# Sliding avatars?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sliding-avatars/954796
**Category:** About This Message Board
**Created:** [November 23, 2021, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sliding-avatars/954796 "2021-11-23T06:40:04Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@superwombat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/superwombat)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2021, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sliding-avatars/954796/21 "2021-11-24T06:17:23Z")
> [@BigT](#):
>
> Would releasing these things be useful to anyone besides me?
Most definitely, and perhaps a quick primer on how to implement it for those of us not well versed. The effort is appreciated.
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### Author:  [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2021, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sliding-avatars/954796/22 "2021-11-24T15:08:42Z")
> [@BigT](#):
>
> Scrolling up, it always appears, but @codinghorror has made it pretty clear to me that Discourse is not designed for scrolling up.
I’ve never had any problem scrolling up, and I do it fairly frequently.
The floating avatars have become really erratic. Sometimes they move. Sometimes they don’t move. Sometimes one that isn’t moving will start to if
I scroll back and forth across it again. I’m not seeing any pattern to it at all.
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### Author:  [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2021, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sliding-avatars/954796/23 "2021-11-24T15:40:52Z")
And, on top of all that, I’ve never experienced what others are talking about where the avatar stays at the top of the screen. I wouldn’t mind a feature like that, but not if it’s implemented in such a way that the text shifts around on the screen as I scroll up and down following discussions.
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### Author:  [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2021, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sliding-avatars/954796/24 "2021-11-24T19:17:31Z")
Okay, the sliding avatar thing just started working for me (I didn’t or do anything), it seems to be hit or miss if actually happens, but at least I know what people are talking about now. Also the entire post jumping back and forth stopped.
However, know there’s a big chunk of wasted real estate in the column that all the avatars are in since the space is needed for them to slide around. Not a big deal, just different.
This all sort of reminds me of when vB switched from user names/stats between each post to being to the left of each one with people passionately arguing about why one was better than the other.
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### Author:  [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2021, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sliding-avatars/954796/25 "2021-11-24T20:02:15Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#):
>
> know there’s a big chunk of wasted real estate in the column that all the avatars are in
I’ve given up complaining about it, but there is, and has been all along, a huge chunk of wasted real estate on both sides of the page on my desktop. The avatar, sliding or not, only takes up maybe 10% of what’s blank on its side anyway.
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### Author:  [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2021, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sliding-avatars/954796/26 "2021-11-24T20:17:19Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#):
>
> I’ve given up complaining about it, but there is, and has been all along, a huge chunk of wasted real estate on both sides of the page on my desktop. The avatar, sliding or not, only takes up maybe 10% of what’s blank on its side anyway.
Actually, yes, you’re right about that one, but for whatever reason, it never really bugged me. The sliding avatar caught my attention because it’s eating part of the space within the post itself.
Having said that, in general , viewing a website on a computer that’s optimized for a phone, as I suspect is the case here, is annoying.
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### Author:  [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2021, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sliding-avatars/954796/27 "2021-11-24T20:20:02Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#):
>
> The sliding avatar caught my attention because it’s eating part of the space within the post itself.
Ah. It hasn’t been doing that for me; it stays in the space on the left which is otherwise blank anyway. I haven’t been seeing any of the narrowing or moving of text which some people are reporting.
Straight Dope Light, Firefox, oldish desktop Mac.
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### Author:  [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2021, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sliding-avatars/954796/28 "2021-11-24T20:26:56Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#):
>
> I haven’t been seeing any of the narrowing or moving of text which some people are reporting.
I’m not sure if you saw my other thread, but this is what it looked like.
[https://i.imgur.com/rYDCi8a.mp4](https://i.imgur.com/rYDCi8a.mp4)
> [@thorny\_locust](#):
>
> Ah. It hasn’t been doing that for me; it stays in the space on the left which is otherwise blank anyway
Here’s what it looks like now, you can see the column the avatars occupy is exclusively for them to slide around in, there’s no text there. In the video above, you can see how text took up the entire black area, now it’s only using part of it.
[ ](https://i.imgur.com/Sv44vvH.jpg)
I guess I can understand why things went wonky, if this was the result the coders were aiming for. How they didn’t catch it, I don’t know.
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### Author:  [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2021, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sliding-avatars/954796/29 "2021-11-26T00:51:05Z")
I am using a older MacBook Pro, with an older version of Firefox, and the Straight Dope Light theme with text size set to “Larger”.
I have always seen a white-space gutter at the left in which the avatar sits – the text has never filled in to that area.
The sliding avatar generally works well, but for a few glitches. I think it just needs a little more fine-tuning.
If a post fills the entire screen and beyond, then the avatar slides down as it apparently should as I scroll down the post. (That is, the avatar remains visible in the top left corner.) Scrolling back up the post works too.
The quirky case I am seeing is this: If a post does NOT fill the entire screen. Then as I scroll down the thread a little bit, and the post in question starts to scroll partly off the top of the window, then the avatar does not remain on-screen but scrolls off the top of the window too. If I scroll beyond the post in question and then scroll back up, the avatar pops up at the top left and stays there. Even this description is a bit approximate, as there are still some quirks about when the avatar pops up.
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2021, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sliding-avatars/954796/30 "2021-12-17T01:20:36Z")
> [@superwombat](#):
>
> > [@BigT](#):
> >
> > Would releasing these things be useful to anyone besides me?
>
> Most definitely, and perhaps a quick primer on how to implement it for those of us not well versed. The effort is appreciated.
Okay, I’ve released it. Sorry it took so long–life has been hectic.
> [@SDMB Tweaker 2 (includes avatar sliding option)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-tweaker-2-includes-avatar-sliding-option/956193/):
>
> An all new forum means all new tweaks. I have a few I’ve been using for a while, and I asked [if anyone wanted them](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sliding-avatars/954796/20), and got the go-ahead. I have a few more ideas planned, but I’ve been delayed long enough in posting this. To install the UserScript, you’ll need to install [TamperMonkey](https://www.tampermonkey.net/)\* for your web browser (if you haven’t already), then go the to following link and click the Install button. gearpaintbrush [SDMB Tweaker 2 – OpenUserJS](https://openuserjs.org/scripts/BigTSDMB/SDMB_Tweaker_2) Adds some quality of life improvements to the Discourse…
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