# Length of the "thread previews"

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/length-of-the-thread-previews/391949>\
**Category:** About This Message Board\
**Created:** [February 13, 2007, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/length-of-the-thread-previews/391949 "2007-02-13T00:58:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2007, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/length-of-the-thread-previews/391949/1 "2007-02-13T00:58:56Z")

</div>

I was wondering if the thread previews you get (hover arrow over thread title to  
read a small portion of the first post) can be made longer somehow, either on our  
end, or on the server’s end? Sometimes I come across a thread title which might  
be hard to understand what it’s talking about, but I’d rather not actually open the  
thread if I don’t have to.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2007, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/length-of-the-thread-previews/391949/2 "2007-02-13T23:20:32Z")

</div>

The mouse-over preview seems to be either 300 characters or none. It may be possible to hack vBulletin to make a different preview size, but Jerry is rightfully unwilling to muck around with such things.

If you look at how vBulletin builds the pages, you’ll see that the preview text is part of the page, which is why it pops up instantly, rather than waiting for sending a request to the server and getting a response. A bigger preview would result in the pages being that much bigger to transmit. Might not be an issue for broadband, but for dial-up users, it can get tedious.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![clayton\_e](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c57346/32.png) [@clayton\_e](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clayton_e)\
**Post date:** [February 14, 2007, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/length-of-the-thread-previews/391949/3 "2007-02-14T00:10:52Z")

</div>

I think its almost too long… All the time I accidently scroll over a thread title and it covers up other thread titles I’m skimming over.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\
**Post date:** [February 14, 2007, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/length-of-the-thread-previews/391949/4 "2007-02-14T16:02:50Z")

</div>

What gotpasswords said. It’s not an element we can fiddle with. For those who are displeased, we’re sorry.