Feature suggestions for Discourse



  • Bug: Scrollbar in preview pane is not synchronized in any way with scrollbar in text entry box.

    Expected: Preview pane serves as a live preview for the text currently being entered

    Actual:

    Preview pane quickly gets out-of-sync with text being entered, making it useless for previewing the text. (The one thing it's supposed to be doing.) The only workaround is to take your hand off the keyboard, move your mouse to the preview pane, and manually manipulate the scrollbar to match the cursor location of the text entry pane. If new text is being typed, even after performing this workaround, the preview pane will again be out-of-sync the instant a new line is drawn in the text entry box.

    Comments: I acknowledge that it can be difficult to keep two scrollbars entirely synchronized (although there should be some attempt made to do this), but a quick-fix would be to automatically scroll the preview pane down as far as possible when a new line was created in the text entry box. That's basically one line of JavaScript.



  • Bug: Constant animation of (sometimes overlapping) toaster notifications distracts user from their typing

    Expected: Elements that users find distracting while typing should be able to be hidden by the user in a permanent fashion

    Actual: These toaster windows pop up on virtually every post written, with very little rhyme or reason. (For example, I got the "consider replying to several posts at once" on the third post in this thread, but did not get it on the fourth post even though the fourth post is even more "sequential replies to a topic".)

    Comments: It's hard to type a post when there's bright-colored crap jumping all over just at the edge of your vision. Good solution: put a "never show me this again" link inside each of the toasters. Better solution: put a checkbox in the user preferences to turn off display of all toasters. Best solution: just remove the damned toasters altogether.



  • Bug: User Preferences page has a link to ... User Preferences page which does nothing

    Expected: UI elements that do nothing, or are invalid in the current context, should either be obviously disabled

    Actual:

    There is no indication that the Preferences button (which does nothing) is disabled compared to the Invites button (which actually does something).



  • When editing a post to correct whitespace issues, the edit is blocked because it is too similar to a recent post, namely the one being edited.

    Expected behavior: no such blocking should exist if the post that it is similar to happens to be the post being edited. The edit is to correct some sort of whitespace formatting issue and needs to be allowed.

    Blocking SHOULD occur if the edit is significantly different AND the edited post is significantly similar to another recent or recently edited post, as this is presumably a spam blocking feature so that a user can't post multiple identical spam messages by editing existing posts that were originally different.



  • Bug: Preferences screen refers to mysterious "you" entity

    Expected: Preference descriptions follow the basic rules of grammar

    Actual:

    Who is "you" in this scenario? Is "you" the forum software itself? Why would it send a digest email to itself?


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    Bug: Input fields are not discoverable
    Expected: Input fields (such as they one I'm typing in right now) should have black borders around them, like all input fields in the history of ever.
    Solution: Black borders around the input fields. White against near white against white is not an input style that should happen ever.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    Bug: When composing a reply, the X/Y box indicating where you are is not accessible.

    Expected: Somewhere on the screen, when composing a message on a thread that's had quite a few replies since I last read it (like this thread when composing my previous message here) I'd expect/like to see how far I am before I hit the end. The X/Y box seems to be the only method.

    Actual: The compose box, even when minimised, hides the X/Y box, unless you happen to be at the end, in which case by that time it's usefulness has been whittled down to taking you to the top of the thread.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    Bug: Reply (etc) controls are faded to near invisibility. When they're hovered over, they spastically fade in and out depending on hover state. Reduces discoverability AND is distracting and annoying.
    Solution: Just set the "Reply..." controls to be styled to opacity:1 and leave it at that.

    Sidenote: I thought one of the "go live" conditions was "Styled to look like the CS forums, to reduce the UI shock of changing software".



  • @Lorne_Kates said:

    Sidenote: I thought one of the "go live" conditions was "Styled to look like the CS forums, to reduce the UI shock of changing software".

    No, what's happening is TDWTF homepage is getting a makeover.

    http://what.thedailywtf.com/t/two-forums-or-what/260/8?u=miketheliar


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    Bug: Email notifications have obfuscated links that go to a third-party domain (mandrillapp click tracker).
    Expectation: Hyperlinks should go directly back to thedailywtf.com, not some unknown third party.
    Solution: Remove third party click trackers from email notification.

    Third party click trackers? Really? =(


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    Bug: Email notifications "From" field is the username of the person who replied, not "TDWTF Forums - Automated Email"
    Expectation: Email notifications should have a consistent "FROM" friendly name, and it should be from TDWTF Forums.

