Comment - FBXL Lotide

Comment on Vier Facelift? Before I started work on BookLook the plan was to just create

randompenguin@dillyofapickle.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

Curious whether people would want this theme style to work like Bluesky/Mastodon where:
* The main feeds only show you the actual posts and none of the comments
* You click the post body to open that post in a new window by itself with all its comments

It would require adding a couple invisible elements to a Vier template to pull it off, but I don't know if people like the way Bluesky and Mastodon make you go to a new page to see the comments or if Friendica users would want that?

original

Sort:hotnew top

randompenguin@dillyofapickle.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I was thinking of making a variant of this theme style that implements this idea, mostly to see how well it works and if people like it before resubmitting a PR to do it in all themes.
Hiding all the comments is easy via CSS. It's not quite as efficient as not generating them in the first place though. But the end result for the user is the same - no comments cluttering up their feed and making it super long in some cases.
Making the post body a clickable link that takes you to the post's single display page is also easy.
What I'm not sure of is how to handle the COMMENT button? The options are:
A. Hide Button so you have to click through to the single display page to comment.
B. Show Button and allow writing a direct comment to the OP in the feed (however, after you submit it the only way to see your comment is to click through to the single display view).
C. Button Opens Post - make the Comment button also click you through to the single display page (but then you have to click it again to actually comment).
None of these is an ideal solution. I'm favoring option "B" since all the other action buttons are available in the feed it feels like Comment should be as well. But I also realize it might confuse some people that they can't actually see their comment appear under the post. All they'd see is the engagement emoji count go up one.
Which option sounds better to you?
original
randompenguin@dillyofapickle.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
While trying this out I've decided I'm going to submit a PR that offers "Hide Comments in Feeds" as Settings > Display option for ALL themes (turned off by default of course).
People who want a really compact feed will love it. People who don't like extra clicks will hate it. But nobody has to use it if they don't want to.
In every feed all of the comments are hidden. But you click on the post body and it opens the post in its own page, only there it will actually show you any comments under it.
This is exactly how the web UI of both Mastodon and Bluesky work so it is a UX with which many users will already be familiar.
The trick is making sure that all the other stuff in the post still works as expected. The contact links in the post header. The (re)action buttons below. Commenting without having to first open the post in the single display page.
The only thing I don't like is that it literally just hides the comments in the feeds. It's still going through all those loops creating them. But the same loop creates the top post too and while the templates are context-aware if they're being rendered in a "display" page or not, the backend is not. So it's not quite as efficient as it could be. Maybe I'll figure out that backend part. But right now on my Dev Server I've got this working perfectly across all the themes.
Now, if I can just get all these PRs I've been working on submitted...
original
- randompenguin@dillyofapickle.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I retracted my PR for this. It won't be in the next release of Friendica. It conflicts with the existing "Compact Conversation View" feature which hides all other comments except your own interactions with a post author (or something like that), where mine literally hides ALL comments under the post and requires you to click the post to read it on a separate page that shows all the comments.
  There were questions of whether there is demand for a feature to make Friendica feeds work the same way as Bluesky and Mastodon? And whether being able to write a comment to a post in the feed, but _not_ see it get added under the post in the feed is too confusing, and whether commenting in the feed should be completely disabled, or on submission should it take you to that post's single page where you _can_ see your comment? Which will take a little more work to figure out to make it do that.
  So I'll probably do a post/poll on that question and if there's enough interest I'll resubmit the PR for the _next_ version. We can probably put both options in a dropdown so you can't enable both of them at the same time.
  original
  - leanderlindahl@friendica-sverige.se ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    @randompenguin I'm curious to see and understand what that compact view does. I liked the sound of what your suggestion did.
    Thats a major thing i struggle with in Friendica (mobile first, bookface), that a single post with comments take up several screens of scrolling and then you give up and switch back to mastodon.
    Another thing i struggle with is – it seems you dont get notified when someone interacts with your posts (likes, replies). You find out by accident or not at all.
    original
    randompenguin@dillyofapickle.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    @leanderlindahl
    Another thing i struggle with is – it seems you dont get notified when someone interacts with your posts (likes, replies). You find out by accident or not at all.
    Did you ever change this setting?
    Attachment: dillyofapickle.com ↗
    original
    randompenguin@dillyofapickle.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    @leanderlindahl "Compact Conversation View" was explained to me as only displaying comments that are:
    a direct reply by the author to their own post
    a direct reply by the reader to a post[/i]
    
    My proposal won't even show those. It hides all replies in feeds. Mine also makes the post body into a clickable link to the single post display page (which shows all the replies regardless of either setting).
    original
    leanderlindahl@friendica-sverige.se ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    @randompenguin I saw some dismissing sweeping opinions about compact view should not be too similar to Mastodon. Why not?
    But without having thought it through properly, i'd venture saying you want the original post, potentially abbreviated, and then the most recent reply.
    original