some people are obsessed with apps, I don’t know why.
Apps make more sense for video games, and other tasks which make use of special smartphone hardware sensors (camera, GPS, gyroscopes, LIDAR, etc etc etc).
To be fair, the mobile browser has exposed more and more of the native functionality of the smartphone over time, too.
The Discourse app really is nothing more than a browser-wrap, but I use it because my browser has ad block on and it feels like cheating (or I could just chip in). But some apps are a significant improvement over browsers. The web is kind of a fucked-up infospace for various reasons, and an app (e.g., the wikipedia app) can make the content somewhat more convenient to get through. BBC News is another one that, I think, largely works better than the site (but, screw Apple News, that thing sucks the big one).
That’s why the mouseover preview doesn’t work? I assumed it simply didn’t exist in Discourse. It’s the one thing I really miss from the old vbulletin site; it was so useful.
Surely there must be some way to fix it? Discourse knows I’m not in mobile view, so why is the mouseover disabled?
It works fine for me on my Chromebook. I just put the mouse pointer over the thread topics, and the first post comes up. I’ve not noticed any difference from the old boards on this point.
Does your chromebook have a touch screen? I believe that’s the issue. For reasons that are obscure to me, Discourse assumes anything with a touch screen doesn’t have an alternative pointing device (like a mouse or touchpad) and so doesn’t do mouse over.
Most win10 devices (including all the ones i use) have touch screens.
My Chromebook has a touchscreen and mouseover has never worked on Discourse.
That must be the difference. Mine is just keyboard and mousepad.
Disable the touchscreen and I bet it starts working. That’s what I did on my (HP) laptop.
I use the touchscreen a lot, so that’s not a solution for me. I was going to try it just to see if it fixed the problem, but it’s looks complicated so not sure it’s worth it.
I was just reading in another thread about how you read the board, so I tried to duplicate it in hopes of helping. If you’re doing all this stuff already, apologies.
You said that you use the ‘unread’ or ‘new’ posts icon in the hamburger thread but that the threads disappear once you read them.
Here’s my workaround. Open up the menu of new or unread posts in a tab in the browser. Then open up a new tab and start going through the threads as you normally would. As long as you don’t touch the original tab, it will keep a list of the threads that were new when you started your reading session. It doesn’t disappear the threads you read, but it does change its color in the link. You just have to remember not to refresh that tab and only browse with the other tab.
That way, the unread list doesn’t disappear and you’ll have more of an idea where you might have read something you just read.
As far as losing where you are in the thread, the scroll bar could be a guide to where you are. It’s a visual guide to where you are in the thread. whether it’s halfway, close to the end or close to the top.
I found something neat (to me anyway). If I hold my finger down on the scrollbar (on my phone), I can preview the posts in the thread quickly. It shows the beginning of each post if I slowly drag it down without lifting my finger. If I lift my finger, it goes back to the regular view at that spot. But it’s a way to quickly skim a thread.
Hope this helps.
I don’t post much on my Android phone but I do read a lot. FWIW, here’s my technique.
My browser favorite for SDMB leads to the Unread page.
I choose that favorite to open the Unread page in one tab then press-and-hold on an interesting thread and choose “open in new tab”. Which leaves me looking at the Unread tab right where I was. Then I repeat long-pressing interesting threads until I’ve got maybe 15 or 20 thread tabs open. Then I close the Unread tab and begin to read the top thread tab, occasionally posting a short sentence or two. When I’m done with that thread I close that tab and the next on now is on-screen. Lather rinse repeat until the tabs are all gone.
Then I click my browser favorite again to retreive a fresh copy of Unread. Which hides the ones I just loked at (unless they’ve been updated again).
Lather rinse repeat until I’ve whittled the unread pile down as far as I care to.
Then switch to the New page and do the same process. That way I’m up on both the threads I’ve already interacted with via the Unread page and the ones I have not via the New page.
As a reminder that doesn’t actually create “one giant page”.
Per some research @GreenWyvern & I performed, it creates one page for about every thousand posts. For most threads the difference is moot. But for our real marathon long-running threads even print mode paginates; it just has really, really long pages.
That’s a good idea. I typically have SOOooo many tabs open at a time that the idea of creating more tab-clutter is unappealing, but it may be worth it. It doesn’t really help on the phone, but I guess if I kill the app and just use Firefox I could do that.
Have you had any issues with the site getting confused if you have a lot of open windows? I feel like I sometimes have problems with that.
