should always be enough time for the five tabs that opened to contact the server, and then theoretically the unread tab will be serviced only after the five new tabs are, which will result in fully up to date display of unread threads. note that i don't believe the new tabs have to actually load, they just have to contact the server, and that reserves their place in line ahead of the unread view tab. so really one second would probably be enough but you can't be too careful about this kind of lame timing-based crap.

sabata2

2011-05-05 03:12:42 pm

ANKOKU

Yay race conditions!

Alrighty then, I'll test it out more over the next week, once I'm sure the update is out.

Quietus

2011-06-06 09:07:25 am

Super Secret Area - Dead Ahead!

I just noticed that edits don't appear as they happen, and instead just show up as a new unread. Would it not be possible to have these appear live, perhaps by altering the post's colour, or perhaps highlighting the little 'view this post's edit history' button? Maybe even temporarily removing the post, and replacing it with the new, so that almost appears to flash back up? You'd still only see it if you're currently viewing that page.