Just a small suggestion, no big whoop if it can’t be done or I’m the only one who likes the idea.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who keeps multiple threads open at once. In Firefox, this results in a row of tabs across (in my case) the bottom of my screen, showing abbreviated page titles – the more abbreviated as the number of windows increases:
Straight Dope Message Board - Fry … (largest)
Straight Dope Message Bo …
Straight Dope Mess …
Straight Do …
Stra …
S …
Would it be logical or sensible to reverse the order of “Straight Dope Message Board” and the actual thread title in page titles, so that we could see instead:
Should pare …
Have you ev …
Why is the U …
Have you no …
My cat is in th …
Survivor 11.1 …
Causality an …
It would sure make it easier to browse multiple threads at once, at least in the browser setup I have, and I’m sure others see something similar. Granted, it would save only a few mouse clicks or keystrokes when you’re hunting around for the thread you want, but if it’s easy to do, it’d be a nice refinement.
So you open a thread, read it, close it, open another thread, read it, close it, open another thread, etc.? Must take you forever to read the boards.
I don’t really see how there’s a difference. I open my threads all at once, yes, but then while I’m reading them, I’m not taxing the server for all that time unless I open the next page or reply. Same number of server requests for my SD session; they’re just all at the beginning of that time.
I know people complain about the boards being slow, pages not loading, etc., but for some reason I haven’t had that problem for a long time.
Hmm, looks like a new cosmology question. I’ll have to go check GQ.
I agree that this would be a very useful change, and I suspect (though I do not know for certain) that it’s implementable without a hack. Probably jdavis is the only one who knows what file would need to be tweaked, though, and it might take him a while to get around to something non-urgent like this.
It’d be just a matter of changing the title field of the page, apparently. Speaking in total ignorance of how vB works, it seems it shouldn’t be too hard. Of course, the final decision would be up to jdavis. As the Reader doesn’t like to spend more time than necessary maintaining the board, and the suggestion is just for convenience, I’m guessing it wouldn’t get in any time soon, if ever.
But for something this simple, a Greasemonkey script should be relatively easy (again, in total ignorance of Greasemonkey). Perhaps someone could look into that.
Does opening up multiple threads at once affect board speed more than opening them up one at a time? Assuming you would have opened them all up anyway? I thought ( and I could be wrong. I often am) that it is the retrieving of the thread that strains resources and not the displaying of the thread.
Changing the order in which the title is displayed is easy to do, but requires changing the PHP code of the software, which the server Administration has said in the past they are not inclined to do.
The difference is when you open 10 threads at once, you’re creating a burst of traffic to/from the server, versus getting the data more gradually over time. All things equal, I would reckon if everyone did it, the server would be more likely to time out and crash. However, that would depend greatly on current traffic, number of users, who’s doing what, etc. My WAG is that opening them one at a time evens out the load for the server and is better overall.
Of course, once the threads are all opened, then unless you make a new request of the server, there’s no more bandwidth used.
In the meantime, simply mousing over the tabs should give you the full title of the page that you have open in one of those little yellow popups that show up when you mouse over a thread title in the forum lists.
Win XP, Firefox 2.0 here, in case that makes any difference.
I prefer the way it is now actually. I usually have several IE windows open at once, but only one (or occassionally two) of the windows are SDMB. So, I just have to click on the “Straight Do…” IE button and I know it’ll take me to the SDMB thread. Whereas, if the thread title came first, I’d have to remember that this thread started with “Suggestion” and look for “Sugges…” (and remember that it didn’t start “Rearrang…” if I was just remembering it was about rearranging thread titles).
A compromise between the two suggestions made, so far, would be to change the title to "SDMB - " which would shorten the lead characters to six, leaving more room for the individual thread name.
OTOH, Jerry has enough to do and I am only proposing that as a compromise IF we actually undertake to make any changes.
Yeah, it’s just a thought, it doesn’t kill me to mouseover the tab and wait a few seconds, and “SDMB -” would be a neat compromise. But if it never happens I’m not going to lose any sleep.
This, I think, would also be an improvement, and might even be easier. Somewhere, at some point, somebody at the Dope had to fill in a blank in vBulletin to tell it the name of this board is “Straight Dope Message Board”, and there’s no reason that blank couldn’t instead be filled in with “SDMB”. Depending on how exactly vBulletin is set up, though, this might also have other implications: For instance, the navigation at the top of a thread which currently reads
might with the same setting be changed to
That change probably wouldn’t matter, but it’s conceivable that there might be some place where it would.
The name of the Board can be changed quickly in one location by any Administrator. It takes about 5 seconds to do it. However, I imagine that something like changing the name of the Board involves approval from the Reader, as it’s sort of like changing the “branding” of the Board. Given that, I reckon that the Staff here will be at the mercy of the Reader - so even if the Staff here did like the idea there might still be some hoops to jump through.
Note I’m not speaking for any of the Staff here, nor the Reader, nor am I expressing an opinion one way or the other on any potential name change.
No worries.