Facebook-style Topic Modal - Is it better?

Development
1

I have been messing about trying to get a different look to other sites and have built a Facebook style topic modal. It seems to load quicker for me and seems to be more fluent on desktop.

What are your thoughts?

Link to test is https://www.carptalk-online.co.uk/ (only works on Desktop)

2

nicely done! i quite like that even though i’m not a facebook user. you have a cool site. :star_struck:

also, i didn’t realize carp can get so huge! :fishing_pole:

3

Very cool! have you tested it in topics with 20+ replies? that’s when we load more “pages” of posts on scroll and in my experience is one of the biggest complications with this sort of alternate view

4

No i’ll do this now and report back

5

Works fine - Testing 20 replies - #29 by Carper1 - CarpTalk - Carp Forum

6

I can see the page load like you say but it works as expected

7

The topic doesn’t show up in a modal when clicking the direct link. From the topic list, it works tho.

8

Yeah thats the next thing i need to look into but i have been pondering over this, does it matter? That’s the same as Facebook behaves, the direct link goes to the actual post, if clicked while browsing modal opens.

9

(post deleted by author)

10

Nice concept, are you able to maintain a consistent connection with message bus for new messages while loading older messages?

11

Yes, because the modal loads the normal Discourse topic application inside an iframe rather than rendering a custom copy of the topic. The iframe establishes its own MessageBus connection and Discourse continues handling the post stream normally, including loading older posts and receiving newly published posts.

The parent page also remains active behind it, so technically there are two Discourse instances and two MessageBus connections while the modal is open. That works, although it is slightly heavier than a fully native implementation. Closing the modal removes the iframe and its connection.

12

I don’t know if it matters, and I don’t use facebook :stuck_out_tongue:

I was just surprised that clicking your link didn’t show the topic in a modal, when you posted it precisely to show it worked in a modal.

13

My original post was a link to the homepage, did you click my response to Kris testing the topics haha. Hows it going anyway not seen you in a while