Browsing latest topics with a button within the topic you're currently reading

[nexo]

Hi, I’d like to recommend a feature,

A feature that allows users to go on to the following topic that’s in the same tag or category while still being on the topic they’re currently viewing. This way users don’t have to go back every time they want to view the following topics.

USES: This will be incredibly useful for casual categories/tags, such as memes. You could keep viewing memes without any mechanical disruption to the user experience. Reddit is an example of this.

Example of where an arrow could be placed for this, (excuse my abysmal paint):

Example

[_vincent]

That would be useful for my forum too.

It has been suggested before:

Suggesting a previous/next topic button

Ah, that is very true. This suggestion has come up before - let me see if I can find the previous discussions… A quick search came up with this: https://meta.discourse.org/t/keyboard-shortcut-and-link-to-go-straight-to-next-new-topic/23717 and this

[codinghorror (Jeff Atwood)]

This already exists, turn on the site setting that limits suggested topics to the same category you are already on.

[nexo]

I understand your response, however, could there be a way of swiping right or left on a topic to get to the next one? I truly believe this would be an incredible quality-of-life feature that users will appreciate.

[codinghorror (Jeff Atwood)]

It is funny that you ask, @erlend_sh recently proposed such a feature and it now exists… however, it is a keyboard shortcut:

Hotkey for next suggested topic

Could we add a hotkey for going to the next suggested topic? I want to skim-read as much of Meta’s content as possible, but sometimes after glancing at the first post I already know my input is not needed and I can move on. But if the topic already has 10+ replies, I need to either scroll quite a ways down or click on the page counter.

[nexo]

Sweet! A few questions rise:

1. How can I change the keyboard shortcut to a single key that isn’t being used rather than a combo of ‘g s’ seeing that this will be used often?

2. Could we get a simple arrow at the top of a topic that will redirect you to the following post?

3. Important: On mobile, could there be a swipe function where you just swipe the screen right to go the next topic or left to go to the previous topic?

[codinghorror (Jeff Atwood)]

On mobile, could there be a swipe function where you just swipe the screen right to go the next topic or left to go to the previous topic?

How would that work since those gestures are already allocated to browser forward/back on iOS, and expanding side panels on Android?

[nexo]

Swiping could be initiated from the middle of the screen, rather than the far sides. This does not trigger side panels on Android or iOS/Safari. Just tested it on both operating systems.

This sort of swiping from the center to navigate already exists on some applications, so it should work out.

[erlend_sh (Erlend Sogge Heggen)]

I think swiping on the title bar would make more sense and have less risk of causing disorientation. It would look something like this mid-swipe:

[nexo]

Clever proposal, I like the idea. Only possible QoL hindrance could be to users that have tall, big smartphones which happens to be a huge portion of people. Reaching up to the title with your thumb often to browse to following latest topics may displease that demographic of users.

[sam (Sam Saffron)]

Very tricky from a performance standpoint, we don’t know what the next topic will be when swiping, suggested may not even be loaded.

[nexo]

Maybe instead of showing the content while the swiping gesture is going on, it can display a placeholder icon until the animation/gesture is fully done, then proceed to load the content.