    1. So I can see that there are new notifications from TDWTF at glance, instead of trying to have to guess it is
    2. To avoid confusion between email from forum, versus email from a person of the same name
    3. To avoid breaking email rules that have already been set up based on the current friendly name
    4. To avoid username abuse by spammers by setting spammy usernames. Don't give spammers more power
    5. In the same vein, to avoid false positive in people's spam boxes-- stop feeding it seemingly random and changing information

    Solution: change outbound email code or template to use "TDWTF Forums - Automated Email" as friendly FROM name, not $posting_user (or whatever)



  • @Lorne_Kates said:

    To avoid username abuse by spammers by setting spammy usernames. Don't give spammers more power

    Hmmm, I might need to change my username to BankOfAmerica.



  • @Lorne_Kates said:

    Solution: Remove third party click trackers from email notification.

    Third party click trackers? Really? =(

    This! Thunderbird flags all emails containing click-tracker links (actually, any links that go somewhere other than the domain the email came from, I think) as scams.

    At least the links contain the real URL as a parameter, so you can manually copy/paste it into your browser if you don't trust the click-tracker.


  • Considered Harmful

    Feature Request: In preferences, I would like to be able to add the pseudo-category "all categories" to my Watched list. This option is already available from the topic filter drop down list on the homepage.

    Alternatively, I'd like a New Or Unread tab, since I want both to show in the same view.



  • @Lorne_Kates said:

    1) So I can see that there are new notifications from TDWTF at glance, instead of trying to have to guess it is

    Your e-mail client can't sort messages to a separate folder based on the sender address?
    @boomzilla said:
    I HATE HATE HATE this too.

    <aol>Me, too!</aol>
    @mott555 said:
    My work PC has a quad-core Xeon E5 CPU in it and Discourse still feels slower than a 2001 website on a Pentium III.
    What browser do you use? Surprisingly, I don't have any speed problems with Discourse on Opera 12 on my E5-1620, other than stupid ajaxy loading indicator when scrolling quickly.



  • Bug: e-mail notifications received in random order
    Actual: receiving time of e-mail notifications doesn't seem to be in any way related to the time messages were posted to thread
    Expected: if posts 1,2,3,4,5 are made to a topic, notifications should arrive in order 1,2,3,4,5, not (for example) 3,1,4,5,2, like they do at the moment


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    Bug: "Hide preview". Go use a different computer. Preview is showing
    Expectation: If I hide preview, I expect it to stay hidden
    Solution: hide_preview should be stored in database in addition to cookie.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    Bug: Not getting global email notifications
    Expectation: Expect to get an email for every reply for every topic by default, as per CS behavior
    Solution: If I had "subscribe" options enabled on CS, it should be enabled in Discourse too


  • Banned

    You'll have to edit your email user preferences if you want emails even when you're active on the forum.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @codinghorror said:

    ou'll have to edit your email user preferences if you want emails even when you're active on the forum.

    Bug: Even when I wasn't active on the forum, I still did not get emails
    Expectation: That I get emails all the time, active or not
    Solution: Make sure whatever that option is a) is on by default, since that is what users would expect and b) fix whatever logic you use to determine "active" and c) don't do that, because people have multiple devices that are left always on and its impossible to tell when someone is actually active.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    Since my last bug report wasn't understood, I'll re-iterate:

    Bug: I am not automatically Watching all threads
    Expectation: Every new thread should be automatically Watched, via user setting. Like CS did. So I don't have to constantly visit the page to see new topics. If a new thread is posted, I should Watch it. All existing threads should be switched to Watch. Mute function should still work, and if I switch a thread to not be watched, it shouldn't be.
    Solution: User preference "Automatically watch all threads"


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    Bug: Email notifications contain "Previous replies", which are not needed
    Expectation: When a reply is posted, I expect the body of the email to contain only that reply, not every previous one. I already have every previous reply in the previous emails. Given that there is virtually no visually markation between "this reply" and "previous replies", it makes the email cluttered and hard to read. In addition, it's a waste of bandwidth since, again, I am now getting n(n+1)/2 replies.
    Solution: User preference "Send only reply, not previous replies, in email notifications for replies"


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    Bug: Paging down a thread with the space bar, with the 'write reply' window open scrolls the page by a screen height, not by what's visible (screen height - reply box height).



  • FEATURE: The profile shows replies to your own posts by othe rusers, but the forum does not make that visually explicit. Consider adding a line like "in response to your post [link]", or a big fat icon. Something that is easy to see when skimming.



  • BUG: Html in a previous post is escaped with entities when you quote it; so quoting of images requires that you manually turn &lt; into <



  • FEATURE: likes should just show avatars without having to click "x persons liked this". The space is already used up by the pseudolink, the UI is already noisy. No harm there, I think.


