Expandable Comments

by
in pipedot on (#3F5)
Good news everyone! I've just pushed out the first version of expandable comments! They may still be a little rough around the edges, but you are welcome to try them out below or on any other story.

As for the nerdy details, the scripts are using jQuery to pull the raw comments in JSON format from the server. The two HTML5 slider elements control the display thresholds. Comments that are under the "Hide" threshold are completely hidden. Comments that are under the "Expand" threshold are collapsed. The rest of the comments are shown in full. Collapsed comments show the subject text + the first line of body text. You can click on any collapsed comment to expand it.

For those that prefer to be script free, we will offer an "Enable JavaScript" checkbox in your user settings page. Unchecking this option will present you with server-side-generated pages instead of the JavaScript enabled pages.
Reply 36 comments

Cool! (Score: 5, Informative)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2014-03-06 13:59 (#9T)

Just discovered this an hour ago while posting on the Kepler article. Works well! But *thanks* for offering a script-free alternative too. I frequently browse from low-spec browsers and sites that don't work without Javascript usually don't capture me as a user.

Re: Cool! (Score: 5, Interesting)

by philovivero@pipedot.org on 2014-03-06 16:23 (#9X)

And now just need to be able to store the comment slider positions as a preference!

Re: Cool! (Score: -1, Redundant)

by philovivero@pipedot.org on 2014-03-06 16:23 (#9Y)

And now just need to be able to store the comment slider positions as a preference!

Re: Cool! (Score: 1)

by omoc@pipedot.org on 2014-03-07 16:23 (#AR)

Very cool indeed, thank you so much for your effort!

Love the site (Score: 4, Informative)

by elf@pipedot.org on 2014-03-06 15:20 (#9V)

The site looks great! The styling is very pleasing to the eye

Re: Love the site (Score: 2, Funny)

by sleazyridr@pipedot.org on 2014-03-06 15:38 (#9W)

I really like the colours of this site and the collapsible comments are awesome too! Mainly I'm replying here to make it easy for people to see the collapsible comments in action.

Re: Love the site (Score: 3, Funny)

by cubancigar11@pipedot.org on 2014-03-07 08:07 (#AE)

Same here. Someone mod me up :)

Re: Love the site (Score: 4, Funny)

by cubancigar11@pipedot.org on 2014-03-07 08:08 (#AF)

Not karma whoring - mark as funny.

Btw, modding is very intuitive and great here. Love it.

Re: Love the site (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-03-10 13:57 (#CC)

Testing

Like the sliders! (Score: 3, Interesting)

by tempest@pipedot.org on 2014-03-06 17:43 (#9Z)

Is post moderation starting from 0 intentional? If so, I'm curious why you chose to buck the slashdot legacy trend.

Re: Like the sliders! (Score: 2, Informative)

by bryan@pipedot.org on 2014-03-06 18:28 (#A0)

I was under the impression that slashdot started at zero as well. If you have good karma, however, you get a karma bonus of +1 added to your comment. The karma system here isn't finished yet.

Re: Like the sliders! (Score: 4, Insightful)

by geotti@pipedot.org on 2014-03-06 21:00 (#A2)

Respect to what you're pulling off! Keep on going!

Re: Like the sliders! (Score: 5, Informative)

by unitron@pipedot.org on 2014-03-06 21:07 (#A3)

Comments by registered users at /. start out at +1, ACs start at 0.

Re: Like the sliders! (Score: 5, Informative)

by danieldvorkin@pipedot.org on 2014-03-06 22:46 (#A5)

The Slashdot standard is logged-in registered users at +1, Anonymous Cowards at 0. Registered users' posts also get modified by karma, of course, with good karma granting an additional +1, for a total of +2. Which isn't to say you should be bound by /. conventions, of course!

Re: Like the sliders! (Score: 2, Informative)

by unitron@pipedot.org on 2014-03-07 01:29 (#AB)

But that one point karma bonus only happens if the person who would get it allows it to happen.

Re: Like the sliders! (Score: 2, Insightful)

by reziac@pipedot.org on 2014-03-10 06:25 (#C3)

In SeaMonkey 2.5 -- aside from having to turn on JS to see any comments at all, I seem to have permanent moderation dropdowns for every comment, but no moderate button. [scratching head]

Have you thought about crosspollinating slashcode fixes with SoylentNews?

