15 votes

A question about design and comment threads

Posted by 666
Tags: suggestions, design, html

I am an occasional lynx/elinks user and I only have a single complaint about Tildes that prevents me from reading it using those browsers. Threaded comments don't display properly, since the CSS support of these browsers is non existent (lynx) or poor (elinks), the only way to make threaded comments display nice is by rendering them as ul lists. Is it possible to wrap the current article elements inside ul/li elements to make them display nice in text-only browsers?

For comparison, I can get them to display nice on reddit using the old mobile interface. In Tildes threads look flat (those comments are supposed to be nested, link to original thread) and it is difficult to know who is replying to who.

9 comments

  1. [8]
    Deimos
    Link
    It should be possible, there's not really any particular reason they're not in a list already. It'll probably mess with some other CSS things though (for example, lists inside comments will now be...

    It should be possible, there's not really any particular reason they're not in a list already. It'll probably mess with some other CSS things though (for example, lists inside comments will now be a "nested list"), so it might not be a super trivial change. I'll add it to the issue tracker at least.

    7 votes
    1. [6]
      666
      Link Parent
      I used inspect element to edit the HTML and add some ul and li. It seems that it only needs list-display: none and tweaking a few margins/paddings: https://i.imgur.com/li6CdLp.png

      I used inspect element to edit the HTML and add some ul and li. It seems that it only needs list-display: none and tweaking a few margins/paddings: https://i.imgur.com/li6CdLp.png

      5 votes
      1. [5]
        Deimos
        Link Parent
        Yeah, those comments are all just plain text though. I'm expecting some oddities for cases like a numbered list inside the comment, since that might change it to have a. b. c. list markers instead...

        Yeah, those comments are all just plain text though. I'm expecting some oddities for cases like a numbered list inside the comment, since that might change it to have a. b. c. list markers instead of 1. 2. 3. ones.

        3 votes
        1. [4]
          666
          Link Parent
          Good point, I hope you don't mind I edited your comment for a screenshot. https://i.imgur.com/BpCfFC4.png (edit: there's a typo in my screenshot, but I'm not taking another just to fix that)....

          Good point, I hope you don't mind I edited your comment for a screenshot. https://i.imgur.com/BpCfFC4.png (edit: there's a typo in my screenshot, but I'm not taking another just to fix that).

          Ordered lists are not affected because I'm using unordered lists for the comments so they start with numbers and only get letters for their second level. Unordered lists inside comments get the secondary bullet type, it may be necessary to reset it using CSS.

          2 votes
          1. [3]
            Deimos
            Link Parent
            Yeah, probably nothing hugely difficult, but it'll need a few adjustments. From a semantic perspective, I think the comments should be in an ordered list instead of an unordered one. They're...

            Yeah, probably nothing hugely difficult, but it'll need a few adjustments.

            From a semantic perspective, I think the comments should be in an ordered list instead of an unordered one. They're sorted, so there is a particular ordering to them, which makes more sense as an <ol>.

            3 votes
            1. [2]
              666
              Link Parent
              That makes sense, but their sorting method can be changed so the same comment may get different numbers depending on how the user sorted them and how other people are voting on comments. I don't...

              That makes sense, but their sorting method can be changed so the same comment may get different numbers depending on how the user sorted them and how other people are voting on comments. I don't know if that changes semantics, what do you think?

              1 vote
              1. Deimos
                Link Parent
                I don't think it matters, <ol> means "this is a list of items in a specific order" while <ul> is "this is a list of items, but the order of them isn't significant". The comments are always...

                I don't think it matters, <ol> means "this is a list of items in a specific order" while <ul> is "this is a list of items, but the order of them isn't significant". The comments are always supposed to be shown in a particular order, even if that order might change.

                3 votes
    2. Kiloku
      Link Parent
      Another path for this would be the API. Once it's up and running, anyone could maintain a text-only version of Tildes (maybe even an official text-only version by you guys)

      Another path for this would be the API. Once it's up and running, anyone could maintain a text-only version of Tildes (maybe even an official text-only version by you guys)

      3 votes
  2. Corin
    Link
    I'm surprised LIs aren't being used. It seems like a natural fit for that content.

    I'm surprised LIs aren't being used. It seems like a natural fit for that content.

    3 votes