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Subject: Hiding older replies within a thread
Posted by: Guru
- [330592710] Mon, Oct 27, 2008, 18:14
I've noted that a lot of threads have been getting quite lengthy. This is particularly true in the Politics forum, but is not restricted to that area.
In the old days, it was commonplace to break threads into separate segments once they exceeded several hundred posts. But since just about everyone has high speed access and plenty of browser memory, there has been less of a need for this.
Still, some of the longer threads take more than a few seconds to fully load and display. Part of this is simply the download time, but a significant element is the time that the browser requires to display all of the proper formatting, particularly when there are complex posts with embedded images, media, and/or tables.
I've come up with a way to speed up the display time for lengthy threads. I've developed a new script such that if a thread has more than 70 replies in total, only the most recent 50 replies will be displayed upon initial loading. If you then want to unhide the missing replies, you can simply click on the text below the opening post to regenerate the entire thread by splicing in the missing posts.
This should allow posts to load and display more rapidly. A side effect is that the hidden material will load in the background after the most recent 50 posts have been retrieved. For the longest threads, you may notice this extra loading in the relevant status area of your browser.
Before releasing this as the standard thread viewing mechanism, I'd like to have it field tested to make sure it works OK for all browsers. To test this, you will need to make a slight modification to the thread URL. Currently, the URL includes "read.pl" before the identifying thread items. Simply add a "0" (zero) after "read", so that the URL will include "read0.pl". For example, here is the new rendering for a famous thread in the baseball forum:
http://rotoguru1.com/cgi-bin/read0.pl?board=base&thread=6438&last=1112324149
Please report any errors or issues here.
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| 1 | biliruben
Leader
ID: 589301110
Tue, Oct 28, 2008, 00:45
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Sweet. As a new iphone user, bless you. Some threads had become unclickable.
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| 2 | Guru
ID: 330592710
Tue, Oct 28, 2008, 11:17
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Hearing scant feedback, I decided to go ahead and release the new version as the default thread display script.
Let me know if there are any browsers that don't seem to work, and or any threads that give problems.
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| 3 | blue hen
ID: 299161612
Tue, Oct 28, 2008, 11:19
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This is a (very) good enhancement.
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| 4 | Farn
Leader
ID: 451044109
Tue, Oct 28, 2008, 12:03
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Love the idea Guru. Thanks.
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| 5 | Challenger
Sustainer
ID: 481126818
Tue, Oct 28, 2008, 12:34
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Thanks Guru!! With my slow dial-up speed of 26.4 bps, lengthy threads I've stayed away from if I was just browsing.
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| 6 | Bond, James Bond
Sustainer
ID: 04352469
Tue, Oct 28, 2008, 23:07
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Another ingenious idea Guru! Well worth the effort. Thanks!
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| 7 | The Beezer
ID: 31756616
Wed, Oct 29, 2008, 07:37
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*applause*
Thanks Guru!
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| 8 | Khahan
ID: 1065339
Wed, Nov 12, 2008, 13:38
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So far I like it. I'll have to see what I think during the baseball pre-season when I have to take a split second to click another link to see the whole draft or discussion thread!!!
Overall, good change.
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| 9 | blue hen
Dude
ID: 710321114
Tue, Dec 23, 2008, 13:11
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Think it's safe to say that so far, this is a smashing success. I can't wait until my first baseball draft to test it out.
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| 10 | youngroman
Donor
ID: 02934823
Sun, Jan 18, 2009, 18:35
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in this thread (Football Playoffs) there is some text between the inputbox and the thread statistics. I am following this thread the last few weeks and today is the first day I noticed it. don't know if it was there before.
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| 11 | Guru
ID: 330592710
Sun, Jan 18, 2009, 21:11
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I was able to fix it. The glitch had something to do with the Roethlisberger spelling randomizer, which evidently caused some issue with the text hiding mechanism. I'll have to look at that more closely.
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