  • Considered Harmful

    Bug report: switching from portrait to landscape or back throws me to a random spot.

    Possibly because you and the browser aren't on the same page about where the user is in the document.



  • Some kind of random bug happening for me this morning: if I keep my mouse clicked on the browser (FF uh... where the heck is the "about" dialog box now, dammit!? Ah there it is... 29.0.1) scroll bar and drag slowly down, at times the thread will jump down some large number of posts, and I have to manually scroll back up and guess where I was in the discussion. Because I don't keep my eyes glued to the X of Y widget. I suspect this has to do with the fact that the scrollbar doesn't represent progress through the posts, but something random.

    Ah, for @sam and @codinghorror: just had a suggestion for that: rather than the browser scrollbar position representing pixel extent, why not just have it represent topic extent. That is, if there are 245 replies in a thread, then the scrollbar has 245 positions. If new replies get added, the scrollbar adjusts... This avoids the whole "have to render all the content first" nonsense. (By the way - I can't believe I actually just used the @name format.... * shudder *)


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    Bug: No post count in user meta widget
    Expectation: There to be a post count
    Solution: Put the post count in there.



  • REQUEST: instant cancel for posts you started to write but never finished and want to forget.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    Not sure if I've posted this, or if anyone replied to it, and fucked if I'm going to scroll through hundreds of posts, so:

    Bug: Email notifications are delivered with their From "Friendly" name being the name of the poster, not the forum

    Expectation: The From "Friendly" name should be the forum. The old forum has that at "TDWTF Forums - Automated Email". This allows me to easily identify and group incoming forum posts at a glance. I can run rules based on it. It does not collide with other names in my contact list (ie: am I getting an email from Ben, or a forum post from Ben? Am I getting a forum post from Ben here, or a forum post from Ben on the discourse.org forum? WHO KNOWS). It is also rife for abuse by spammers and malcontents, allowing them to inject information into my inbox via a third party. It also confuses spam filters.
    Right now my inbox is just polluted with usernames I don't know, and i have to mentally sort out-- is that spam? Is that a legitimate email I should be reading? Is it a forum post? Stop making it more difficult for me to consume my inbox.

    Solution: Change the form "Friendly" name to be a single, consistent name. TDWTF Forums - Automated Email. During the beta test, it would be acceptable to be "WHAT.TDWTF Forums" or something similar.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    Isn't the cancel link next to the Reply button what you're after? Or are you after a [Don't show this again] checkbox on the confirmation dialog?


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    Again, reposting since, remember, accoridng to @codinghorror, people only read the top and bottom 10%, so my previous bug posts are lost and will never be read.

    Bug: Hyperlinks in email notification are routed through a third-party click tracker.
    Expectation: Hyperlinks go directly to the forum. Double-so for hyperlinks whose text is a hyperlink. Nothing gets you on a spam list faster than http://forums.thedailywtf.com [is actually a hyperlink to example.com]. Plus fuck third party click trackers. Fuck them hard. Don't want them. Don't need them. Fuck them. Fuck mandrillapp, whatever it is.
    Solution: Remove third party click trackers from emails.



  • @Lorne_Kates said:

    Bug: No post count in user meta widgetExpectation: There to be a post countSolution: Put the post count in there.

    Solution: Click user's profile picture. See post count there.

    You have made 65 posts till now.



  • @PJH said:

    Or are you after a [Don't show this again] checkbox on the confirmation dialog?

    Something like that.



  • @Lorne_Kates said:

    The old forum has that at "TDWTF Forums - Automated Email". This allows me to easily identify and group incoming forum posts at a glance.

    I take it your email client of choice doesn't show subjects?


  • Banned

    @Lorne_Kates said:

    Remove third party click trackers from emails

    This is a Mandrill config option that @apapadimoulis would have to set. Not a Discourse function.


  • Considered Harmful

    Feature request: I'd like to browse users, and sort them by stats (eg post count, likes received). So I can see who I have left to overthrow/assassinate/gloat over.



  • A UI suggestion for @codinghorror and @sam:

    In case of tldr: Make the header/title bar/whatever it is consistent, instead of changing it based on position in a thread.

    Ok, so this one isn't necessarily a bug, but it is a bit WTFy. Try this:

    1. Go to the top of a thread. Any thread.
    2. Look at the header/title bar/whatever it is and note that your user name is there.
    3. Scroll down. Doesn't have to be very far, just a post or so.
    4. Look back at the header/title bar/whatever. Username is now gone.
    5. Scroll back up. User name reappears.
    6. Click on username, and it takes you to your profile.

