Just an idea, I find myself sometimes losing track of the Original Poster in long threads and those that meander off the topic (guilty of that myself).
Is there a way (and is it useful/time worthy for any other TBTers) in Discourse to have the OP’s icon, for instance, change appearance within the thread only, and even better have a tooltip of the text of the OP on hover, so a reader doesn’t lose track of the original point without a lot of scrolling?
I noticed in the Topic list view, with the five icons column, sometimes there is a faint blue stroke around one of the icons, and not sure what that is but is sort of an idea. Or maybe some badge of some kind on the icon or something…
The light blue scrubber next to the posts allows you to scroll quite quickly.
I do realize this is not the solution you were looking for. I just mention it because I had to learn to use that scrubber more myself — all the scrolling around here was driving me crazy. IME that Discourse scrubber is quite efficient.
Am I the last person that still reads TidBits via email? (although I have to come to the Discourse site to reply b/c replying by email seemingly broke a few years ago)
Yes thanks @Simon I’ve used it a few times, just need to remember to note the number of the post I’m looking at before scrubbing to the top, that works too.
@aforkosh I’m actually getting the new posts only in an RSS reader, and replies to me only by email, I didn’t consciously develop that method but it seems to work with my digital consumption routines.
I do like the features of Discourse as set up here at TBT, I find it fairly easy to keep track of and participate in topics and it looks nice too! I need to relearn its vocabulary sometimes, especially when visiting larger forums.
@ace@Simon home/end, top/bottom yes kind of works, still needs some scrolling, as going to end puts me in the buttons and “New and Unread” section, vs. the last scroll position.
So best technique for now, note my number on the scrubber and use that. Thanks for all the comments!
I found it on three threads; on all three, the light blue circle was around the left icon and hovering over the left icon caused a popup saying the individual was the original poster and the most recent poster.
I had never noticed it before, I have trouble detecting it, and I believe that your eyes are younger than mine.
FWIW, I like the idea of identifying the OP, but if I understand your proposal, the OP would need to have a post near where you are reading so the icon with some distinction is nearby. (If the OP never returns, it would be like the current interface, where a trip to the top of the thread is required.) I’d rather have the OP’s icon above what I now understand to be the scrubber.
Maybe even better would be for a slice of the Orig Post to remain at the top, with a drop shadow or something, right under the TB icon and Title of the…. oh, duh! click on the title of the topic and there it is, scrolled to the top.
Ok well anyway, looks like the trick to not getting lost is better awareness of the scrubber bar, and to click on or hover over things and to keep the anti-meander switch in the ON position.
I read and reply via email, with two exceptions: I will read on Discourse if I want to see the images, because my email host thinks the images in TBT messages are spam ads (yes, I’ve talked to them about it, and no, they can’t/won’t do anything about it); and I will reply via Discourse if I want to quote what I’m replying to, because quoted text is stripped out in email replies.
I’m very old-school Internet (pre-WWW old-school), and I’m long used to reading email discussion lists. I find web forums, of all kinds, tedious because I have to remember to go to them. Email comes to me.
Also fn-left for top; fn-right for bottom, fn-up/down arrow for page up/down; spacebar page down; shift-spacebar up, etc! Bountiful options for page hopping!
and to keep the anti-meander switch in the ON position.