dw_suggestions | Have the "Reply" button take you to the reply form

Title:
Have the "Reply" button take you to the reply form

Area:
commenting

Summary:
If you click on "Reply" from the Recent Entries view, it just brings up the entry and you have to scroll down to get to the comments form. That's not how it should work.

Description:
Think about this for a second. In the Recent Entries view, each entry has three links: A permalink to the entry, a link to the comments, and a link to reply.

The permalink takes you to the entry. The comments link takes you to the comments. Where would you suppose the reply link would take you?

Well, it doesn't take you to the reply form! Instead, it takes you to that entry with ?mode=reply, and you have to scroll down past the entry you already read in order to comment. Wouldn't it be better -- and less confusing to non-Dreamwidth natives -- if it took you straight to the comments form?

Poll #3933 Have the "Reply" button take you to the reply form

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 57

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This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
42 (73.7%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
4 (7.0%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
5 (8.8%)

(I have no opinion)
6 (10.5%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

It's bad enough that when I'm logged in, I can't open reply in another tab so I don't disturb my browsing on a long page of comments. Having it move me around the page I'm on would be so annoying I think I'd have to stop commenting altogether.

While your proposed implementation does make more sense, people also use the reply mode to link to a page without its comments, either because it makes the page lighter and less crash-prone, or because you can gauge the length of the post from the scrollbar more acurately.

I would support a change of the existing behaviour if and only if there were also a "no comments" mode.

Just FYI, on most browsers you can right-click, open in new tab to get a new tab. There also used to be a way to disable QuickReply (the inline commenting); if you go to the console and type "set disable_quickreply 1" it might still work. (We inherited that from LJ, and while we've never done anything to explicitly pull it out, it might've stopped working due to other changes.) That will mean that you'll always have to load another page to comment, though.

I think the problem is that I use an EeePC with a broken touchpad button (a problem very common in Eees.) So I open a new tab with ctrl-doubletap. Thank you for the console command.

What I suggested won't affect how you browse "a long page of comments." It only affects where the "Reply" link takes you when you click on it in the Recent Entries view. The current behavior is to position you at the top of the entry you already read, instead of down at the text input box to actually write your reply.

How would you propose such a feature be made available? Would it be like the Light Mode for browsing entries, or just accessible by appending "&nocomments" or something to the address?

No, please. I really like to have the entry or comment I'm replying to available because I often refer to it, using the quote button for example. If it's not displayed, I'd have to go back and forth and that would decrease usability for me. Why not simply move the post below the comment form? Although my vote goes to making Quick Reply available everywhere but that's already planned I think.

Edited 2010-07-27 09:58 (UTC)

essentially, people would just have to get used to clicking the subject line instead ... which, i have to admit, gets complicated when there is no subject.

I think it's meant as "the entry is still above the reply-form" ... just like it it when you click on "324 comments" and you are directly taken to the comments and not to the top of the post.

Oh, okay! Thank you, Elfy. :)

That's what I meant, yes. Thanks for clarifying!

I'd hate this. I *like* having the comments and the reply form on the same page - it cuts down vastly on my loading times, which - given my slow connection - is a real concern. Anything that makes me load and reload and reload pages is a bad thing, and it can easily happen that I leave the reading list open, click 'reply' because it's the most accessible link, and find that other people have already answered.

I think what the post wants to do could be achieved just as easily with a hack that places the comment box directly underneath the entry text rather than at the bottom of the page.

This suggestion isn't about separating the comments and the reply form! "# Comments" and "Reply" are already separate links in your Reading List and Recent Entries view, and you can reply just fine at any point on the Comments view already.

All that this is about, is what happens when you click Reply from your Reading List or Recent Entries. That already takes you to a "?mode=reply" view, where the text entry box is open and comments are hidden. But right now it brings you to the top of the entry, and you have to scroll way down to get to the text entry box.

I was suggesting we change that. Very sorry if I didn't explain it well.

Appending something like "mode=nocomments", because sometimes I want to see the comments, and sometimes I don't, so it's easier to control it via the URL :)

Sounds like fun! It could be covered in the documentation and announced in Dreamwidth news for people who want to use it, maybe.