Archived Forum

I've tested ordering comments by newest first. What do you think? 

Definitely easier to navigate on a long thread.

Thanks!

You must have too much time on your hands Glyn if it took so long for you to get fed up up with the comment display!    :-)

This is a great improvement, brings the forum slightly out of the dark ages and makes it a lot easier to navigate. Thanks.

Simon

Please leave the default mode of operation as oldest first, the choice is a fantastic option for those wishing to skim the last comments like Twitter feeds or email threads, but from what I've seen most technical forums retain the oldest first order to maintain readability.

My concern here is changing the natural order of reading and chronological order of "steps" whether that be debugging, development or even "how to" guides.

By default especially for unregistered readers the order must be oldest first so that they get the full picture, in order, the last thing we need to encourage is just reading the OP and the last posted comment.

Debugging must follow a methodical logic to make any sense.

There is most definitely a need for a "skip to end" type button or indeed this "newest first ordering" if you are a frequent visitor who prefers that mode.

I welcome the optional changes but as someone who is constantly reviewing previous steps/posts/facts to offer support, in which the order is very important, I have no choice but to turn this off for better readability so it doesn't remove the need to scroll to the end. even if the option buttons were at the top it would help as to turn this off we need to scroll to the end so (if not logged in, which often I'm not) I need to first scroll to the bottom, select oldest first, save, THEN scroll back to the top to read in the correct order, so even more finger work! 

Excellent work on the editor and this the reverse comment order is a nice OPTION to have but please do not have it as the default mode and please consider a "go to bottom of page/thread" button at the head of the thread, this would work for either orientation as a "go to oldest" or "go to latest".

Please also adjust the server time, it has been a constant hour out for as long as I have been a user, when I first looked at this thread the posts were in the time order of

02:16

08:25

03:20

This also causes confusion since it was 8am local (uk) time, I had to look at the dates to figure out the threads were all the same day and in reverse (except the OP)  not 2 days comments in the right order.

Paul

Default has been restored to oldest first with option the change. Once the option has been selected it will apply to the whole site for you as long as you are logged in. Take your point about easier to follow a thread. 

@ Paul do you not think the new editor should be the default? What features are you missing from the old editor? 

I will take a look into server time. I have actually never  noticed this! Thank for notifying

Button to go to the bottom of a thread  is a good idea  

Time should now be set correct ☺️

Actually, time will be set correct for new users. Existing users  will need to adjust in your account settings 

Hi Glyn, 

I'm pleased you restored the default order as oldest to newest, that's great. I do like the new editor and see no reason it shouldn't be the default, sorry, my wording wasn't great, I can be that now. the "this" in that sentence was the feature to alter the comment order not the editor :-)

The clocks seem correct for me now without any account adjustment but haven't tried logging out and back in yet. Thank you for correcting that too.

Paul

edit - just logged out and back in, the time is still good :-)

I'm in the same position as Paul regarding reading the threads and getting the full picture chronologically. The first thing I did, once I'd got over the confusion, was set it back as it was. 

As well as the 'bottom' button, what would be really nice would be to NOT reset the "new" flag on multi-page posts (OK, I know there aren't that many) until you've reached the last page and actually seen the new post(s). 

Reverse order would cure that, but by the time I've reversed the order, the flag will be gone.

And what about flagging (to moderators only, obviously) posts that are held in the moderation queue? I've answered posts that are visible to me but invisible to the general user, and I've noticed Paul Reed has done so too.

If we're on the subjects of forum changes anyway, would it be possible to add a "Mark all as read" button on the forum main page, and one for every subforum?

Currently I need to open every single thread that has unread posts.