The Flat Earth Society

The Flat Earth Society => Suggestions & Concerns => Topic started by: markjo on January 01, 2014, 04:44:07 PM

Title: Previous/next page buttons please
Post by: markjo on January 01, 2014, 04:44:07 PM
At the bottom left where the page number links are, would it be possible to get rid of the "Go Up" link and put in "Prev" and "Next" links instead?  They make much easier targets for touch screens than trying to hit a page  number.
Title: Re: Previous/next page buttons please
Post by: Rama Set on January 01, 2014, 04:45:28 PM
Especially on a smartphone.
Title: Re: Previous/next page buttons please
Post by: Pete Svarrior on January 01, 2014, 04:46:44 PM
Hmm, that should be easy enough. I'd probably keep the Go Up/Go Down buttons, as I expect some people might be using them, but adding a Next/Previous link is a good idea. We'll look into it.
Title: Re: Previous/next page buttons please
Post by: markjo on January 01, 2014, 04:53:50 PM
I don't know about others, but I find the go up button completely useless.
Title: Re: Previous/next page buttons please
Post by: spoon on January 01, 2014, 05:02:41 PM
yeah, if you have a laptop with a trackpad or a touchscreen device, go up/down seems useless. I haven't used it once.

I can't speak for everybody though.
Title: Re: Previous/next page buttons please
Post by: Pete Svarrior on January 01, 2014, 05:39:20 PM
Well, that was already an option. Apparently, SMF has two modes of displaying page links:


The truncating behaviour breaks for people who don't have JavaScript enabled, so I consider getting rid of this to be a benefit. Then again, it might get problematic with very long threads. We'll see how it works, and if it gets annoying, I'll look at hacking the two modes together. For the time being, the little arrows will now take you back and forth.

EDIT: I just realised how terrible this will be if a thread/board grows too much. Definitely just a temporary solution.
Title: Re: Previous/next page buttons please
Post by: Alchemist21 on January 01, 2014, 05:54:58 PM
Keep the GoUp button.  It saves a lot of finger scrolling to get back to the unread replies button, especially when the thread is full of wall texts.
Title: Re: Previous/next page buttons please
Post by: Socker on January 01, 2014, 08:25:34 PM
Looking at some of the threads in CN that are well over 10 pages, the new style really doesn't work well with those. As the site grows, there will be more threads that reach that length, so I don't really see it as a good permanent solution.
Title: Re: Previous/next page buttons please
Post by: Pete Svarrior on January 01, 2014, 11:52:23 PM
Looking at some of the threads in CN that are well over 10 pages, the new style really doesn't work well with those. As the site grows, there will be more threads that reach that length, so I don't really see it as a good permanent solution.
Yup:

EDIT: I just realised how terrible this will be if a thread/board grows too much. Definitely just a temporary solution.
Title: Re: Previous/next page buttons please
Post by: Rama Set on January 02, 2014, 12:29:37 AM
You could just stop posting in "The Mystery" and ">o<".
Title: Re: Previous/next page buttons please
Post by: Pete Svarrior on March 15, 2014, 11:00:12 AM
Well, that was already an option. Apparently, SMF has two modes of displaying page links:

  • one that displays an untruncated list of all pages with arrows, e.g. « 1 2 3 4 5 »
  • one that tries to truncate the pages like 1 ... 5 and has no arrows

The truncating behaviour breaks for people who don't have JavaScript enabled, so I consider getting rid of this to be a benefit. Then again, it might get problematic with very long threads. We'll see how it works, and if it gets annoying, I'll look at hacking the two modes together. For the time being, the little arrows will now take you back and forth.

EDIT: I just realised how terrible this will be if a thread/board grows too much. Definitely just a temporary solution.
I think I managed to solve this (https://github.com/theflatearthsociety/forum.tfes.org/commit/658902cfb31c08cc4ed990268a4916741451ae22). Pages should now truncate while still having the «/» arrows. While I'm reasonably confident that this code works, please let me know if you notice any strange behaviour.

Out of curiosity, do people think that « and » is a good way to mark these buttons? Should they be more visible? This is what they look like right now:
(http://i.omgomg.eu/buttons)

And here's an example of how they could be bigger and clearer:
(http://i.omgomg.eu/buttons1)

Or we could make them images. I don't know if there's even a demand for that idea, but if there is, I'm open to suggestions. :)
Title: Re: Previous/next page buttons please
Post by: markjo on March 15, 2014, 02:18:10 PM
Since the suggestion was designed to help fat fingered people with phones or tablets get to the next page easier, I would say that bigger, easier to hit targets would be better.