Re: (announce) Recently Active Nodes

[hv]

This is lovely stuff.

The faqlet mentions that for maxdepth Root nodes are considered to be of depth 1, and 0 means not hide any children and get the full tree in all its glory. This neatly avoids letting me use the new facility in the ideal way: with minimal nodes, and hide all children, so that if I follow each link to read the node and its children I'll have read all new nodes without duplication.

The faqlet does not make clear whether config mode settings are ephemeral or persistent.

In config mode, a section with no content shows the message nothing to see here right now, but you have the " ."section enabled.... I'm guessing the section name was supposed to go in there, but it seems to be missing.

The node seems to remember my last used set of options with regard to thread style and depth. It would be useful for the faqlet or something else to document how to construct a bookmark for a specific set of options, so that I could return to a consistent layout regardless of how I last used it; I would then probably be happy to turn off all the other control features except for "I've read all these" and possibly a "give me the control features back", and thus further reduce the size of the page.

All the actual threading display looks fine, and the faqlet seems clear and complete other than the things I mention above. Strangely, the mere fact that author names are no longer shifted off to a separate column helps to highlight the names: I'm not sure what effect that might have on my reading, but I suspect it's more likely to make me read a thread I'd otherwise have ignored than vice versa.

Oh, I just noticed the toggle, and now I realise than even when requesting the minimal set I'm still pulling the full list from PM so that the thread can be expanded. I don't need that - I'd really like to be able to minimise the amount of data I receive. So that's another thing I'd like to be able to turn off.

Hugo

[demerphq]

First off, thank you for the detailed feedback. Ill see what I can do to address your points when I can get the time. A few of them I suspect will require some refactoring and recoding, but I'll see what I can do. Please excuse me for merging some of your comments into a single reply.

This neatly avoids letting me use the new facility in the ideal way: with minimal nodes, and hide all children, ..... and now I realise than even when requesting the minimal set I'm still pulling the full list from PM so that the thread can be expanded.

Well, no, actually you shouldn't be pulling the _full_ list, just the stuff that is new. It will be as threaded as possible, but everyhting transmitted to you in minimal nodes is new (assuming you are looking the current view of course). It seems to me that what you actually want is a new mode that is something like the ancestors view but contains only the earliest common ancestor to all new nodes in the thread and nothing more. I can see about adding something like that at a later point in time. However in a more expediant tone I can add a switch that makes the maxdepth a hard limit and not just the place where the children are automatically toggled hidden.

The faqlet does not make clear whether config mode settings are ephemeral or persistent.

Well, I guess you now know its persistant, but ill update the docs. Actually the truth is I intend to modify the way the docs are handled so the SiteDocClan can take the node under their wing. There are a number of contributors in that group who are much better at stuff like that than I am.

In config mode, a section with no content shows the message nothing to see here right now, but you have the " ."section enabled.... I'm guessing the section name was supposed to go in there, but it seems to be missing.

Actually the section name wasnt supposed to be there. That was just meant to be a break in the string but I got the quotes wrong ie: 'blah "." blah' instead of 'blah '.' blah' :-)

The node seems to remember my last used set of options with regard to thread style and depth. It would be useful for the faqlet or something else to document how to construct a bookmark for a specific set of options, so that I could return to a consistent layout regardless of how I last used it; I would then probably be happy to turn off all the other control features except for "I've read all these" and possibly a "give me the control features back", and thus further reduce the size of the page.

This is a good idea. It will take a bit of reworking as I think it will be best if using such bookmarks _didn't_ reset the default view. But overall ill do something to accomodate this. Might take a while as I dont have too many tuits left right now.

I don't need that - I'd really like to be able to minimise the amount of data I receive. So that's another thing I'd like to be able to turn off.

Yeah, a really minimal mode is probably a good idea. Good food for thought here, I'll see what I can do.

[hv]

It seems to me that what you actually want is a new mode that is something like the ancestors view but contains only the earliest common ancestor to all new nodes in the thread and nothing more.

Close: I want the earliest common new ancestor to each new subthread. I want the minimal set of links such that if I click each link and read that node and its children I'll read all new nodes and nothing but new nodes.

So I guess that means I want to see all new nodes except the ones that have a parent which is also new.

In practice I'd probably end up using 'Root and Node' rather than 'Minimal', to give a better visual binding of new subthreads to a non-new thread, and also to give me the option of saying "almost the whole of the thread is new - it'd be easier to load the root and read the whole thread (even though it includes some non-new nodes) rather than to load each subthread independently".

• (announce) Recently Active Threads (FA:5/8/3) +/-

  [demerphq]

  • Re^2: (announce) Recently Active Threads

    [demerphq]

  • Re: (announce) Recently Active Threads (1)

    [hv]

While the earliest common (non-new) ancestor would occasionally be more useful than the root, few non-root nodes get more than a couple of responses, and only very rarely will a non-root node have had a significant number of responses since I last "read all these nodes".

Oh, I should also have mentioned that the only age distinction I care about is 'new' vs 'non-new'.

Hugo