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[PAID] Thread view (AKA tree view)

Started by rbeuker, July 28, 2011, 05:36:24 PM

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rbeuker

Hi all,

It makes me a little sad that there's so many negative energy going on here! The actual topic is not really discussed in my opinion. But let's stay positive! At least have a look at my humble image I made tonight <coughs>--it took me 1 hour to make that. I don't think I'll ever make it as a graphical designer :P

Quote from: Kindred on July 25, 2011, 06:48:21 AM
Tree view discussions are so....   umm.... last decade.

I don't want to attack you, but I do think someone should say that that's not really an argument in a discussion. To me it sounds like saying something like 'I am no longer using emails, that's so... last decade'. :P  Don't get me wrong, it goes without saying that it's perfectly ok to have certain feelings about something, but I don't think anyone's personal feelings should be presented as a real argument in a discussion. Anyway, I really wanted to address your next statement:

Quote from: Kindred on July 25, 2011, 06:48:21 AM
However, first and foremost, tree view threads discourage community participation. They result in multiple side conversations that essentially

exclude others by their very nature.

Could you please elaborate on that? How, in your opinion, does tree view threads  discourage community participation?

I was also using the internet in the last decade, and the decade before that, so I know tree view (or threaded view as I like to call it) very well. In my experience, threaded view actually boosted community participation, because it was much more clear where the discussion was going, who were responding to whom, and so on. I personally don't really like all these long topics we have nowadays, where someone could ask a question on page 5 and the first reply is somewhere down on page 26... Do you recognise this situation, or... ? ;)

By the way, having a tree/threaded view does not necessarily mean that the complete messages would have to be shown like that. A little map thingy (in addition to the existing flat view), that just shows the subjects date/times and usernames and shows who has responded to whom would already be great. Here's a little example I have made from (part of) the other topic:



So let's presume this is one of these long topics--with a map like this it would be instantly obvious that someone (on page 26) has replied to the question you also were about to ask. Of course the map could show more information, e.g. the first 100 characters of the post itself.

I guess the biggest challenge to implement this (I agree it should be in a mod first), would be to have a Reply button not to the entire thread, but Reply buttons below every message in a topic. Maybe some hidden quotation could be used, I don't know...  ???

Anyway, I'm still hoping someone would like to work with me to make such a mod. I cannot program it, sorry, but I'm good at testing. :D

Thanks,

Ronald

Suki

I will not add anything to the discussion.

I just wanted to say that I'm interest in making this as a modification,  no time frame given of course and absolutely no promises it would be a well coded mod :P

Quote
I guess the biggest challenge to implement this (I agree it should be in a mod first), would be to have a Reply button not to the entire thread, but Reply buttons below every message in a topic. Maybe some hidden quotation could be used, I don't know... 

That's IMO the easiest thing to do :P

I find it more difficult the edit/delete messages part.
Disclaimer: unless otherwise stated, all my posts are personal and does not represent any views or opinions held by Simple Machines.

Kindred

As several of us have already said - This is not a frequently or widely requested update....    So get someone to code it as a mod. If it becomes popular, it may be considered for addition to the base code.
(so, it is good that you posted in mod requests. :) )

To elaborate on my statement about participation -
Yes, tree view discourages participation as a whole/community and encourages ONLY personally directed responses.
You have a whole bunch of side conversations between individuals rather than a common conversation chain.
Слaва
Украинi

Please do not PM, IM or Email me with support questions.  You will get better and faster responses in the support boards.  Thank you.

"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

bloc

But usually the discussion DO tend to get in one-one, and often people doing one-of one with different people using quotes.

Threaded view isn't that far off then, its more like collecting the quotes in realtion to each other and showing only titles(as it must be to have a good "map".

I can't really see this a any kind of killer for participation, not when thats what we do right now anyway. If one replies in a general fashion, well, then the map show that too. Most importantly though, you could filter easier out what to keep reading.

For coding it/tempalting it I see that the "map" would need to fetched first, meaning getting titles and the "glue" between whats replied to, then one post which is what you want to read. Obstacle here is thats its more clicks back and forth..although a hybrid would be nice, that topic's posts are fetched/shown as now, but you select which main "branch" to show from a sidebar with the "map".

rbeuker

Quote from: Miss All Sunday on July 28, 2011, 05:53:21 PM
I just wanted to say that I'm interest in making this as a modification,  no time frame given of course and absolutely no promises it would be a well coded mod :P
Thank you a lot for considering to make this modification! :D  No rush of course, and do let me know when you need some input or testing done. :)

Quote from: Miss All Sunday on July 28, 2011, 05:53:21 PM
I find it more difficult the edit/delete messages part.

