Would it be at all possible and easy to add the breadcrumb trail (xda-developers > General discussion > About xda-developers.com for example) to the bottom area of the page when an individual thread is viewed? This would provide an easily clicked link to get back to the main page. I've been on a few boards that do this and I find it really quick to click through and only read the threads that I'm interested in reading. Thanks!
Whats wrong with the one near the top of the page
Well, lol, it's at the top of the page! I'm a bit of a power-reader when I'm running through the latest topics in the forums and it takes that extra action to scroll back up. It's not nearly as bad on xda since there's only ten posts per page, as opposed to some sites with 50, but it's still an extra half second per thread. No biggie if you'd rather not clutter up the bottom of the page any further, of course.
I agree it would be a nice feature. Not mandatory of course.
ill mention it to admin
Related
Sticky Threads are discussions that are marked "sticky" and are always listed at the top of the list of discussions. This is already working just fine.
I think it might be of some value to be able to make Sticky Posts. These are posts within a discussion that are always displayed (mirrored or cloned) at the top of every page.
There are several discussions that are hundreds and even thousands of pages long. You can't expect a normal person to read every page, but putting important information relevant to the discussion (links to FAQs, announcements, rules, etc) might help reduce the number of redundant posts. Of course, there are some people that won't even read the whole page, but if it's right at the top then they'll have no choice while they are waiting for the page to load.
While trying to get past my 10 post "presumed noob" penalty (I am a professional dev IRL), I tried to reply to a thread where the box at the bottom of the page said that in that particular area I could post replies, but not new threads. As a good netizen I skimmed through the entire 100 pages+ of the thread before pressing reply, only to get an error page which (somewhat indirectly) told my I had no posting rights in that subforum.
This is quite disheartening. Not only are new devs forced to do 10 posts worth of "noob help duty", but the things telling us where we can carry out this penal work seems to be wrong, thus redoubling the penalty for signing up.
What is wrong with this picture?
Is the error page wrong, or the indicators at the bottom of the thread pages?
Either needs to be fixed.
P.S.
The "Is this thread a question" box is another harassment trick. I tried to tick it to indicate this posts needs a reaction of some kind (to fix the bug or explain what I got wrong about the UI), but all I get is a message that general questions belong elsewhere.
Hopefully this is the right way to report this problem with the forums.
I'm used to navigating the site by reading a thread, clicking on the "View First Unread" button to see new posts, then using the "Previous Thread" link at the bottom to read the next older post.
For the last couple of weeks, clicking on "Previous Thread" changes the title displayed to the proper target, but what you get displayed for thread content is the beginning of the thread you just read. This means that the only way to read a forum is to keep going back to the table of contents for that forum and click a thread with new posts. This gets to be a major pain once you're off the first page of threads.
"Next Thread" is equally broken.
I can't see any value to this behavior. It would be nice to have it working as it used to.
Thanks.
k1mu said:
Hopefully this is the right way to report this problem with the forums.
I'm used to navigating the site by reading a thread, clicking on the "View First Unread" button to see new posts, then using the "Previous Thread" link at the bottom to read the next older post.
For the last couple of weeks, clicking on "Previous Thread" changes the title displayed to the proper target, but what you get displayed for thread content is the beginning of the thread you just read. This means that the only way to read a forum is to keep going back to the table of contents for that forum and click a thread with new posts. This gets to be a major pain once you're off the first page of threads.
"Next Thread" is equally broken.
I can't see any value to this behavior. It would be nice to have it working as it used to.
Thanks.
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You are right - this is the place to report. I don't think anything has changed with this functionality but I have definitely recreated this error. We'll take a look and figure out a fix.
Found and fixed this bug, will take a few minutes to show up on all the servers.
Thanks again for reporting it!
bitpushr said:
Found and fixed this bug, will take a few minutes to show up on all the servers.
Thanks again for reporting it!
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Thanks for fixing it!
Hi,
Got an improvement suggestion for the desktop site under Participated threads section:
This section shows 15 threads I participated in. It could have been OK, if not for the following:
1. Threads are sorted by their creation date. This means that if there are new posts in "veteran threads" (and there are lots of mega threads like these), they will soon be out of the list.
2. There's no way to see the next threads in the list (next 15 or so).
This means that if there are new posts in such threads in which I participated, I will not see them at all. Of course I can subscribe to all these threads, but why do so if there's a section for it?
Just to compare, if I browse the forum via the Tapatalk app, I'm able to see new posts in this section sorted by the date of the last post. I believe this should be the right way to go.
I think this is a small and necessary change that should be quite easy to implement.
Cheers.
Anybody home? Maybe this is not the right forum to raise such a suggestion?
