Show all, please

[Jane Auburn]

Isn't there a way to "show all" remarks in a thread rather than hitting pages 2, 3, etc.? That's really unnecessary from a user standpoint.

 

[Asher Kelman]

Jane,

I agree. However, that's two of us!

We are now putting together ideas and needs for an update to our interface. So your simple request is both welcome and timely.

We want to make any changes in a fashion that keep the unity of a robust platform. So we'll only make changes right away that are straightforward choices in current templates rather than new programming.

So if we can do it right away and there is no good reason against it, your idea will be implemented.

Let's get some feedback,

Asher

 

[Nill Toulme]

I like the idea. I imagine the x-posts-per-page structure goes back to low bandwidth days. OTOH, when traffic starts getting high, dumping the whole thread down the pipe every time somebody looks at one could start to cause bandwidth problems on the server side.

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

 

[scott kirkpatrick]

I like the idea. I imagine the x-posts-per-page structure goes back to low bandwidth days. OTOH, when traffic starts getting high, dumping the whole thread down the pipe every time somebody looks at one could start to cause bandwidth problems on the server side.

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

show all is really valuable when a thread has 2-5 pages built up. When it gets longer than that, it would be nice to have "show the rest" as an option, meaning all pages subsequent to the present position. The RawWorkFlow and Pixmantec forums had "show all," and I am sure it is pretty common. I have never seen "show the rest," but doesn't it make sense?

scott

 

[Mary Bull]

show all is really valuable when a thread has 2-5 pages built up.

Yes, especially at times when "reloading" of pages is slow at the site, as happens from time to time.
Makes sense to me.

This is the first forum, as such, that I have ever participated in, so I've had to do a lot of thinking about how it works.

When it gets longer than that, it would be nice to have "show the rest" as an option, meaning all pages subsequent to the present position. The RawWorkFlow and Pixmantec forums had "show all," and I am sure it is pretty common. I have never seen "show the rest," but doesn't it make sense?

I maintain an archive of each of the several mailing lists that I'm subscribed to on my HD. My e-mail client offers threaded views, and some of the threads on one, especially, of my mailing lists have become quite long. And yet I am presented no fundamental difficulty with the view on-screen--only the need for a horizontal scrollbar for threads that have many sub-threads.

However, I realize that a website forum is different.

@Asher and Nicolas
There might be some information in the vBulletin "Help" file about possible bandwith issues that could be of assistance in making a decision on this?

Mary

 

[Jeff O'Neil]

In most of the other forums I look at that use Vbulletin as the engine I simply log in and clik on New Posts, or New today etc. That takes me to a list since I was last on. If it's a thread I have not read clicking on the thread topic takes me to the first post.

If however I click on the arrow beside the last posters name it takes me to the last posted item.

Best of both worlds. I get to see a thread I may have missed and has been update, and if I've been following a thread I can jump right to the last page easily.

To me that isn't wasting bandwidth at all.

I'm sure that's a simple feature in VBulletin as I see that on pretty much all the forums I read.

Jeff

 

[Nikolai Sklobovsky]

Jane,

Isn't there a way to "show all" remarks in a thread rather than hitting pages 2, 3, etc.? That's really unnecessary from a user standpoint.

Click Display Modes in the Thread menu (upper-right corner) and select "Switch to Threaded Mode".
This will give you a lot more headers on one page and just one mesage slot.

As to the "display them all" - this is hardly a feasible option.
So while it maybe ok for small threads, it's not gonna work for the long ones.
I've seen threads with the hundreds of posts, you really don't want to wait for a single page like that to load...

HTH

PS
I also humbly recommend reading this, so you won't even ever need "show all"

 

[Sean DeMerchant]

Isn't there a way to "show all" remarks in a thread rather than hitting pages 2, 3, etc.? That's really unnecessary from a user standpoint.

Hi Jane,

Ignoring server side resources and bandwidth which are good reasons for pagination there are still some good reasons for it.

Have you ever dealt with pages so long that a tiny tap on the scroll bar jumps you three or four pages? When pages get too long scrolling becomes an issue.

Similarly, a huge page with lots of images may have the images time out during their download or saturate a modem connection for minutes.

