Change in behavior

It used to be that if there was an entry in the left column of N unread or N new and one clicked on that label that one went to a screen showing all of the unread or new threads for that board. Now, I am ending up on the Latest display and need to click the Unread or New button to get the same display. Not a huge issue, but less desirable.

3 Likes

Hi tamhas,

The problem with the Buttons is they are not visible in all screens and they change context based on the particular screen you are on.

The left panel was quite useful to quickly read through new posts because:

  • It is visible on ALL screens.
  • It does NOT change context.

In other words: IT WORKED BETTER!

TMF: Please restore it!

Gene
All holdings and some statistics on my Fool profile page
https://community.fool.com/u/gdett2/activity (Click Expand)

3 Likes

Also, the New and Unread and Latest buttons are sorts rather than filters.
Definitely worse.

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Once again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I like the change.

I didn’t like the New or Unread filters, because they worked in a way that was unhelpful to me. Unread generally gave me topics (old threads) that I had previously viewed and now have some new content. That seemed to work OK. But new topics often were not identified with the “new” label on the sidebar. Worse, unread was always given priority over new. So you’d get the unread first, and then have to go back to the sidebar to get the new.

So the first thing I have been doing after clicking on a category with the new or unread notice is to click on the Latest button so I can see all of the newly posted activity.

This change means I don’t have to add extra clicks just to see all of the new activity on a category (old board). And since the list is sorted with the newest on top and any topics that I’ve fully read are in gray, it’s pretty easy to see what has the new and unread activity just by looking at the list.

The next improvement would be to not bother with the distinction between unread and new.

–Peter

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I just got used to reading them in the ‘old threads’, ‘new threads’ order (trained by the interface…), but I can see how it could be useful to see every thread at once. Although it was just a single click to switch to Most Recent from the Unread sort.
Maybe allow a user to choose one as their default sort?

Or better, just list the unread and new posts for the category (NOT the topics) - and show the poster name…

4 Likes

… and the current number of likes.

The interface has also trained me to believe that is less likely than pigs growing wings.

–Peter

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Myself, I don’t mind the unread/new distinction because it let’s me catch up on already partially red topics before starting new ones. And, I am finding the threaded mode preferable since, when there are multiple additional unread posts, one can quickly scan through to see if there is anything that deserves closer attention. Filtering by poster by post seems like one must not like much of the content and maybe one should be reading a different topic.

I just noticed this behavior:
Sidebar Metar shows 24 new.
Click it and it shows everything on Metar with a red line marking ‘last visit’.
But last time I didn’t read all the new stuff and now it’s all lost in the crowd as to which is new to me.
Click on ‘New’ which is described as a sort, and I get the list of the 24 New topics (which used to be the default after the ‘unread’ were cleared.

I was just learning to like the list presentations of Unread and New. Now it requires me to click a couple of extra times. Not an improvement.

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No, it means some topics only deserve answers from people you trust rather than any idiot with an opinion. Full thread mode means every post has equal weight, and yes, I can scroll through them, just like I can walk to the supermarket if I want, but I don’t want. I want to go directly to my favorites 4 or 5 posters on the BRK board, on the MeTAR board, and not have to run through 20 posts which don’t add.

This is a case where making me read everything - or scroll - is decidedly less convenient.

5 Likes

I’ve been annoyed myself by the change, but I endorse it because I believe it helps with a very important problem. We have had far too many posts from newcomers to the new system about how they can’t find anything, don’t see anything. By defaulting to showing too much I believe it helps new users get their bearings.

The developer made a code change because half their customers thought they should get the latest view when they clicked new or unread. Of course, the moment they made the change, the other half started yelling about it (us included). They’ve updated the code and we installed it so it’s now user-defined…if you want New/Unread, you can have that. If you want Latest, you can have that instead.

We defaulted it to New/Unread since that’s what we started with but if you want it to be Latest, do this:

  1. Go to your profile (either by clicking your icon in the upper right, then the human, then preferences or by clicking your icon on any post then clicking your user card, then selecting preferences.)
  2. Click the Sidebar option at the bottom
  3. Toggle the Navigation Option to Default if you prefer the latest view.
  4. Click save changes.

Now every time you click the New or Unread links, you’ll get the latest view

No need to do anything if you want to get the Unread and New views.

3 Likes

Good solution. Now the smart half can get the right view and the fools who don’t understand how to set up an interface can see things the dumb way. :wink:

–Peter

PS - Please note the extreme ambiguity in the above statement before complaining loudly. Or softly.

3 Likes

That worked for a while. But now my preference is not sticking. At first, it worked fine on both my desktop and my iPhone. Then it’s stopped working on my iPhone. Now it doesn’t work on either.

Any additional changes lately? Is this setting stored on your servers, or is in kept in a cookie on my computer?

–Peter

I just set yours to Default but will keep an eye on it to see if it changes again.

No software updates that I know of - and it’s hosted so it’s not your cookies or Fool servers (but basically, it’s stored on our side - just on the providers servers)

It already switched back. And it took all of my categories off the sidebar as well. Left the one tag.

With the sword of Damocles hanging over the old boards, I immediately popped over there to retrieve my list of favorites and restore them here. I’ll make a better note of them for future reference, so that if/when it happens again, I can leave the evidence in place for you.

That’s kind of what I meant when I was referring to “your” servers. I figured it was a hosted service.

–Peter

PS - Never forget that from this side of things, I don’t care if a service is hosted or not. It’s YOURS ether way.

1 Like

I can confirm this being a bit wobbly. Currently works for me, but has reverted back multiple times. To reproduce one issue:

  1. Go to Preferences → Interface → Sidebar and change Navigation to Default.
  2. Save changes.
  3. Reload the page.

Notice how Navigation says New/Unread.

1 Like

And, while composing a post on another thread on a different board, it switched back on me. Again. At least my favorites survived this time.

–Peter

Thanks - I’ll report the bug and see if anyone else is seeing the instability.

It’s getting worse. Now when I change this setting (which also has new descriptions) and click on save - it immediately switches back.

–Peter

A shot in the dark…

Is this all happening in a single browser instance, all in the same tab? Or are the changes that don’t stick made in one place, while the behavior is tested in another?

Yeah, grasping at straws.