I really really miss the old userCP menu, that showed all my “subscribed” threads. So much better than only showing unread subscribed threads. I can’t tell you how often I read a thread, and then move on, and then think, “hey, I just had a thought that’s relevant to that thread I read a minute or two ago, I’d like to respond to it.” If I’m active on the forum, that probably happens to me at least twice a day. I wonder if that’s something the developers would consider as a user option.
Naw, it changes as the thread grows, and my memory from last time I was there is typically useless. Also, it doesn’t show on the phone, and it usually doesn’t show on my laptop, either, as you need to make the browser window pretty wide for it to be visible.
Thanks, I’ll give that a try.
No, it’s not easy. You have to (on Windows) go to the device manager, then HID (Human Interface Devices), then find the touch screen and disable it.
I don’t know why there isn’t a toggle button somewhere in the control panel/settings menu. Then you could just hit the start button type (or start to type) ‘touchscreen’ and it would take you right to it.
Like I said, I bump my screen from time to time and accidentally close windows so I have it disabled. Just like I disable the screen rotation. I only ever use it in it’s ‘normal’ orientation, so it’s obnoxious when it flips sideways or upside down, even just for a second, every time I move it around.
And while I’m complaining about my current laptop, amongst all the other issues with the touchpad, if you move the laptop with one hand (grab it by the corner, thumb on top, fingers on the bottom, the little bit if flexing of the case ‘clicks’ the mouse. Always have to be mindful of where the cursor is before I move it like that.
Huh. Maybe it depends on what sort of device you’re using? If I click on my avatar at the top of the page, that entire list is still there, even when I’ve read the threads; they just change color when I read them, and the little number that tells me I’ve got unread items disappears from the avatar.
That actually used to drive me crazy when we first came to Discourse; I wanted to be able to clear the list so that items would disappear. It doesn’t bother me any longer; I think I just got used to it.
– yes, I find the scroll bar orients me in a thread, actually better than pages do. And I find it much easier to find things using the scroll bar than it was when I had to open multiple pages looking for it. But that I expect is an individual difference; and also I’m using a big screen and wide somewhat maginified window on a desktop, so the scroll bar’s quite visible.
– I just accidentally closed this tab forgetting that I wanted to post before doing that. No problem, reopen last closed tab and the reply window’s still there with all my typing in it. That’s a very nice feature.
I tried it on my work laptop, which lacks a touch screen, and finally saw the text pop up.
Still don’t understand why it can’t be made to work on a laptop with a touchscreen. Discourse knows perfectly well that I’m not on a phone because it’s showing the desktop view.
The list of “people responded to your post” etc. in the menu you get when you click your avatar remains. The list of “unread” (or “new”) in the hamburger menu gets updated in real time as you read posts.
Given that they are named “unread” and “new” that’s perfectly reasonable. I just found “user CP” in vBulletin a lot friendlier than “unread”. I’ve taken to using the “Recent” menu, instead of either “unread” or “new” because it doesn’t keep changing on me. But there’s so much stuff there (everything, not just my subscribed threads) that it’s often not ideal. It’s still less annoying than “unread”, however.
I guess what I’m asking for is “recently changed tracked topics”, with items bolded or unbolded, depending on whether I’ve read them since the last update or not.
100% agree and not defending Discourse, just explaining my understanding. AIUI, Discourse doesn’t say ‘you have a mouse/touchpad, therefor you get mouse over previews’, instead it says ‘you have a touchscreen, therefore you don’t get mouse over previews’.
In either case, what I don’t understand is why mouse over previews can’t be permanently turned on. If, for example, mouse over previews are enabled and you’re using a smart phone…who cares? You can’t access them, you won’t see them, unless there’s a technical reason I’m missing, which is very possible, it seems like a good way to handle it. If it can/might cause an issue on some devices, give users the option to disable it…or hell, keep everything as is, and just let us decide to enable it. That would let those of us with touchscreens and regular mice turn it on.
Tracked posts, latest first:
https://boards.straightdope.com/search?expanded=true&q=in%3Atracking%20order%3Alatest
If you click on a link, it will change color to show that the link has been followed (varies accrding to browser and settings).
You can keep that list open in one tab and open the topics you choose in other tabs.
Thanks. I might use that.
It’s not… very space-efficient. And there are some weird things about what’s on the list, but maybe that’s real, and not an artifact. And it doesn’t tell me how many posts are new or anything. But it might be close to what I am looking for. I guess I just have to give up on keeping Discourse to one tab. It feels sloppy, but I can probably get used to it.
Anyway, thanks for all your help.