With the basic issues addressed lets move forwards towards a compromise solution.

1. Click on User CP
2. Click on Edit Options (or simply click this link and skip step 1)
3. Scroll down to Thread Display Options
4. Change the value in Number of Posts to Show Per Page to a larger number.

This is not perfect, but will reduce the number of pages while not making the pages way too large.

hope this helps,

Sean

 

[Jane Auburn]

Frankly "show all" is so important to me that I look for forums that have it. Previously Rob Galbraith had it. Now the only forum I know that has it is photocamel. If there's a thread with 10 or more pages (it happens), why in the world would I want to click my mouse 10 or more times to read the entire thread? That's ridiculous! Ever heard of carpal tunnel syndrome or tendinitis caused by mouse clicking?

So many forums seem to use vbulletin as the basis, and I've never seen a vbulletin forum with "show all." Isn't that an easy option to set?

 

[Jane Auburn]

As to the "display them all" - this is hardly a feasible option.
So while it maybe ok for small threads, it's not gonna work for the long ones.
I've seen threads with the hundreds of posts, you really don't want to wait for a single page like that to load...
this, so you won't even ever need "show all"

I disagree heartily. There are a few threads I follow on photocamel with 150+ responses, and when I click "show all" the entire thread loads in a matter of seconds. Fredmiranda, on the other hand, has gone the opposite direction. That site makes me click a new page number after every 5 posts or so. Absurd!

Remember that a growing number of us are not saddled with 56k modems any longer!

 

[Erik DeBill]

I understand where it's good for saving clicks, but there are some technical reasons to avoid it.

How often do you read a full 150 page thread in one sitting? If you only read 10 pages, then the bandwidth for the other 140 can be saved. Likewise, transferring data to and from the database is expensive. Cutting down on how much you send can help avoid overloading the DB, so programmers like to break things out into pages.

Slower computers and less efficient browsers can have a hard time rendering pages that large, especially if they have lots of images (and some forums even allow animated avatars - hundreds of animated avatars can slow even a powerful computer).

The dirty secret is that advertising supported sites like to increase the number of pageviews and thus advertising impressions.

I'm fine with requiring it to be paged. After all, we've got the option of changing it to 50 posts/page...

I've got a new understanding for slow computers - I've written this entire post (including checking the CP to see if we can control posts/page) while waiting for Photoshop to load a thumbnail of a large TIF (not even opening the file).

 

[Jane Auburn]

I understand where it's good for saving clicks, but there are some technical reasons to avoid it.

How often do you read a full 150 page thread in one sitting? If you only read 10 pages, then the bandwidth for the other 140 can be saved.

Concerns about bandwidth usage for a site that's primarily text-based are misplaced and usually voiced by people who have little to no experience running a web site. Allowing "click all" will certainly not increase the bandwidth usage of a site like this appreciably. In fact, this site is so "undiscovered" that if I were the administrators, I would be rushing to add any possible convenience to attract and retain users.

 

[Jane Auburn]

The dirty secret is that advertising supported sites like to increase the number of pageviews and thus advertising impressions.

Here I don't follow you at all. Page views are not increased by "show all." They're decreased. In any case, I made a suggestion. It's a good one. Take it or leave it.

 

[Sean DeMerchant]

Concerns about bandwidth usage for a site that's primarily text-based are misplaced and usually voiced by people who have little to no experience running a web site. Allowing "click all" will certainly not increase the bandwidth usage of a site like this appreciably. In fact, this site is so "undiscovered" that if I were the administrators, I would be rushing to add any possible convenience to attract and retain users.

Hi Jane,

How many pages do you have the site set to view per page now?

Ignoring bandwidth (which is far less of an issue than database load) I do no see a major issue in letting the few users who want 100 or even 200 posts per page to have that option. But there is not a readily apparent vBulletin option to show all. Please let me know if you want that. It will take months until I am comfortable to change the source code at that level due to personal time constraints and the fact that all work here is volunteer. But I can easily change the number of maximum posts. I can make it 1000 if you really want that so long as it does not generate a tremendous load on the database.

