Feature request: A better way to navigate unread comments in a thread

balooga
2018-08-24T17:26:07Z

I've found that the red (X new) indicator next to a thread's comment count on the main page keeps me coming back to the discussion to see the latest messages. This is a good thing, but the UX for actually navigating through those messages leaves something to be desired.

There are two relevant existing features I'd like to discuss:

All new comments since I last viewed the thread are highlighted with a conspicuous red stripe.

The sidebar on any given discussion page has a link to jump to the most recent comment.

I use the most recent comment link in threads that I know only have one new comment. The link takes me right to it. But in threads with more than one new comment, it's a lot less foolproof. My only method for seeing them all is to scroll down the page and stop when I see a flash of that red stripe. This is tedious in busy discussions which both update frequently with new comments to read, and take a long time to scroll through every time I check them. It's also easy to miss something this way, and since comments are considered "read" after you load the page, there's no second chance to see whatever I missed.

I'd like to propose a method for iterating through all unread comments on a page, either in chronological order (oldest first) or in order of appearance on the page. Or if @Deimos wants to get really fancy, some kind of hybrid sort that keeps nested comment chains grouped together for contextual continuity when navigating.

This would require two controls: "Jump to next unread comment" and "Jump to previous unread comment." These could be "sticky" clickable icons on the page, or just some sort of keystroke (like , and . for previous and next, respectively) without a UI at all.

An important secondary feature of this would be a count indicating both how many unread comments are on the page and how many within that set you have jumped to with this mechanism so far:

Viewing 2 of 7 unread comments

This could remain visible or only appear briefly when jumping to the next/previous unread, then fade away. It could also be shortened to something more minimal:

2/7

That on-screen feedback would help prevent getting lost in busy threads with high unread counts, particular if the sequence is not determined by order of comment appearance on the page.

Edit: Whoops, fixed my formatting error I didn't notice after posting.

Comments URL: https://tildes.net/~tildes/5j6/feature_request_a_better_way_to_navigate_unread_comments_in_a_thread

Votes: 12

Comments: 6