As for deleting: would it make it easier if deleting a message will also delete all its decendants? So for example in the picture I added to my 1st post: if you'd delete Kindred's message then my (rbeuker's) message would be deleted also. Otherwise you'd get orphans. ;)

Or totally remove the delete message option. Instead you must use the split topic function and only have a delete topic (= whole thread) function. Hmmmm...

Just some thinking out aloud here. ;)

rbeuker

Quote from: Kindred on July 28, 2011, 06:06:36 PM
As several of us have already said - This is not a frequently or widely requested update....    So get someone to code it as a mod. If it becomes popular, it may be considered for addition to the base code.
(so, it is good that you posted in mod requests. :) )

And who knows, in a few years... SMF could be the ONLY forum software that has this great feature. :)  I have used SMF and its predecessor for years, and I love it! On a 1 to 10 scale, it's a 9.5 for me now. With thread/tree view, it'd be a 10. :D

Quote from: Kindred on July 28, 2011, 06:06:36 PM
To elaborate on my statement about participation -
Yes, tree view discourages participation as a whole/community and encourages ONLY personally directed responses.
You have a whole bunch of side conversations between individuals rather than a common conversation chain.

Ok, I see your point now. Have you read Bloc's reaction to that? He said:

Quote from: Bloc on July 28, 2011, 07:53:48 PM
But usually the discussion DO tend to get in one-one, and often people doing one-of one with different people using quotes.
Threaded view isn't that far off then, its more like collecting the quotes in realtion to each other and showing only titles(as it must be to have a good "map".

I must say that I totally agree to this. I find myself hitting the Quote button all the time, to make clear to whom I am replying about what. A little map would help me tremendously to filter who's discussing with whom. What's more, it'd help a lot if one could easily see whether someone's question (shown on page 1 of the topic) has already been answered (it could be on page 27!)

Quote from: Bloc on July 28, 2011, 07:53:48 PM
I can't really see this a any kind of killer for participation, not when thats what we do right now anyway. If one replies in a general fashion, well, then the map show that too. Most importantly though, you could filter easier out what to keep reading.

Right on! My point exactly. It really should be an additional feature that people could activate. Like a 'Show topic map' button, that could be enabled by default. By the way, I love your themes. :)

Quote from: Bloc on July 28, 2011, 07:53:48 PM
For coding it/tempalting it I see that the "map" would need to fetched first, meaning getting titles and the "glue" between whats replied to, then one post which is what you want to read. Obstacle here is thats its more clicks back and forth..although a hybrid would be nice, that topic's posts are fetched/shown as now, but you select which main "branch" to show from a sidebar with the "map".

I don't know if all the 'quotation back' links are created on the fly or read from a specific table, but maybe that information could be re-used for making the map? It's basically a parent child relation. Each child is shown under its parent. Preferably, the map should look better than my terrible graphic work. :D

bloc

Oh, I am not following this up in any way really - just laid out some ideas. But yes, a "parent" value for each post would be needed.

emanuele

Quote from: rbeuker on August 07, 2011, 04:20:47 PM
Quote from: Bloc on July 28, 2011, 07:53:48 PM
But usually the discussion DO tend to get in one-one, and often people doing one-of one with different people using quotes.
Threaded view isn't that far off then, its more like collecting the quotes in realtion to each other and showing only titles(as it must be to have a good "map".

I must say that I totally agree to this. I find myself hitting the Quote button all the time, to make clear to whom I am replying about what. A little map would help me tremendously to filter who's discussing with whom. What's more, it'd help a lot if one could easily see whether someone's question (shown on page 1 of the topic) has already been answered (it could be on page 27!)
I have a similar problem with threaded view (in emails): certain times "an" answer arrives just few seconds after the first reply, but for how the threaded view is organized I've to read for example a very deep branch (maybe even OT) that developed from the first reply just to reach the email with the answer I'm looking for... but it's also possible that it's just that I'm not used to thread topics. ;)


Take a peek at what I'm doing! ;D




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Aiutateci ad aiutarvi: spiegate bene il vostro problema: no, "non funziona" non è una spiegazione!!
1) Cosa fai,
2) cosa ti aspetti,
3) cosa ottieni.

pss7

threaded view would be the easiest way to get better forum topics within a thread and more search engine attention.
so it is a MUST feature for anybody who runs the forum as content catcher.

hopefully someone gets attention to this feature request, maybe we can do share the dev costs for it.