Ah, forget that. Asher said we would open it up if we could. The option now allow 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 75, 100, 250, 500, 1000, 5000, or 10000 posts per page under User CP->Edit Options->Number of Posts to Show Per Page so you essentially have what you want. So long as site performance is not degraded it should be a non-issue. If performance issues arise, then things will have to be moderated back to performance balancing levels.

all the best,

Sean

 

[Sean DeMerchant]

Here I don't follow you at all. Page views are not increased by "show all." They're decreased. In any case, I made a suggestion. It's a good one. Take it or leave it.

Less posts per page forces more page views which increases the number of ad impressions. Which from the owner's minds increases the odds of getting ad revenue. Since Asher kindly funds the whole site that is not an issue. But performance is an issue.

enjoy,

Sean

 

[Jane Auburn]

Less posts per page forces more page views which increases the number of ad impressions.

"Page views" is the oldest and least desirable payment system for Internet advertisers. Google ads--almost ubiquitous now--pay out by the click, not by the view, in the vast majority of cases. Anyway, let's get real: the only "dirty little secret" so far as this photography forum stuff goes is that these forums don't make much if anything at all for their proprieters. Fact is they're practically a public service, given the work that goes into it. So let's please dismiss money-grubbing as a motive here and quit pretending that we have the "real scoop" on why or why not "show all" options are hard to find. If anything it's down to the fact that more forums are run by vbulletin, which doesn't have this option, apparently.

 

[Ray West]

Thanks Sean,

Your efforts are much appreciated.

Best wishes,

Ray

 

[Sean DeMerchant]

"Page views" is the oldest and least desirable payment system for Internet advertisers. Google ads--almost ubiquitous now--pay out by the click, not by the view, in the vast majority of cases. Anyway, let's get real: the only "dirty little secret" so far as this photography forum stuff goes is that these forums don't make much if anything at all for their proprieters. Fact is they're practically a public service, given the work that goes into it. So let's please dismiss money-grubbing as a motive here and quit pretending that we have the "real scoop" on why or why not "show all" options are hard to find. If anything it's down to the fact that more forums are run by vbulletin, which doesn't have this option, apparently.

Who said anything about payment systems. More ad impressions via less posts per page allows ad driven sites to select more focussed keywords for the posts on the page. This is turn leads to more focussed ads on each page (like Google's) which in turn could be thought to generate more revenue. I am aware most online advertising is pay per click and not impression based (which is a good thing).

As to money grubbing, no names have been named or fingers pointed. But said pattern is obvious and the norm for online media. 99% of software oriented sites (whether fora or article based with most as hybrids) do this.

Part of it is also simply that when a page gets too long the scroll bar becomes jerky as there are no longer enough pixels on a screen to alllow smooth scrolling (i.e., 1 pixel == 5 pages of text). This is similar in reason to why people abandoned scrolls for codices (bound books) where one can bookmark a page partway through reading it.

As to vBulletin being the problem, I strongly disagree. There are many fora out there running other solutions doing the same thing. I read fora on many topics (well, photography and many computing topics) and this is normal.

I have also mentioned a solution to your problem twice now and you have not even acknowledged it. Did it work?

enjoy,

Sean

 

[Erik DeBill]

Concerns about bandwidth usage for a site that's primarily text-based are misplaced and usually voiced by people who have little to no experience running a web site. Allowing "click all" will certainly not increase the bandwidth usage of a site like this appreciably. In fact, this site is so "undiscovered" that if I were the administrators, I would be rushing to add any possible convenience to attract and retain users.

I program websites for a living. This particular forum is very light on the graphics. That's a major point in it's favor. However, you never know what kind of hosting agreement it's running on. Some setups, aimed at "Bob's Home Page" type users get very expensive at even modest bandwidth levels. Even if it's relatively inexpensive, why spend more than you have to?

I think the solution they came up with is pretty good. Those who really want the huge pages can get them. The vast majority will keep browsing at the much more efficient levels.

As for attracting more users, I've always found that it's the content and not the features that bring users. No matter how spiffy the website, if the content isn't there it won't get much traffic. This one seems to be doing pretty well on that count, and I rather suspect that the usage graph is trending upward nicely.

 

[Asher Kelman]

For sure Erik, any advice from your perspective would be great if you want to PM me that would be super!

Cheers!

Asher