make the reading page's window title change when new entries have been posted

[ratcreature]

Title:
make the reading page's window title change when new entries have been posted

Area:
reading page

Summary:
I think it would be useful if the reading page changed its title with the number of new entries posted since you last reloaded, so if three people posted since I last reloaded my window title/tab name would say "ratcreature | Reading (3)" instead of just "ratcreature | Reading".

Description:
I reload my reading page fairly often, but frequently nothing has bee posted. OTOH my GMail inbox changes its window title and thus the tab name with the number of new messages in brackets, so I can see that new mail has arrived, and the Tumblr Dashboard does something similar in that a number appears over the Dashboard link and the also title changes with the number in brackets, so I can see something new was posted, even if I'm in another tab, and then reload the page to see the new content. Also, in Firefox I can change these to application tabs, and the small tab markers change color to alert me.

I think it would be useful if the Dreamwidth reading list also changed the title of the window if new posts appeared with the number of posts since I last reloaded the page.

I don't know how this kind of thing is realized on the technical side, so I'm not sure what the drawbacks would be. Maybe if it caused more server traffic the time interval in which the status is checked needs to be larger so that it wouldn't be nearly instantaneous, but it would still help if it only checked every couple of minutes (which is about the time interval I'm rechecking my reading list manually when I'm really bored and hope someone would post something already).

Poll #7837 make the reading page's window title change when new entries have been posted

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 67

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
27 (40.3%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
13 (19.4%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
9 (13.4%)

(I have no opinion)
18 (26.9%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[moonvoice]

This would be lovely. Gmail's ability to let you know how many emails you've got stops me from constantly refreshing. Otherwise I'm a constant reloader, and my DW reading page gets hit with the refresh button all the time!

[ratcreature]

Yes, I push refresh all the time too. It's like some Pavlovian training, because sometimes you get rewarded with new entries, you then push all the time...

[moonvoice]

Yes! I like the Pavlovian response; it's definitely like that.

[matgb]

Has to be fully opt outable.

On my laptop, on my unlimited bandwidth home connection, as long as it's coded well, I'd be happy to see it.

When I'm roaming on metered bandwidth, or on my smartphone, it'd suck bandwidth I wouldn'[t necessarily want if the tab's open the background.

Specifically, "old" Twitter was terrible for this, I switched away from it completely when I realised it was using up more bandwidth idle in the background than all my other tabs combined, including Gmail.

Many, most, people will love it, but for some it'd be an annoying intrusion and possibly a bandwidth hog.

[allen]

Maybe have a full opt-out option for the user, plus a GET parameter that would explicitly disable the feature? That way you could choose to have your home machine go to the update-enabled page, while bookmarking the no-auto-update version on your mobile device.

[matgb]

Works for me, I'm used to adding lots of silly parameters to URLs anyway, but I think it'd need linking somewhere on the page (or navbar?) for those that don't like/understand directly amending URLs

[kyrielle]

Except then, if you're trying to have it work one way on a device and you navigate to it via an on-site link, you have to "flip" modes. If it's an option, I'd like it to be a tri-state - "Never" / "Non-Mobile Only" / "Always" - so if the site detected a mobile device, it could skip the updating.

I'd LOVE this on my computer. I wouldn't hate it on my phone (I have unlimited bandwidth), but it'd be a silly use of resources since I can't see page titles there unless I'm actively flipping between them. Especially if I wasn't even in the browser at the time but had just left the page up, although I admit that'd be more likely if my phone browser were better (since I have 50/50 odds it'll refresh the page when I go back in anyway, leaving a reading page up to track where I was is fairly pointless).

[voldsom]

Yes to this.

(I was wondering about skipping the option, so that it was automatically disabled for mobile devices, but realised I'd prefer to have the option available for normal browsers)

[cesy]

+1

[deborah]

+1

I have mixed feelings about this from an accessibility perspective. On the one hand, it's really nice to be able to glance at the tab and see if it's worth checking updates. But on the other hand, having control over my tab names, knowing that they will always stay the same, has adaptive technology implications. So I might use it, but I would be likely to turn it off.