Kindred

huh?

No, actually it's not.
How does threaded view have ANY SE benefit?   Content is what the SEs look for, and threaded versus non-threaded does not change the content.
Слaва
Украинi

Please do not PM, IM or Email me with support questions.  You will get better and faster responses in the support boards.  Thank you.

"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

pss7

if the threaded view is done the right way, you have separate sites for every comment tree

Kindred

and that would be incredibly stupid, in terms of SEO...   

In your concept of threaded view - each "page" has minimal content.   And my argument hold even more weight ---   this would actually DISCOURAGE the conversation and feeling of community that is the backbone of a forum.
(community is not the backbone of facebook nor of a blog -- those are based around individual responses to a single post, not conversation between many people.)
Слaва
Украинi

Please do not PM, IM or Email me with support questions.  You will get better and faster responses in the support boards.  Thank you.

"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

pss7

nope, you are wrong.

instead of defend your smf policy of not implementing features, even if somebody offers to pay, you are showing that this project is almost death.

Kindred

excuse me...  My position has nothing to do with defending any position in SMF.

I do web site design and maintenance for a living, outside of SMF. I know all about SEO (and the silliness that some people THINK is SEO)

and, what you have described is BAD SEO...   unless, perhaps, your descriptions are not actually what you think they are, because what you describe is exactly as I have said...
Слaва
Украинi

Please do not PM, IM or Email me with support questions.  You will get better and faster responses in the support boards.  Thank you.

"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

pss7

just look at the example sI provided, then it shoudl explain all to itself.

Kindred

ummm.... what example? You have not included a link to any example in this thread.


but, even aside form that, as I (and several others) have said -- Get someone to do this as a mod. If it becomes popular, it may be included as a feature (that's why this is listed in MOD requests - we have already discounted this as a required feature for the next release, considering that only one or two (albeit vocal) folks have even asked for it.
Слaва
Украинi

Please do not PM, IM or Email me with support questions.  You will get better and faster responses in the support boards.  Thank you.

"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

pss7

well, I am myself courious hoem many registered users where interested in this feature -  lets check the numbers again

rbeuker    444337
Miss All Sunday
Kindred
Bloc
pss7

MDDC 368312
Tilla 255510
Dragooon
Nibogo
nicoladie
MrPhil
ttuu
pbpbpb
Nao 尚
Arantor
Clara Listensprechen

l_d_allan 447131
51431

regarding the examples, sorry - wrong thread -wouldn't happen if there are tags
examples are in topic 367706


anyway, if there is somebody out there, who wants to make an offer for a shared cost dev project...tell me.

Kindred

ummm.....    I think your user list is a bit off...   I am not interested in the feature, nor are several others who you have listed.

Also, that topic links back to this one...   in neither of them have you posted a link or any example of what you are talking about.  The first poster in this thread did make a mock up, but that mockup does not reflect what YOU described - and the mockup that he posted has the exact same SEO profile as SMF's current "Flat view"

Слaва
Украинi

Please do not PM, IM or Email me with support questions.  You will get better and faster responses in the support boards.  Thank you.

"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

bloc

I can only agreed with kindred - while i think rbeuker's idea is interesting, I like it for the navigation within a topic, not to separate out discussions to separate threads as pss7 suggest. The quotes play a vital role here IMO, in that a quote is a direct follow-up and could be marked as a "line" within the topic.

The usual way threaded view is done on other scripts I have always found rather awkard to navigate, with all the clicking.

rbeuker

Hi all,

I think it's all a matter of what you're used to. I have used thread/treeview in the past, so I tend to like that. If someone hates it and prefers the current linear view, then that's fine with me also! I respect everybody's wishes. :)

Anyway, I recently found a good example, better than my poor drawing: http://www.tapcis.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5323

As you can see there, there's a tree shown at the top of the page, and only 1 message below. While you're reading a message you can immediately see how many replies there have been. And the good thing is, especially in longer topics, you do not have to browse page after page to find the replies.

What I also like, is that there's a Display Modes option in the top right corner. There you can select the Linear view. And I'm sure there's also a profile setting you can use to select your preferred display view.

Now, if vBulletin can do this, SMF should be able to do this too! :D

Best regards,

Ronald

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