OpenEuphoria

Re: Message List

• Posted by Jeremy Cowgar Jul 17, 2008
• 1080 views

There was no poll, but on early stages quite a few people complained strongly about the subject list view and why there was no thread view. Further, the thread view is the standard of any forum software I've seen.

That information is available on the Threaded Message List as well. You have the Star icon. The thing is, you can get more threads shown at one time because there are not 10 messages for 1 thread at the top of the list. I recently ~2 hours made a change to the what happens when you click a subject in the Threaded View. It no longer takes you to the top of the message list, but it now takes you to the first message in the thread that you have not read. So, there may be 5 new posts to the thread. When you click on the thread subject, you are taken to the first one you did not read. You can scroll up to get things more in context if you want.

It's ordered by the last post date. Let's say the forum has Two posts on it:

1. About the Forum...... posted at 10:45am Last post..... none
2. Hello World.......... posted at 10:15am Last post..... none

Now, let's say you reply to Hello World. The order will now show the most recent activity at the top, the view will change to:

1. Hello World.......... posted at 10:15am Last post..... 11:15am by Derek
2. About the Forum...... posted at 10:45am Last post..... none

Now someone else creates a brand new thread:

1. Brand new thread..... posted at 11:22am Last post..... none
2. Hello World.......... posted at 10:15am Last post..... 11:15am by Derek
3. About the Forum...... posted at 10:45am Last post..... none

Now someone replies again to the Hello World thread:

1. Hello World.......... posted at 10:15am Last post..... 11:32am by Someone
2. Brand new thread..... posted at 11:22am Last post..... none
3. About the Forum...... posted at 10:45am Last post..... none

Now, you Bernie comes along and sees that Hello World has new posts and Brand new thread is also new. He chooses to read the Hello World thread first. He already read the original message, so it jumps to the 2nd in the list, which is the first one he did not read. He can then read in the same thread, keeping the same context, frame of reference, the rest of the thread. He can then move to the new post "Brand new thread."

The same context is important. Let's say this was a subject list, it would look something like:

1. Re: Hello World...... by Someone
2. Brand new thread..... by John Doe
3. Re: Hello World...... by Derek
4. About the Forum...... posted at 10:45am Last post..... none
5. Hello World.......... posted at 10:15am Last post..... none

So, Bernie reads the first unread message, which is Hello World. He has to think about what the original thread was about. Then he switches gears and reads about brand new thread. Decides to follow up. Then he hits the next unread message, now he has to shift gears again and think about Hello World again.

Now, more importantly... He decides to reply to your post about Hello World asking for more information so he can answer your question. However, he has not read the post to Hello World by Someone, because he is in single message view and reading message by message. Well, Someone better understood your question and answered it. Thus, making his post (now newer) not helpful or useful. The thread has already been completed.

Jeremy