[turlough]

+1

[chagrined]

I guess I would also be okay with it as long as it were opt-in or opt-out.

[feathertail]

Ideally, I'd think, smartphones would simply have a feature like this coded into the app for their respective platform. (I wonder how iDreamwidth is doing?)

[goodbyebird]

As long as it's opt-in, this is a great idea :)

[zaluzianskya]

Another vote for this as an opt-in feature. I don't think I'd get much use out of it since my reading page is pretty small and slow, but it would be a nice thing for other people to have.

[arethinn]

Mine already says "arethinn | Reading (filtername)" since I use a subscription filter... I guess another parenthetical after that?

[susanreads]

I also use reading filters, and only part of the filter name shows in the tab title, so if it was after it wouldn't be visible. Yahoo! Mail puts (xx unread) at the beginning of the title for that reason.

I probably wouldn't use it unless I could turn it on and off on the fly (I spend longer catching up with what was posted while I was AFK than waiting for new stuff), but I'll vote Yes as I'm sure some people would use the heck out of it. It should definitely be opt-in, too.

[arethinn]

I definitely wouldn't use this feature so I guess it's "no opinion" for me.

[montuos]

I agree with matgb that it should probably be an option, but I still want it lots and lots!

Heck, I'd settle for a standalone or browser add-on for an unread notifier. LiveJournal Addons is way overkill in many ways, but it does so much for my LJ experience that I often miss some of its features when I'm using DW.

[instantramen]

I am fully behind the idea of this suggestion, although I agree with everyone who says it should be opt-in for the sake of people with bandwidth constraints and/or who are reading on mobile devices.

[healingmirth]

Time flies - I could have sworn something like this came up just weeks ago, but its been almost a year. (edit: where by almost, I mean over.

http://dw-suggestions.dreamwidth.org/411086.html

I frequently have so many tabs open that I can't see a whole page title, but like I said on the other suggestion, I'm not picky. Is like to see this happen somehow, and I could learn to keep things with useful page titles in their own window.

[ratcreature]

Heh, I voted for that one too, but didn't remember and with search still down I didn't check back. entries before suggesting

[healingmirth]

Your suggestion is probably a lot easier to vote on or raise concerns that would need to be addressed, though. The other discussion sort of went in brainstorm circles - I only went looking for it because I'm procrastinating :)

[azurelunatic]

Aha, I knew I'd discussed this before.

In the way of having fewest options for best experience, I could see a "how often to check" setting have a "don't" option; I'd also like a thing (which I should write up as a separate suggestion) a whole page out of the 'manage' area to control things that may be set per-session, in a nice labeled area.

[feathertail]

Something like this would be excellent! Really, if Dreamwidth's reading list became as user-friendly as just about any RSS reader I'd squee in delight. >.>; Anything that moves DW closer to that is awesome in my book.

I'd say that along with this, there should be some visual reminder on the page itself, like how Google Reader's "unread" count updates and bolds. Also some way to distinguish between read and unread items. Those might need separate suggestions though.

[sky]

Some kind of update notifier would be an absolute godsend for me. I frequently wander away from DW for weeks at a time because I just forget that there's probably new stuff on my readlist by now...

[green_knight]

I can see it being awesome under some circumstances and a nightmare under others - as a low-bandwidth user (mostly) I really don't want my browser to phone home more than necessary, so I'd like it to be opt-in with a 'check every...' option (every hour would work for me; every minute would be a nightmare.)

On the third hand, a feature in, say, the navigation strip that would allow me to decide whether to refresh would be awesome - if I click a button, see I have three new articles on my rlist, I'll ignore them, if it's 20, I'd refresh.

Yes, there are times when my connection is THAT slow. Not happy - this *is* the upgrade - but it's the best I have to work with much of the time.

[azurelunatic]

It does turn out that the mechanism that makes pinned tabs in Chrome shimmer is the page title updating, which was what I started wandering through suggestions about.

I'm still generally in favor of the model that checks maybe every ~15 minutes to see if there's an update until it finds one, and then adds "(1+)" to the title, and stops re-checking (or slows further, to hourly on the first day, daily thereafter).