TMC Navigation Update

[HankLloydRight]

Ok, I'm going to continue to bring this up, because it's extremely frustrating on mobile whenever I hit a watched thread that I've participated in, that has the main title link "timeout".

Danny and Doug -- you keep saying that you aren't making changes just because "you want them that way"... but I continue to fail to see any logic in the thread title "30 day timeout" to go to the first post in the thread. If there is logic behind this decision, which seems universally unpopular, PLEASE explain it. As I said above, "Why would anyone, ever, want to go to the first post if they haven't read a watched thread in 30 days or more?"

As demonstrated:

• One can not tell looking at the Watched Threads list which threads have timed-out
• Clicking on the avatar doesn't work if you've participated in the thread
• Clicking on the "little red dot" is impossible on mobile
• It's extremely unintuitive and inconsistent for the Thread titles to not always go to "last unread post" and change behavior based on some arbitrary 30 day limit
• Adding a "Go to first unread" on mobile clutters up an already crowded page
• Adding a "Go to first unread" link still means one has to click twice to get to the last unread for threads that have timed-out, but only once for newer threads (still inconsistent)
• If I'm already looking at the "Watched Threads (unread posts)" page, why would anyone, regardless of thread age want to go to the first post?

For example, on mobile, if I click the thread title on a thread that has timed out, I have to then:

• Click on the tiny number link for the last page of the thread (and it's very hard to do this)
• Scroll to the bottom of the page
• Start scrolling backwards looking at the date/time of EACH POST to find the post that revived the thread
• If there were a lot of new posts, I get to the top of the last page, and then have to repeat this exercise going backwards one page at a time, and continue searching bottom up for the "last unread post"
• When I finally find the "first unread post" I can start reading the thread

Compared to threads that have not timed out:

• Click on thread title, takes me directly to the first unread post

When Xenforo was first installed, this 30-day timeout was explained that the high-water marks were only temporary, and/or stored in cookies, so it was a limitation of the software. But as already demonstrated by the "red dot" and the "avatar" (as long as you didn't participate), neither of these hold true -- the forum keeps track of "last unread post" just fine.

So once again, I ask that the thread titles always go to "last unread post" regardless of thread age.

And if you can't or don't want to do that, PLEASE explain why leaving it this way makes any sense at all.

Thanks.

Doug, Danny --- any comment on this?

This still remains to be a pain point on both mobile and desktop when I hit a thread more than 30 days old.

I still can't see the logic of going to the first post of a watched thread just because 30 days has elapsed.

If there is logic to this, can you please explain it?

thanks.

 

[ohmman]

Doug, Danny --- any comment on this?

This still remains to be a pain point on both mobile and desktop when I hit a thread more than 30 days old.

I still can't see the logic of going to the first post of a watched thread just because 30 days has elapsed.

If there is logic to this, can you please explain it?

thanks.

Hey, it just happened with this thread for me. And I had to click "Go to First Unread." Again. Because, well, I've already read the other posts..

 

[doug]

Doug, Danny --- any comment on this?

This still remains to be a pain point on both mobile and desktop when I hit a thread more than 30 days old.

I still can't see the logic of going to the first post of a watched thread just because 30 days has elapsed.

If there is logic to this, can you please explain it?

thanks.

Sorry for the slow response on this. Extra busy with event stuff lately.

So I can't explain any logic to the software behavior. Appears to be a core function of the platform. There is an option to set how far back to remember the first unread. A little while back I had changed to to 60 or 90 days (don't remember which). I figured we could afford the extra overhead. However, when I made the change we immediately got a bunch of complaints about being brought to months old locations in a thread instead of first unread, so I changed it back.

 

[HankLloydRight]

Sorry for the slow response on this. Extra busy with event stuff lately.

So I can't explain any logic to the software behavior. Appears to be a core function of the platform. There is an option to set how far back to remember the first unread. A little while back I had changed to to 60 or 90 days (don't remember which). I figured we could afford the extra overhead. However, when I made the change we immediately got a bunch of complaints about being brought to months old locations in a thread instead of first unread, so I changed it back.

Hi Doug, thanks for your reply. TMC is the only XenForo forum I visit that has this timeout behavior.

Other forums, even with threads that are years old, the main thread link goes to the last post in the thread (for watched threads).

What you mention here with the 60 to 90 day thing seems strange, since that's not really the expected behavior for what I'm talking about. When people were being taken to "old locations" in threads I think was due to the initial database transfer and the last read index not being full updated. I know in another forum that upgraded to Xenforo, until you opened up a watched thread to the actual last post, the "last unread post" flag was totally wrong. It eventually corrected itself once you visited all watched threads.

If you changed the unread timeout to 60 or 90 days, it would just mean that the thread link takes you to the first post after 60 or 90 days, not to random placed within the thread. So I think that's a different setting you changed.

I don't run or admin Xenforo anywhere, but I'll look into it to see if I can find the right setting to change.

 

[HankLloydRight]

Oh, I think I figured it out.. The "red dot" link does exactly what I want, every time. It always goes to "First Unread Post".

So the core forum functionality is there, and works perfectly.

It's just after 30 days, the main thread title link drops the "/unread" which is normally appended to it.

For instance, the thread title, for this thread once it times-out would be (goes to first post):

  https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/tmc-navigation-update.81126

But for the "red dot" and only threads that don't timeout (less than 30 days) it's always (goes to first unread post)

  https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/tmc-navigation-update.81126/unread

So to fix this, just make the thread titles always have the "/unread" suffix -- which will always take the user to their last unread post for any thread they've ever visited.

I'd guess something in your custom code is resetting the main thread title to drop the /unread suffix, and not a Xenforo setting (that's just a guess, but I'll still look into it).

I can't see anyone complaining about the thread title always taking them to the first unread post, can you?

thanks.

 

[doug]

So as I've mentioned quite a few times now, I have the avatar (to the left of the red dot) set to always have the /unread at the end. So click on the thread starter avatar instead of the thread title and that should give you what you want.

 

[HankLloydRight]

So as I've mentioned quite a few times now, I have the avatar (to the left of the red dot) set to always have the /unread at the end. So click on the thread starter avatar instead of the thread title and that should give you what you want.

But that's only if you've participated in the thread. That doesn't work for threads you're just watching/sub'd.

 

[HankLloydRight]

Hi Doug, I'm not going away... take a look at this.

Here's an old thread that I've participated in, but has definitely "expired".

The thread title link goes to the first post.

The 'red dot' goes to /unread (impossible to click on mobile)

You say the 'avatar' goes to /unread, but it doesn't. It goes to my profile.

But if you dig deeper, you have two overlapping A HREF links in the SPAN, the profile link taking precedence over the /unread link.

They look like this (goes to profile):

and this (goes to /unread but not clickable unless you tap that 16 pixel wide grey area to the left of the avatar.. try that on an iPhone)

But my overall question remains, why does the main title link revert back to the first post after 30 days, while the "red dot" always works as desired? Why can't the main link just always link to /unread for every thread: never read, read, subscribed, and/or participated like every other Xenforo forum does? What do you lose by reverting the thread title back to /unread all the time?

And I also need to repeat, just looking at the thread list, there's no way to tell expired threads from current ones. So the intuitive thing is to click on the thread title (especially on mobile), and only then do we find out that uh-oh, this is an expired thread.. I now need to hunt down the first unread post. It requires several more clicks or taps on mobile or desktop.

This inconsistency makes using the site on mobile very frustrating, especially since you refuse to enable Tapatalk.

-Hank