[X]My Assistant

[DanielPineault]

A couple ideas I thought I might put out there for the admins to contemplate.

It could be useful to

• make the main header/menu static so it remain available at all times instead of always having to scroll back to the top when you want to perform some action.
• add a floating div/button, in the bottom right-hand corner, to scroll back to the top (same reason as above).

[jleach]

Noted and under discussion in the mod forums, thanks for the input.

[isladogs]

Can I also request a user option to display posts in reverse order with the most recent at the top.
This would be particularly useful in lengthy threads especially those going onto 2 or more pages

[isladogs]

Apologies. Just giving this a 'bump' as my previous post didn't get a reply.
I can't be the only person who gets fed up scrolling through lengthy threads to find the latest responses
If sorted in reverse order, these would always be at the top saving a lot of time ....

Here's hoping

[June7]

That's why I click the "Last Post by" when I open a thread.

There is the "Top" button at bottom left of each post that returns to the beginning of thread.

A floating header would be a first for any of the forums I frequent.

[DanielPineault]

A floating header would be a first for any of the forums I frequent.

It actually extremely easy to implement and is quite common in web development. Experts-Exchange is a great example of such a setup.

[isladogs]

The 'Go to last unread post' feature is only a partial solution.
It only appears when there are multiple pages. I also find it tends to go to the top of the last page so I still have to scroll.
Most of the other forums I frequent do have this as an option

Apologies if I'm hijacking Daniel's thread. I'd like to support his excellent suggestion as well.
However, maybe I'm being dense but I can't see the feature at EE.

[nuclear_nick]

I've found that the 'common' controls also work here.

To go to top of page... <Control>+<Home>
To go to bottom of page... <Control>+<End>

<Page Up> and <Page Down> also work.

Then again, my keyboard is pretty fancy... (Kinesis Advantage)… so those keys are within thumb reach.

I know... I know... some people like their mice. Just offering a temporary solution.

[DanielPineault]

However, maybe I'm being dense but I can't see the feature at EE.

When you're on the Answer page, or in a thread itself, when you scroll, the main header remains static and always accessible, so you never need to scroll back to the top to be able to access the menu, buttons, ... as they are always present at all times.

[isladogs]

@Nick
Thanks for the comments
Forgot to mention but I do already use those keyboard combinations as well.

@Daniel
Sorry. I see there is a static header but I don't see any controls on it to return to the top.
Perhaps a members only feature? I let my membership lapse as I rarely find anything at EE that I can't find elsewhere
I was also looking in vain for the floating button you also mentioned

[June7]

The 'Go to last unread post' feature is only a partial solution.
It only appears when there are multiple pages. I also find it tends to go to the top of the last page so I still have to scroll.

I meant the "Last post by" at far right under "Last Action" column, not page buttons under "Topic Title".
Also, there is a "Go to first unread" button located to the left of title that seems to go to last post but is only present when you have not opened that thread.

This post has been edited by June7: Sep 12 2019, 01:26 PM

[isladogs]

Hi June
Thanks. That certainly helps
For some reason I've never done that before.
I can see it works though its slightly awkward to get right on a touch screen.

EDIT
I mentioned the Go to first unread post button in a previous answer though I got the name wrong!
As previously mentioned it only appears when there are two or more pages

[jleach]

Hi Colin - I'm looking into this one. I may not be able to (easily) do it as a user option, but can probably put a sort toggle at the top of the thread, so when you load the thread you'll have the choice to hit the toggle and load it in reverse chronological order. It'll take a bit of poking in the backend to ensure it can be done (without risk of regression elsewhere: it's a bit tangled back there), but we're looking into it.

Daniel: We're planning to do the bottom right hover goto top icon. Site header sticky is under discussion.

No promises on timeframe, but they're being tracked and looked into.

[DanielPineault]

Jack,

Thank you and absolutely no pressure, they're just suggestions.

[isladogs]

Thanks Jack

[jleach]

Quick update on this, I was able to sort out and refactor a fair bit of the code that handles post display. I haven't yet determined exactly what's required to get the descending sort order (this one piece of code handles a dozen or so different views), but now that things are laid out a bit better it shouldn't be too bad coerce this ordering.

I haven't gotten to the back-to-top float yet, but expect that to be fairly straightforward as it's really just an overlay over existing code and shouldn't need to change anything, just add to it.

Nothing yet, but in progress. Cheers,

[jleach]

Colin (and whoever else): do you use the threaded view (e.g., tree-style nesting of posts) or the linear view of topics?

I'm guessing the linear view (I think most people do: certainly I do myself), but wanted to check.

(I've got the sort order mostly worked out for the linear view, not planning on doing the threaded view that way though - probably wouldn't make much sense anyway, but wanted to confirm)

[jleach]

Descending sort functionality is in place on trial basis, but not yet linked to member preferences. To preview, use &sort=desc as a querystring param on the end of a standard topic view.

eg:

CODE

https://www.UtterAccess.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=2055138&sort=desc

That's what you're after?

[June7]

Tried it. Does not sort desc.

Oops, it did after I add this post.
This post has been edited by June7: Sep 28 2019, 10:00 PM

[jleach]

Might be a little bit of cache lag, and also there's a number of specialty views, not sure if it works on all of them or not.

If you pick up on oddities let me know. Still working on getting the member preference set up for it, be a few days (at least) before I have time to wrap that up.