    Now, I know that I can get to my profile by clicking on my profile image up in the top-right, and selecting profile from the resulting menu. That's easy, and it's discoverable. What in the world possessed you guys to put a sometimes-there, sometimes-not link in as well? It isn't as easy to discover, and if it happens to be the first way someone finds to get to their profile, they probably won't look for another. Then they go to use it one day when they're in the middle of a thread, and it's missing. BAM! In comes a bug report, and the user gets a WON'T FIX response.

    I can kind of understand why it goes away, you need to make room for the title as the user scrolls down, or something like that, but wouldn't this all be easier if the header/title bar were static? We already know that we're on the forums for The Daily WTF, so you don't to show the full logo at the top of every thread. And why have the thread title below the header to start with? Just keep in the header the whole time, to provide a more consistent look and feel.

    And if you really feel the need to make the user name visible, that header bar is pretty tall. You could put the user name directly below the user's pic. Or tuck it in the user menu.

    Anyway, just some thoughts to help improve the UI for you.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    I think things are better as they are, though the transition from the “top of thread” look to the “rest of thread” look is a bit jarring now. A smoother transition would be awesome.

    Low priority though. Stopping DC from grabbing lots of CPU would be a much better use of developer time (and yes, it's probably a harder task than a little extra graphical snazziness…)


  • Considered Harmful

    I've been reading the last post of a thread and when someone posts underneath it, the viewport suddenly shifts upward and I lose my place in the text.



  • Yes. Just happened to me when you posted this.


  • BINNED

    New way of trolling:

    Make one incredibly long unbroken post moving from topic to topic (and keep hitting save) so that no one has the chance to read anything without scrolling.


    Filed under: quite hypnotic, in reply to post 358 of 355


  • 🚽 Regular

    Not isn't exactly a bug, it's more of a missing feature.

    Bug: text I'm quoting isn't inserted where I want
    Expected: text is inserted where I leave my cursor (cough, like in CS, cough)
    Actual: quoted text is appended at the end of the reply

    Bonus bug: a newline following a * that closes an italic is ignored. I needed to add a space after the asterisk to get the line break.



  • @Zecc said:

    Not isn't exactly a bug, it's more of a missing feature.

    Bug: text I'm quoting isn't inserted where I want
    Expected: text is inserted where I leave my cursor (cough, like in CS, cough)
    Actual: quoted text is appended at the end of the reply

    Bonus bug: a newline following a * that closes an italic is ignored. I needed to add a space after the asterisk to get the line break.

    +1000


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Zecc said:

    Bug: text I'm quoting isn't inserted where I wantExpected: text is inserted where I leave my cursor (cough, like in CS, cough) Actual: quoted text is appended at the end of the reply

    FWIW, I'm quite content with it working how it does right now. If I want to move things round, I'll do it myself.



  • On other forum that is run on vBulletin software, I am able to see who voted where on a pole. How can I do this on this course?

    http://what.thedailywtf.com/t/poll-how-long-do-you-sleep-everyday/499



  • Markdown works and does not work.
    Example markdown copied from flickr:

    [url=https://flic.kr/p/nyX2LB][img]/uploads/default/1878/dc7a74cae6de2577.jpg[/img][/url][url=https://flic.kr/p/nyX2LB]Lustigen Muttertag! - Funny Mother&#x27;s Day! :D[/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/people/41558538@N02/]vampire-carmen[/url], on Flickr
    

    [url=https://flic.kr/p/nyX2LB][img]/uploads/default/1878/dc7a74cae6de2577.jpg[/img][/url][url=https://flic.kr/p/nyX2LB]Lustigen Muttertag! - Funny Mother's Day! :D[/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/people/41558538@N02/]vampire-carmen[/url], on Flickr

    Simple link posted from flickr.
    <img src='/uploads/default/1878/dc7a74cae6de2577.jpg'>


  • BINNED

    @Nagesh said:

    >[url=https://flic.kr/p/nyX2LB][img]/uploads/default/1878/dc7a74cae6de2577.jpg[/img][/url].[url=https://flic.kr/p/nyX2LB]Lustigen Muttertag! - Funny Mother's Day! :D[/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/people/41558538@N02/]vampire-carmen[/url], on Flickr

    That's BB code, not Markdown. In any case, it seems it doesn't like [img] tags. Also, it won't let me make the image a link it seems.


  • Banned

    @blakeyrat said:

    a quick-fix would be to automatically scroll the preview pane down as far as possible when a new line was created in the text entry box. That's basically one line of JavaScript.

    This is .. actually a great idea. @sam was a bit obsessed with getting preview sync exactly perfect, but I much prefer something simpler.

    We will try to get this approximation in Monday.


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