Thanks for the suggestion, but we recommend subscribing to a thread if you want to be kept up to date on progress. The "Participated Threads" tab sorts in order of last update.
bitpushr said:
Thanks for the suggestion, but we recommend subscribing to a thread if you want to be kept up to date on progress. The "Participated Threads" tab sorts in order of last update.
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Thanks for your answer. However, it seems that at least on the desktop site, the "participated threads" section is not sorted by last update (as it should), but by thread creation order.
Kindly would like to bump this:
The participated section should have the exact effect as performing an advanced search with myself as the posting user. In this case, I'll get a list of the threads I have posted in, ordered by post date (threads with newer posts are shown first). If number of threads exceeds a page, then I can select the page for previous posts.
However, the participated section button shows only one page, where this page holds threads ordered by thread creation date.
What I think that should be done is that the participated button will simply imitate the search action described above. This is exactly what Tapatalk does, but unfortunately not what happens here. Of course I can always perform this advanced search to see what happens in the threads I participate in, but this is very cumbersome.
I am not sure if the android app (I am using the premium app) is taking a different path than the XDA website... but there are things that are different between them and it is making it very difficult and confusing to seamlessly move from the app to the website, or back.
On the app, there is a sidebar with, among other items, a line that says "Subscriptions" followed by number in parentheses. Above that line there is a line/option for "Participated" .
If you select "Subscriptions", and you will get a list of Forums and Subforums you have subscribed to. It is easy to "Subscribe" to a forum (or subforum), as the dropdown menu has an option to Subscribe.
Before continuing, this is how I see the logical breakdown of forums, subforums and threads:
Forum (example HTC ONE (or VERIZON HTC ONE if it exists)) ==>
Subforum(example: HTC ONE Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting) ==>Thread(example: Help! I bricked my phone!!!).
In the app, when you select "Participated" you are presented with every thread in which you have added a comment.
However, on the website, when I navigate to the forum (not a subforum) and I want to "Subscribe" to it, I cannot find any way to do so on that page (the main forum page). I notice however, that if you go to one a subforums (see example above), you have the option there to subscribe to that subforum. However, like the app, I would like to have quick access to all subforums for a particular device.
I have "subscribed" to them from the mobile app, but they are not showing up once I am at my laptop... the only subscriptions that appear anywhere (without having to go to a dedicated page with subscibed threads, etc.) is in the right sidebar under the three tabs entitled "MESSAGES THREADS FORUMS." Here (for me) it shows I am subscribed to one subforum that I accidentally subscribed to 3 years ago (from the app I believe). The app too, correctly shows I am subscribed to this subforum. But there is no where on the website that shows the Forums I am subscribed—which the app does (as described above).
With the number of forums for devices growing to several hundred why is there not just a way to create a bookmark to go directly to the forum that you have already added as a subscribed forum/a favorite??? I swear I think every time I have come to this webpage I have to navigate down past 90 devices to find the forum I want (google XDA XYZ Device works, but there should be a way on the forum landing page). A way to find "bookmarked' forums. I use the work bookmark" because using the word "subscribe" with "forum" is actually confusing. You already have an option to subscribe to a thread on the website (and the app). And further, a subscription to a thread will send you email updates when there have been new comments to that thread. However, you do not need email notifications to a forum, nor even a subforum... you just need a quick way to navigate to them.
Further confusing the "thread subscription" component of "subscribing" is that now the app has "Participated" (as mentioned above) which I find helpful as no action is required; it automatically allows you to quickly find a thread where you have contributed or asked a question. But this is not available (or easily locatable) on the website....
Can we get the ability to create a favorite or a bookmark to a Forum or Subforum?
I understand that subscribing to threads still makes sense as people may want to be notified or have quick access to a thread which is being updated, but in which they have not made a comment. I think we just need to add a new category to "favorite" or "bookmark" a forum or subforum, and then have threads subscribed to, and threads in which we have participated.
I think in the past few years (and you guys would know!) more people use the app than before... So I think by modifying things as set forth above, it will allow increased usability of XDA overall. XDA has always had to manage and structure/organize a huge amount of information... and I have always found it quite difficult.. Only recently with the options have I noticed more productivity (although I cannot say for certain how "recent" these changes are....
Either way, I hope you can make the app and the site consistent... and preferably let the app's above-mentioned features lead the way.
Thank you...
syntropic said:
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Wow, that's a lot of questions!
I definitely won't be able to answer them all at once, so I will just answer the ones I can.
1. In answer to the question "Where are the Participated threads on the website?", just do [your_username's_profile] > Statistics > See all posts by [your_username]. It does essentially the same thing as Participated does in the app.
EDIT- More answers to come... when and if I have time!