Visually mark new comments since last reload

[opusculus]

Title:
Visually mark new comments since last reload

Area:
Comments

Summary:
When you reload the page, any comments that have been posted since you last loaded the page would be marked as visually distinct and new.

Description:
This is about the only thing I really like about LJ's redesign, personally, so I thought I'd suggest it over here. It could be done with either a hardcoded visual thing like LJ's, where a little yellow new comment button shows up next to new comments, or something that can be styled with CSS to be a dot or a different header color or whatever, that would just become part of the layout and people can choose to maximize or minimize how much it stands out.

It's especially helpful in very fast-moving posts where you want/need to track what everyone is saying, but need more context for each thread than tracking and only seeing what the immediately previous comment said with the newest comment, rather than seeing the last 10 comments in a straight row. I play a game on occasion where 5-10 people can make a hundred comments in an hour all on pretty much the same topic and you have to try to be following them all, and the last time I played it was oh my god so much easier with that feature. But it's the kind of thing that seems like it would be useful in almost any discussion you want to follow, but don't quite want to track the post for whatever reason.

Poll #9007 Visually mark new comments since last reload

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 92

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
55 (59.8%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
6 (6.5%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
5 (5.4%)

(I have no opinion)
26 (28.3%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[melannen]

>>but need more context for each thread than tracking and only seeing what the immediately previous comment said with the newest comment, rather than seeing the last 10 comments in a straight row.

You can do this now by using the "flat" link on the comment page - it de-threads all comments and lists them in strict order of posting, so you can read, oh, the last 10 comments in a straight row. It's not perfect (it hides any structure with the threading, except what's revealed by subject lines) but I thought I'd mention it in case you didn't know - it's completely changed the way I follow large discussions.

[azurelunatic]

(This is all dev speculation based on my limited-but-improving knowledge of How Shit Works.)

As far as back-end goes, there would probably need to be some sort of "new-since-last-visit-from-this-user" flag property attached to the comment, which the stylesheet would then check for. Thus the "display this labeled as unread" behavior would be easy to change in one place if studying determined that the display wasn't working for some reason (without having to rebuild the whole back end) and it would be also available for S2-styled comment views in every style without having to do a lot of shenanigans.

[stormy]

I think we have this. Located in http://www.dreamwidth.org/manage/settings/?cat=display under New Comment Link Indicator. I haven't used it.

[aibro]

I think it'd be cool for other users, but I'd want an option to disable it since I prefer using the flat link.

[zeborah]

This would be handy.

Using CSS would be ideal - then people could choose to have it do nothing, or mark new comments, or even entirely hide the old comments.

(I was once working on an implementation that allowed for manual mark-as-read, mark-as-unread, mark-all-as-read, etc; and was working up to add functionality so that scrolling past an item would automagically count as marking-as-read. I can't remember how I planned to do that, alas. Probably with much trial-and-error and swearing.)

[snakeling]

I personally use this Greasemonkey userscript. But a native solution would be lovely, especially if it could be tied with the account rather than the browser :)

[rainfall]

Okay, not that this really needs saying, but:

1.) I want an opt-in; I feel like this would be distracting in RP, and if it adds to page load time at all I wouldn't be interested.

2.) "Visual" distinction is the wrong way to look at it. This would, if anything, be even more useful for users who can't scan an entry visually. :|a I don't know a lot about screen readers, but if we add something to indicate new comments, I think it should be something that screen readers could identify and tab between. "New comments!" would be announced via the screen reader, and then the screen reader would go straight from one to the next, skipping all the old comments unless the user would rather read the entire post.

Just food for thought.

[eruthros]

I use a greasemonkey script to do this, and I really like it. (It just says "NEW" next to a comment, but it doesn't always work perfectly.)

But I wouldn't turn a similar thing on in dw if it was only visually-indicated by color or with a dot or whatever - I use subdued colors for a reason! Plus I'd like it to be something I could search for to quickly run through all the new comments in situ in their threads; using the mark-new-comments script, I can just crtl-f the all-caps "NEW" and quickly shuffle through all the new comments, and I couldn't do that with a visual indication. I can definitely see the uses of the visual-only notification, though, for other people, so maybe it would work better if it could be coded with the journal layout to be either text or icons/images, the way some other journal features already are?

[imriel]

I wouldn't mind this as long as there was an opt-out. I see how it could be useful, but personally I just find the 'new comment' flags on Livejournal really, really annoying.

[green_knight]

I would love to have a 'new comment' class created by DW, and I think that is the behaviour that we should be looking to implement. Once you have class="new_comment" you have endless - and reader-definable - opportunities:
- collapse old and expand new comments
- show only new comments
- add a visual identifier: mark the text in a different colour, on a different background, display an icon next to it - all the CSS fun
- you could even add 'NEW: in front of the subject line. (Would that work for screen reader users?)
-... pprobaby more things I can't think of right now.

I dislike the LJ implementation - I'm lost in the white space and my brain isn't parsing the yellow blocks as meaningful information, particularly as they're too far down - it's information I'd expect in the header of a comment, not what appears to be its body.

[jem0000000]

I like the general idea, but I would also like both an opt-out and an accessibility/screen reader -friendly indicator. :)