Suggesting a previous/next topic button

I got here through a link from a Codecademy mod. Just wondering if anything was in the works as far as a previous/next topic button or toggle switch for the forums. It would be nice to get to the end of a series of posts on a given topic and have the option of going to a newer/previous topic without hitting a back button, checking browser history or clicking on the category name again.

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Doesn’t this already exist - use j to move the post hightlight down, then click enter when you’ve selected the topic in suggested topics that you want.

I’m not sure that I’d agree that suggested topics are the same as chronologically ordered ones.

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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

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What’s the smartphone equivalent of hitting the j key? :smirk:

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How do you define “next”? The idea behind Suggested Topics is that you get a choice of what you want to see next, not the computer’s idea forced upon you of what should be next.

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If I am reading this correctly, “next” is based off of the chronological order of “Latest”.

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Well, the suggested topics seem to work like a grab bag of things I might like. This can be interesting and fruitful at times. I’m thinking more along the lines of the user reading all replies to one topic in a given category, seeing an option to toggle to the next/previous topic in said category and being able to click on it.

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Suggested topics should prioritize the current category. You should see unread (topics you’ve set to track or watch) first, then new topics, then topics that have no tracking or watching status.

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I’ll mess around with my settings when I get home, thanks :slight_smile:

And on the other discussion topic, it was said multiple times that the order of latest has no guarantee. New replies, edits to the last post, unlisting of topics, and so forth all impact Latest.

What I think would maybe work better than running off Latest, is running off Unread and grabbing the top unread topic via keyboard shortcut to navigate to next (once all are completed, maybe grab from New). You have less to keep track of because the topic you are viewing and the topics around you aren’t potentially shifting as quickly as Latest would and really wouldn’t matter (as you know those topics to be unread/new – unlike Latest).

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I would like to revive this request as I’ve had a multitude of users request this functionality. Suggested posts simply don’t cut it for what we need.

I have a photo sharing site, in a category I have the sorting set by post date, not by latest. Here is an example: https://community.naturephotographers.network/c/landscape/landscape-gallery

The users want the ability to go to the next image without having to go back to the category and it would be expected that the next image be next posted image, so chronological.

If this will never be put in core, could someone tell me if this is even possible so I could make a marketplace request? Thanks

I’m a bit confused. It feels like you may have two questions.

Latest is sorted by post date. Perhaps you mean “instead of Suggested, have it be a truncated Latest”?

What topics display in the Suggested are based on several things - the general result being what a member is most likely to be interested in reading next.

It sounds like you may want something like a “put all the images that are in all of the posts in this topic into an image slider”. Or maybe you mean “go to another topic in this category that has an image in a post”.

The first would require a plugin, the second should be what happens as long as a member sets the category to Watch.

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I should clarify that by ‘post date’ I mean post date of the original topic. So right now I have this category set to sort by ‘Created’ so that old topics will not be bumped up by new replies.

So what I want is a next button that would take me to the next ‘Created’ topic that is chronological

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The keyboard shortcuts for this feature were added in:

Previous/next topic - #37 by sam

Brilliant, thank you Sam! Could this theoretically be implemented as a button as well if I put it out to the marketplace?

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Yes a theme component could make this a button

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4 posts were split to a new topic: Making ‘previous/next topic’ keyboard shortcuts into a theme component

To answer the OP, here’s a Next Topic Button implementation using the same API as the shortcut keys:

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Slightly off topic, but could that button be above or belove the timeline? The button is now next to it and therefore is narrowing content unnecessary.

On mobiles it looks fine.

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