That would work but then you will also be coming across posts that are saved for later reference. Doesn’t it happen to you that this post is for reference and I don’t need to read it on regular basis unless by now you remember those posts having looked at them for numerous times.
So another way round it could be expanding on the bookmarks function slightly in be able to have categories or types of bookmarks - like you can within your browser. However this would require either a plugin or a PR into core if the team would allow it.
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“read it later” still requires you perform some action to clear it.
Essentially what you are saying here is that you need 2 buckets of bookmarks. This is not something we plan to add, people struggle enough with bookmarks as is, adding yet another “bookmark type 2” button would be super confusing.
Instead I can thing of 2 alternatives
- Use browser bookmarks as bucket number 1 and Discourse bookmarks as bucket number 2
- Keep the 1 big bucket of bookmarks under control, the g b keyboard shortcut is your friend, use it, then use j k to move through list and b to toggle bookmarks. Its a very very efficient workflow.
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Another solution would be to make it easier to find posts started, but not completed. I think that to find a post that’s not yet sent, you have to return to the page where you started it? Maybe if there were a drafts folder, one could start a reply to a post and find it later in drafts.
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I only have about two or three topics marked for reference for later. But to be honest, I should probably un-bookmark those. I typically do searches to find reference material anyway.
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Another option would be to use the discourse assign plugin we’re currently dogfooding.
You could then bookmark posts you enjoy, and assign things to yourself when you need to reply to them later.
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The purpose Is only to read-later. If the assign plugin can help maintain a personal and private list then that would be awesome.
I can suggest the plugin to my manager if it has been released for production.
Browser bookmarks will mean I will have to use a specific browser at all times. Like always use Chrome that you have signed in on. These browser bookmarks will also mean they can’t be easily search with in:bookmarks. I have recently started using these search tags and I find them super useful.
Or something like Staff notes, where you could make private notes on posts/topics/categories/users (just a one liner), and either search the text, or display it in the “My Notes” section your profile.
I definitely support this as a plugin. Google Maps has started doing something similar:
Everything would be in Bookmarks, but we’d basically be enabling tags for bookmarks.
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Might it be easiest to revisit the old Starred code that was discarded quite some time ago?
no way 
stars are not coming back and this is at the post level anyway, not at the topic level.
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This can be useful in several ways. There can be label/tags for example Draft for unfinished posts, read-it-later for obvious purposes, etc.
My bookmark list is growing rapidly as I spend a lot of time with it. If there were tags that would clearly tell me what the bookmark is about that can be helpful. For example, a bookmarks’ tags may be Style, Inheritance, etc. so I would know what it is about.
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A variety of online services provide read later functionality. I use Diigo, https://www.diigo.com/user/grahamperrin?unread=yes for example – a list of unread bookmarks that are public (without disclosing those that are private) – YMMV, folks.
Is there any reason to avoid all such services?
If so: is that reason contributory to the wish for the functionality to be offered by Discourse?
That’s most interesting.
Browser bookmarks will mean I will have to use a specific browser at all times. Like always use Chrome that you have signed in on. These browser bookmarks will also mean they can’t be easily search with in:bookmarks. I have recently started using these search tags and I find them super useful.
Using external service will mean you lose the benefit of search and shortcuts. Also discourse no longer a power tool without 3rd party services.
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What if it was a plugin that enabled user-specific tags that were private? They only apply to the user and no one else sees them. I’m not sure I would use it but could see some value in it for others.
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Yep, that is basically the idea. After clicking bookmark on a post, you’d get a timed modal that lets you optionally choose between additional labels (so if you don’t care, it’ll disappear on its own). Let’s say you have 3 labels to choose from:
- Favorite
- Read later
- Other
Basic spec:
- they’re all editable; turn “favorite” into “radical reads” if you’d like
- you can only apply one. A bookmark may not have multiple labels
- you can’t add more; this is just to keep the first iteration simple. Being able to add 50 different labels introduces UX complications, and may also inadvertently lead to users overburdening themselves with fine grained categorization.
I for instance would love to make my own bookmarks tag called “testimonials”, because I sometimes bookmark good “sound bytes” for potential use on our website.
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Back to Diigo for a moment. It works with multiple browsers (I’m most familiar with the bookmarklet, the add-on for Firefox, the app for Android which integrates with Firefox etc., and the extension for Chrome). The web interface allows you to search based on various criteria, including texts that you have highlighted in pages that you have bookmarked. Super useful.
That seems reasonable.
Attention to wording: tags or labels?
So a post may be truly unread, or (maybe a future feature) read then marked as unread, and/or tagged/labelled as unread within the context of a post-specific user-specific bookmark.
Folks, consider changes that will be required to mobile interfaces.
Here, for example, the binary [ ] I've read –
– which appears to be a heading or sub-heading to the obscurely-titled any menu.
While I have nothing against the bookmark labels option - indeed, it may be the best solution in the end - but it is a big solution for multiple problems/needs that may take long to implement. So I would like to follow up on two other options that came up but not really discussed:
- mark unread: wouldn’t it be a rather minimalistic solution. It could even be done without any new visual elements in the UI, for example by redefining the icons next each notification in the user menu as “toggle read state”, i.e. when I click on the icon (rather than the text link) of a new notification it will mark do the same as when I click on the text, except that I stay on the same page, effectively marking the notification as read (good for badge notifications) and if I click again, it will reverse the previous actions, effectively marking it as unread. Like this:
(a) Oh, I have a new notification!
(b) Oh, but I already read the email notification, so I will mark it as read by clicking here:
© result:
(d) Likewise, if I want to mark Falco’s reply as unread, I click here
(e) result:
- (<= this should be a 2) multiple saved drafts: I really like discourses auto safe feature, making it possible to start a message on one device and continuing it on another. What if it would be possible to save multiple unsent replies (and see a list of them under /my/activity/)?
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I don’t quite get it. Mockup please?
I’ve been wanting this for quite some time, but it’s not a trivial amount of work. If you could update that topic with some UX mockups that’d be a good way to get the discussion going again.
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Added some to the post above.
I see. I guess it makes sense to discuss it as a feature in it’s own right, then I mean, one that mainly solves a different issue rather than the wish to “mark as read later”. Which leaves use with quick-fix option 1 here… (But maybe I’m underestimating the amount of code for that one too?)