Those two don't look as bad, but what would happen if someone quoted two posts from two or more different blocks/trees, or the 1st, 2nd and 3rd replies in a tree structure?? You'd surely have to start putting things out of the tree structure. Generally with these things, they're comment systems, not forums. With forums you can quote a whole load of posts at once, and you can't give an indented structure to that. For comments, where you only reply to one specific comment, yeah indented view looks nice, but for forums, where you could respond to multiple people at once, I just can't see it working.
(2011-07-08, 12:07 PM)MattRogowski Wrote: [ -> ]Those two don't look as bad, but what would happen if someone quoted two posts from two or more different blocks/trees, or the 1st, 2nd and 3rd replies in a tree structure?? [...] where you could respond to multiple people at once, I just can't see it working.
You'd just quote the posts you want to quote, and reply
to the thread, exactly like in the Quick Reply here. From a data structures POV, a thread is a list of trees, and this new reply would be the root of a new tree:
* 1. OP's post complaining about barking dogs
|- 2. reply to OP's post, dog barks should be tolerated
|- 3. oh yeah, try to sleep through one K9 symphony
|- 4. I don't yell at dogs, they shouldn't bark at me
|- 5. OP is right, get a pacifier for your dog
* Matt's post, quoting posts 2 and 4.
But that's the problem, because then it's not linked to the rest of that discussion. If I'm reading that then it looks like the discussion ends, then suddenly starts again further down the page. And if that new tree grows, and then gets quoted, it'll start again, until you end up with a conversation that's still split up in bits all over the page and is just as hard to follow.
I agree with Matt that threaded/indented views are good for a comment system, but not the best for a forum, unless multiquote option gets disabled from the get-go.
However, you are free to display your forum however you see fit. As stated, 2.0 will allow one to generate the view, but I doubt it would ever be default view.
We will be trying to remove a lot of the features that almost never get used by the average user and instead encourage users to turn these more niche features into plugins. It will be easier to achieve with the MVC pattern we have adopted and the Yii framework we are using and it will help to keep MyBB as lightweight as possible while still offering a very powerful system. In other words we will be enhancing the core functionality and reducing the extremities which have been implemented pretty poorly in the 1.x series any way.
I think threaded mode probably falls into this category, but we'll give it some more thought when we're up to developing that part. I wouldn't expect to see it though.
(2011-07-09, 12:56 AM)pavemen Wrote: [ -> ]I agree with Matt that threaded/indented views are good for a comment system, but not the best for a forum, unless multiquote option gets disabled from the get-go.
Yeah, and multiquote is definitely not something w'ere going to remove just for the sake of having replies indented. That'd be a big loss for a little gain.
(2011-07-09, 12:20 AM)MattRogowski Wrote: [ -> ]But that's the problem, because then it's not linked to the rest of that discussion.
Quotes point to the message they reply to, via the green arrow icon (as seen right above). This links the reply to the rest of the discussion.
(2011-07-09, 12:20 AM)MattRogowski Wrote: [ -> ]If I'm reading that then it looks like the discussion ends, then suddenly starts again further down the page.
How does the flat view solve this problem any better?
It doesn't, I never said it did, but you're proposing a method that equally doesn't solve it, and if anything, makes it worse, as people see the discussion indented and expect the whole discussion to be there, only for it to suddenly get cut off. Point is if people see one post, and then a reply indented under that, and then a reply indented after that, and then a reply indented after that, they're going to expect it all to be there, they're not going to then scroll down the page trying to find where the next part of it is. With the current method, the posts are just in the order they were added, not with different conversations nested one minute then suddenly cut off the next.
(2011-07-09, 11:14 AM)MattRogowski Wrote: [ -> ]It doesn't, I never said it did, but you're proposing a method that equally doesn't solve it,
Threaded views are not a
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy . I do think they solve more problems than flat views do, and I think that the problems threaded views have can be solved relatively easily. For example, the one you mention below:
(2011-07-09, 11:14 AM)MattRogowski Wrote: [ -> ]and if anything, makes it worse, as people see the discussion indented and expect the whole discussion to be there, only for it to suddenly get cut off. Point is if people see one post, and then a reply indented under that, and then a reply indented after that, and then a reply indented after that, they're going to expect it all to be there, they're not going to then scroll down the page trying to find where the next part of it is.
This is a relatively rare case. How often do we see multi-quotes in threads? In 10% of the posts?
Anyway, the concern is valid. I think an effective solution would be to visually indicate on messages that are quoted away from the next immediate indent, that there is a reply later. Essentially, the arrow that we have in quotes right now, but in the other sense, from the quoted message to the reply (or replies, a drop-down) that is/are not at the next indent level.
(2011-07-09, 12:56 PM)dandv Wrote: [ -> ]This is a relatively rare case. How often do we see multi-quotes in threads? In 10% of the posts?
Anyway, the concern is valid. I think an effective solution would be to visually indicate on messages that are quoted away from the next immediate indent, that there is a reply later. Essentially, the arrow that we have in quotes right now, but in the other sense, from the quoted message to the reply (or replies, a drop-down) that is/are not at the next indent level.
it all depends on the forum/thread content. i use it a lot here when supporting my plugins
indented views would also require that post merging of consecutive posts be disabled. also, how do you deal with post/thread merging?