Breadcrumb from a single thread to the page the thread was on

[azurelunatic]

Title:
Breadcrumb from a single thread to the page the thread was on

Area:
user interface, making things make sense

Summary:
When you're viewing a single thread on an entry with a lot of discussion, link back to the discussion page that the thread is on, if there are multiple pages.

Description:
So you're reading along in an entry that's got a lot of discussion, and maybe you click "link" instead of "expand", or the expander doesn't quite feel like doing its thing today and throws you into the thread. You could click the back button when you're done, but perhaps you don't think of it -- and you click the (Read 1337 comments) link and wind up back on page 1.

Or perhaps someone has linked you to a specific thread, and you want to see it in context in the wider discussion, and there are already 10+ pages and counting, and oh god just what.

If it's reasonably easy to retrieve information about what page any given comment thread would be on, it would be nice to have a link to that page at the top and bottom of the page, thus:

(Read 1337 comments) (Read page 2 of 23) (Post a new comment)

This might cause some custom styles breakage, and might require tweaking to allow users to easily change the text in their own style for custom comments pages.

Poll #4745 Breadcrumb from a single thread to the page the thread was on

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 68

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
60 (88.2%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
1 (1.5%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
0 (0.0%)

(I have no opinion)
7 (10.3%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[melannen]

Yes, please!

I also often spend a lot of time in view=flat mode on entries with a lot of comments (I find after more than 75 comments I can't keep track of threads anymore) and it would be great to be able to get from a comment in flat mode to the page it belongs on in threaded mode.

(Which you could to by including the "page 1 of 27" links on flat mode view; but even if you didn't do that, you could get from flat mode to the parent thread, and then back to the correct threaded page. Right now the only way I know of is to guess, or to post a reply.)

[matgb]

What might be good, or even nicer?

Some way of numbering/naming threads, so, especially for view=flat, you can see which part of the conversation it's in. Then link back to both the top of the thread (which we do) and to the page it's on if paginated.

[cesy]

There was a suggestion that went via dw_accessibility to number/label threads, for people who can't see the indents easily. That might be useful for this.

Subjects on comments can also be useful, but don't seem to be used much in most of the circles I'm in.

Comment titling

[matgb]

Heh, it's always something I mean to do regularly, but always forget to do. PErhaps it's a habit I should get into more anyway.

On LJ, I sometimes do carefully title things, but only if I use the Twitter crossposter, which I use less than I thought I would.

[susanreads]

+1

This week in "features I would use all the time but never thought of suggesting" ...

[musyc]

Oh, yes yes yes. The "read page 2 of 23" sort of option would be fantastic.

[zvi]

Wow, that link would be amazing!

[turlough]

OH YES PLEASE!

[arethinn]

Neat idea. You can kind of get there by clicking parent, parent, parent, but one-touch would be cool.

An small user-side bookmarklet,

[openanon.myopenid.com]

naturally modelled after the automatic post-commenting goto format.

This works as is, copied and pasted:

javascript:( function(){ location = location.href.replace( /%5cbthread=(%5cd+)([^%23]*).*$/, 'view=$1$2%23cmt$1' ) } )()

This link is munged anonmeme-style for mobile users without clipboards:

reply, click, prepend missing j (avascript:( function(){ location = location.href.replace( /%5cbthread=(%5cd+)([^%23]*).*$/, 'view=$1$2%23cmt$1' ) } )())

[poussifeu]

I'm assuming the "read page __ of __" part would stay consistent with what page the comment is on (don't see a reason why it wouldn't). I've noticed sometimes comments that are on the first or whatever page will get pushed to the next page when comments above them turn into long threads @__@