This is not really related to the topic of this thread, but since I saw it pop up here, I will pose the question here. What is the little arrow that only appears rarely at the top of posts next to the letter M? Is it related to the Moderator’s post?
That post is in response to a post from the moderator. If you click that arrow, you’ll see the post it’s responding to.
I am with on this. I have read about the back button several times. I saw it in a screen shot too. I have never seen it in action.
The back button on the thread slider tool might just be desktop.
It appears after you’ve entered the thread at your last read position and then gone back in the thread. When I’m back on desktop I’ll confirm it’s still there…
I’m guessing what you’re experiencing is that you don’t see the Back button on the slider if you’ve already read to the end of the thread.
Try going into a random thread you haven’t visited yet. Scroll down a ways in the thread (that’s telling the system that you’ve “read” that far), then scroll back up the thread to an earlier post. That’s when you should see the Back button appear. Click it, and it’ll take you back to the post you scrolled down to initially.
Does that work for you?
Also, they made some changes overnight to make the timeline more prominent.
I will give it a try @Moderator_1 and report back.
I do see the slider line is much thicker now. Thank you.
Edit to add: You are correct. I saw the back option doing what you said (scrolling to the middle of a thread and then scrolling back up towards the start of the thread).
I think the thing that is hard to get used to is the visual busyness of the layout as opposed to the use of very clear boxes on the old system. I can see why it is like that, but it can be very confusing.
It is VERY BUSY.
I have only used a desktop so far.
Back button notes where I entered at the last read position, and then navigated backward? That is a limited functionality. What if I go forward, then want to find the earlier post? What if I want to use it in a thread I’m reading for the first time … etc. scenarios?
I spotted the back button about 30 minutes ago and haven’t seen it since.
I pointed out in the other thread that the slider (infinite scroll) navigation is imprecise, random and difficult. It is not a smooth scroll. I would not necessarily need a back button if I could navigate with the slider, but it is proving a poor functionality.
At this point I’ve tried to improve my slider skills, but have given up and am using the browser scroll instead. The browser scroll is much smoother and more precise. However it is slow if one wants to jump a good distance from where one is now.
As an example, if I see a post that asks a question I want to know the answer to, if it has already been answered then I don’t need to quote it or ask the same question. But maybe it wasn’t answered right away, so the answer might be a ways down the thread. However, if I come to the end of the thread and there is no answer, I’d like to quote the previous post rather than re-invent the question. But there is no way to go back and find that part of the conversation and locate the post by using the slider, and without being able to enter a post number for navigation. So that’s the problem with the thread navigation that I’m experiencing.
No, this board doesn’t hold your place if you jump forward. The last board didn’t either.
If there are replies to a post here, and they are not the next post following, there will be a button under the post that you can expand to see the reply–even if it’s a ways down. You don’t travel down the thread, it’s just nested there. Cool, huh?
If you’re particularly worried about losing your place, you can bookmark the post you’re on. It’s the little ribbon icon behind the three dots at the bottom of every post. Bookmarks are saved to your profile, click your avatar in the upper right and then the bookmark icon to access.
Looks like the forum software has a no-javascript fallback display. If you disable javascript for this site, the forum loads a version that presents you with next/previous page links and no side scrolling, yay! There doesn’t appear to be any way to reply to a post though but whether that’s a decision for you based on whether you do more reading or posting!
Depending on which browser you use there should be plugins to disable javascript on a per-site basis and maybe have shortcut keys to disable/re-enable it to make life easy if you ever want to reply to a post.
I’m not sure what you’re seeing. I can grab the bar and slowly slide 1 post at a time, or slide faster to go 10, 34, 57 posts at a time
Scroll back, just like the old forum?
What does “scenarios” mean?
You CAN slide to a specific post #. Or you can click the magnifying glass at the top and enter a keyword and check the “Search this topic” box.
In addition to the earlier suggestions, you can also click anywhere along the timeline and that’ll move you right to that point in the thread…so sort of like you’d have to pick a thread page and scroll to find your target post on the old site…now you can click to “about halfway through the thread” or wherever, and scroll to find it from there.
Another option for your scenario you described, is that you can quote the post you might want to reply to, and it’ll be saved in your message composition screen. Keep on reading…you can quote more posts if you want as you go and they’ll be added to your reply box. Then you can delete the quotes or respond to them when you get to the end and determine whether you have something to add.
And wanted to add here what I posted on the other thread:
If you click # anytime you DON’T have your message composition screen open, you can then enter in a post number to navigate straight to.
GET OUT! How have I missed this? This is freaking awesome
AND, that lets you jump to a date too
Thank you! Yes.
Ok, THIS is cool. You can go to a post # even while you have the reply box open.
Here I’m in a reply box, and you can see the green 30/30 there in the middle
I click the box, and it shows me the 30th post, which is the one right above mine
Notice the bottom left of the post it’s displaying - jump to
click that and you can do to whatever post # or date you want
That is AWESOME!!!
Re the slider scroll - it is just not working smoothly for me, at all. The longer the thread, the more it leaps from here to there with no precision. Maybe it will improve over time. As I mentioned somewhere, it’s sort of like cantering my very green ottb, which I did today. The steering is rattly loose and we were all over the lot - but he did pick up both leads (eventually), so there’s that.
Re quote, I love the highlight and click Quote. But so far it will only pick up one per reply. It’s not saving the previous Quote. Maybe I’ll figure out what I’m doing wrong with that.
Same.
The green slider is actually very helpful and definitely what I needed. Scrolling “normally” just results in me waiting around for later posts to upload, but sliding down to a date makes it fill much faster and means I can find where the activity was happening/stopped.
Thanks!
Re quote, I love the highlight and click Quote. But so far it will only pick up one per reply. It’s not saving the previous Quote. Maybe I’ll figure out what I’m doing wrong with that.
So if you highlight, click the Quote box, it appears in your Reply box,yes?
But if you highlight another set of text, I assume you get another Quote box, but clicking that doesn’t add that new quoted text to your Reply box?