Alicornutopia

Maybe they should be added but there should be an easy way to remove them, e.g. by a javascript button.

That seems less helpful for archive purposes (which might involve taking the served HTML and stripping/not running the JS) than a JS thingy that adds the controls.

It didn't occur to me that favoriting authors was a thing, and now I have done so. I was previously informed that the favorites view is how I am supposed to find out about new threads of specific interest, and this makes it better, but:

Can we have a view which is either "favorite and (unread or not opened)" or "unread or (favorite and not opened)"? And sorted/grouped by continuity? That would seem to make the perfect what-to-read page.

There could be issues adding controls, but I agree that is probably a better solution for archive purposes (and for not having to regenerate the flat views, though it could be less convenient for readers).

For the views – I think Marri would probably rather have some sort of consensus before she goes implementing new views, and possibly clear names for the page – 'Reading' or 'Read List'…? I'm not sure I'm clear on your suggestions, but I think you mean:

– A view which includes any favorited threads that have unread replies (including those not read at all).
– A view which includes all opened threads with unread replies, in addition to any unopened favorited threads.

I'd be inclined to sort by continuity, I think, and allow this to be changed by clicking header links (in case people only want these particular threads in a list, but would like to sort by last updated). I think I'd personally prefer the latter behavior for a 'Read List' page, since it includes all the threads I'd probably like to read. Possibly if there were a way to sort by last read, that'd be convenient?

Edit: Also a note that this is probably not highest priority right now – I think we're focusing on tests and smaller added behaviors, so we can upgrade Rails and then continue development.

I agree that the second option is better, and that I would really like it to exist, as long as it also obeyed hiding.

– A view which includes all opened threads with unread replies, in addition to any unopened favorited threads.

Yes.

I'd be inclined to sort by continuity, I think, and allow this to be changed by clicking header links

The reason I suggested “group by continuity” is to make it easy to scan the list and pick something without accidentally reading out of continuity order. (Note that grouping is “just” sorting followed by inserting headers in the HTML whenever the sorted column changes value from one row to the next.)

Possibly if there were a way to sort by last read, that'd be convenient?

I think there's enough possible-things-to-do-here that effort should be put towards somewhat more general sort-and-filter features so users can do things that weren't Thought Of Explicitly and there isn't an explosion of slightly different views in the UI and code.

Now, my personal super-awesome-sort-order preference would be to magically discriminate between "reading from the beginning" and "caught up" threads. Within the “caught up”, they should be sorted by most number of replies first, which makes for the most efficient and contextful reading and slightly discourages “oh look, there's 1 more reply in the last minute, let's read it”. “Reading from the beginning” would be separated so as not to be perpetually on the top of the sort order. But I totally don't want you to bother implementing that.

Also a note that this is probably not highest priority right now – I think we're focusing on tests and smaller added behaviors, so we can upgrade Rails and then continue development.

I have no objections there!

I agree that it's a good idea to make the sorting and filtering UI more general. It will probably involve a standard logic to order the posts whenever we use a 'post list partial' and then work out what columns should be clickable. Most of the post lists use the same code, so there wouldn't be a huge explosion as is, but the reports page is one example that does not, so we should probably work on standardizing that.

We could probably discern which posts are being read and which were caught up last time you looked at the thread, by saving that in the post view, but adding functionality based on that (especially different sorting for the two different types) would involve quite a lot of UI design. Probably the easiest way would be to allow most lists to be split in various ways – by whether you're up to date, were up to date last you opened it, are currently reading a backlog, or have not opened it; or alternatively by the values in the column (when they change), which adds the 'split by continuity' thing. The issue would be combining these.

Another issue would be adding the ability to manually mark a thread as on your backlog or treated as though you were 'up to date' last you looked, though I guess that could be put into the ever-growing [≡] button on posts or put into the Unread page (or the proposed Unread/Favorited/Opened combined page) somehow…

Okay, I think I'm missing something: where is the ‘reports page’?

… You make a good point that we haven't linked to it from anywhere on the Constellation itself!

It's here. I'll add an issue to make it more visible.

Having the option to hide a thread from Unread within the thread would be cool.

Thoughts mostly on settings, because I wanted to browse an author's work by setting:

• There doesn't seem to be a way to find out what settings (not continuities) an author has posted in — I can use the search to find posts in a setting but not which settings, and settings are never shown in lists.
• There's also no way I can find out what setting a thread/continuity is in without "opening" it (or editing URLs). Maybe it would make general sense to tuck away a link to the “stats page” somewhere in lists?
• Or there could be a user preference for what things to show in columns in all thread lists.
• Search results list doesn't show unopened status, so I can't tell whether clicking on a result would change opened status.

it's really useful that the daily report page shows the subtitle of the thread. it would be useful if more places showed subtitles. (various places that you go to find new threads: favourites, recently updated, author pages, character pages, template pages, but on the unread page too to help remember what the thread was about)


if i'm trying to decide whether to read something, knowing what templates are in the thread or what setting is in can help me make the decision (specifically, I'm more likely to enjoy something that is a little bit familiar: i know most of the characters already OR i know the setting. If I click on a story where I don't know most of the characters already then I usually can't understand what's happening because I'm missing too much background knowledge.) but these informations are mostly available after clicking on things to read, not before.