Published on 12, July, 2020
Note by WebPM: I have split this off from the photography thread partly to make this discussion more accessible to others who have questions, and partly to keep the other thread on topic.)
...Finally, this is to WebPM. I may Post again, though. But after 3, 4 attempts to find WebPMs Post, I could not, and then I recall a thing said by MrRobert123, in that Replies Change depending upon how a Thread is entered, and so I clicked upon the Thread TITLE, instead of any reply (from the HOME Screen... and now I finally see your Reply, Mr.WebPM.
(I wanted to keep this Thread about Pictures, but then that happens, and so I Post it here, as it happened, rather than my previous Thread. Excuse Me.)
EDIT - From DC: This Post now does not entirely make sense, when used as a Starting Post or as an Introduction. To anyone reading, Please ignore the sentence here which says that this Thread is "about pictures", for THIS Thread is not about pictures at all..!! Most of all, Please see the first *Real* Post from myself, below. I myself can only wait to see what other people (including NAS) do regarding this Thread...
I have today been informed about an update to the forum software that is designed to address some of these issues, in particular, some of the intended enhancements are:
I'm hoping that the changes will also address the specific issue of some messages not being listed in the thread at all, i.e. the main topic of this particular thread. I don't think we'll be quite sure until we've all been using it for some weeks, because I don't believe that we can describe how to trigger the problem - so we can't write a test to be certain that it's cured.
We'll need to install this first on our test system, to check for any unexpected effects (not particularly likely), so it may be a week or two before we're ready to install it here. However, it will be fairly obvious when it's in place, because of the changes to the appearance of Next/Previous and latest messages mentioned above.
WebPM said:
Cool & thanks for advance notice. I think part of the confusion is that there are two main things going on: some replies are hidden (by Load Next/Previous); and secondly some replies are filtered out, excluded altogether, when the URL is for a particular comment. If those systems were combined, so that you could access all the replies with Load Next/Previous, it would be less confusing.
As another datum, I've noticed that in the case where you look at the main thread URL and none of the comments are listed at all, the interactive features of the site (eg popups when hovering over the user name, notification icons) also aren't working. For instance:
https://community.autism.org.uk/f/adults-on-the-autistic-spectrum/13096/adhd-autism-depression-and-anxiety
Maybe the scripts aren't loaded. When you click on one of the highlighted replies, however, those features start working.
Yes, I agree that there are two things going on - three, if you count the fact that linking to a message can result in other messages appearing in a different order (because the system then prioritises showing the linked message's parent and children, which means re-ordering any siblings to get them out of the way).
The feedback is that the whole thing has been improved, so, hopefully, both your bullets will be resolved, and quite possibly even the "empty thread" business that you mentioned last. However, the interactions between these things are why I can't really be certain at least until we get it onto a test system, and more probably until we are using it live in real conversations here.
Regards