I miss a feature from Caucus is the ability to read all new since last visit. This is a usual and convenient way to catch up with your current readings.
Maybe the feature exists and I missed it, but I don’t think so.
When you click read all new, you go through the list of topics with unread messages, until you come back to “the center” (Caucus center is kind of the list of conferences [categories in Discourse speak, aka the dashboard]).
Update: I ended up using @zogstrip’s solution based on keyboard shortcuts gu, j, and o. See ? for more shortcuts, and read his explanation.
When you click read all new, you go through the list of topics with unread messages: you don’t dismiss them.
You go to the first topic with unread messages, and when you reach the end of that topic, you go to the next unread post in the next topic, and so on, until you cycled through all topics with new messages.
I think I understand what @hellekin is describing.
Have all topics with unread messages (and new topics created since last visit) listed at the bottom, so one can swiftly go through all activity since last visit. And when one finishes browsing this activity via Suggested Topics, the listing looks like this:
Caught up and ready to view the latest as it rolls in.
This, I feel, is related to my own past requests regarding new/unread indicators.
@hellekin, when you scroll down and check out the suggested topics list, it should have all topics with “unread since last visit” messages within them, or new topics entirely.
In user prefs, I suggest selecting “since last visit” for when to consider topics new.
I’m simply talking about a button (if possible in a static location on the page) that I can just click to go to the next unread topic. In Caucus, I had changed the UI so that I can just hit M-SPC (Alt + Space) to go to next unread topic.
I’m not talking at all about dismissing new messages, on the contrary.
I’m not talking about a link to the latest topics either: it’s not a list, but a path through all unread topics.
I want to read all new messages since last visit, not to mark them all read.
Does that make sense?
[Edited:] @purldator: I already use this in my preferences.
The problem with a “automatically take me to the next unread topic” button like that is that it assumes mind-reading ability:
which of the 12 new topics did you want to visit next?
We work under the assumption that people want agency – they want to decide what’s most important to view next, rather than us attempting to read their minds, or decide for them.
Hence the choice of new topics at the bottom in Suggested. Pick the one you would prefer to go to next.
There are keyboard shortcuts to get there, press ? to see them.
Which one does not really matter: I want to read all of them. The ones I don’t want to follow I can skip or forget. I just don’t want to keep clicking back to the list of topics.
Now I’m opening tabs, and closing them as I’m done with them. That’s convenient on a desktop, but not so much on a mobile.
When you get into the “read all new loop”, you can as well skip to the next topic, eventually untracking the skipped topic if you have decided so in your preferences (I’m extrapolating from the workflow I know.)
You can also stop the loop at anytime and come back to new or latest or whatever you like. When the loop is over, maybe there are new messages already, then you can cycle again.
For regular visitors it’s quite helpful to go through topics fast. I’m wondering, how do you manage?
I think some of the discussion about Previous / next topics is relevant, especially the j shortcut, that moves down the posts, and then goes to a list of topics. Except once there j keeps scrolling down the list of topics, where read all new would simply send you to the next unread post in the first topic of the list (or the next…).
I am not opposed to a new keyboard shortcut that forces you, at random, to the next unread topic. If anyone wants to work on the pull request, be my guest!
I Watch a lot of categories and when I visit after being absent for a while I usually have quite a few Unread and New.
Personally I prefer to choose what I’ll read next rather than go to one at random.
I usually work from Suggested as it puts Unread (i.e. topics I have “invested” some time in) before New,
New (i.e. topics I’m likely to be interested in) before “same Category”,
and “same Category” (likely to be “where my head is at now”) before “others”.
There are already several ways to read topics of interest / likely interest. eg.
For the record, I think when you are on the last post in the topic, j will go to the first suggested topic. Though I’m not opposed to a shortcut for jumping to the suggestions, just wanted to point out that it should be possible already.
As I said earlier, j ends up going through a list of topics, and not following through posts. Therefore it’s not simply about “jumping to the suggestions”, but rather to traverse* them.
* I think I exhausted my vocabulary for repeating the same thing in various ways, and still my message doesn’t seem to get through.
Read All New is not really about topics: it’s about posts. Posts happen to belong to topics, so be it. But forget topics for a while, and think about j as always going to a post, and never to a list (I know, it’s not the case now, hence the request to have something else.)
Anyway, thank you all for your interest in this feature. This is the kind of convenience that becomes hard to avoid once you’re used to it, and makes you wonder how could you do it before.
10:05 reply # 4 in topic A
10:06 reply # 12 in topic B
10:07 reply # 5 in topic A
10:09 reply # 23 in topic C
10:11 reply # 13 in topic B
10:12 reply # 6 in topic A
Instead of going to topic A and reading replies 4, 5, and 6
then going to topic B and reading 12 and 13
then to topic C reading reply 23
you want to read the posts in the chronological order in which they were made?
That would be a bit complicated @Mittineague: if you have A-4 to A-6, they will appear on the same page, so you will read them sequentially.
Imagine we keep your example. As the first post in the list belongs to topic A, then this one will display first, and consume #4, #5, and #6. Next in line is topic B, with #12 and #13. After this comes #23 in topic C.
Next is either an alert: “there’s nothing new to read” maybe with “but there are N topics you didn’t read. [read them now]”, or a new cycle (you get back to the dashboard, and have a new cycle ready for you if you choose to do so.)
[Edited:] Note that categories would similarly take precedence over topics: if you have 3 unread topics in category X and 4 in category Y, the order would come from first-posted, followed by next-posted-in-the-same-category. That is to keep reading consistent. Then skipping a category might be a useful addition.