Bugs aside, I'm liking the site... another option for my preferred style of news.

Whom do I tell? (Score: 1)

by darnkitten@pipedot.org on 2014-03-07 00:21 (#A8)

Off topic, but...

When I logged in, the username and password fields blanked as if the page had reloaded, with no indication that I had been logged in (I had been). I didn't see a place to report it, so...

...Anyway - love the expandable comments. You all are doing great work!

Re: Whom do I tell? (Score: 1)

by zenbi@pipedot.org on 2014-03-08 13:35 (#AZ)

Do you happen to be using IE? I can't reproduce this on Firefox/Chrome and I can only reproduce it on IE once per reboot. I've found a slight delay on the transition from HTTP to HTTPS in IE due to checking the CRL. After the first HTTPS navigation, future transitions have no delay. Also, unchecking the "Check CRL" option in the IE settings prevents the delay.

For now, I'm just going to move the entire Sign In page to always be HTTPS; instead of waiting until the POST for the switchover.

P.S. The "Bugs" link at the bottom of every page will get you to the bugtracker if you find any more issues.

Re: Whom do I tell? (Score: 1)

by reziac@pipedot.org on 2014-03-10 03:47 (#BX)

Well, I had to enable JS to see any comments at all. :(
SeaMonkey v2.5 here.

I seem to stay logged in well enough, tho. And I seem to have mod doohickeys today. Must go test 'em.

I do wish there was a daily mailer so I'd remember to visit more often! Each of, uh, these sites definitely has its own personality. Thumbs up. :D

Recruit more Staff (Score: 5, Insightful)

by kumanopuusan@pipedot.org on 2014-03-07 00:25 (#A9)

You might want to consider recruiting more staff so that you can increase the number of articles getting posted. Technically, everything looks great.

Re: Recruit more Staff (Score: 1)

by cubancigar11@pipedot.org on 2014-03-07 08:09 (#AG)

As I understand, the articles are limited by submission, unfortunately :(

Not working yet - no setting to change. (Score: 3, Interesting)

by fatphil@pipedot.org on 2014-03-07 09:21 (#AH)

"Javascript disabled."
Not necessarily true - in 2 of the 3 browsers I use regularly javascript isn't even a feature that could ever be enabled, and the 3rd one has NoScript enabled to the max except for things I depend on.

Forward steps, please. Not backward ones.

awesome (Score: 4, Interesting)

by quadrox@pipedot.org on 2014-03-07 09:52 (#AK)

While the Red site may have more traffic for now, i think this one had great potential. These changes really make it enjoyable to browse here, and it works great even on my phone. Awesome job, keep up the good work.

Tried logging in with a non-existing user name? (Score: 2, Funny)

by afineusername@pipedot.org on 2014-03-07 10:53 (#AN)

record not found - table [user] id [luser="ausername"]

"luser". Classy, huh. Slow. Clap.

Re: Tried logging in with a non-existing user name? (Score: 5, Interesting)

by spallshurgenson@pipedot.org on 2014-03-07 14:46 (#AQ)

'luser' is a word with quite a long pedigree. It dates back to the '70s at MIT and has since been adopted by IT professionals and hobbyists, especially by those who have to deal with users on a regular basis. Although it's tongue-in-cheek meaning has not changed, it has become less a comment on the users themselves and more of a shibboleth used within the community.

Myself, I tend to use 'luser' as referring to the record itself, as opposed to the 'user', who is the actual person.

Re: Tried logging in with a non-existing user name? (Score: 3, Informative)

by zenbi@pipedot.org on 2014-03-07 18:57 (#AV)

Myself, I tend to use 'luser' as referring to the record itself, as opposed to the 'user', who is the actual person.
Exactly. The "user" field in the database is case sensitive so that people can have names like "SpallsHurgenson", but I didn't want another user to register "spallshurgenson" either. Nor did I want to constantly strtolower() the username when doing comparisons. Thus, I have two fields: "user" that is case sensitive and used for display, and "luser" that is the lower case equivalent and used for comparisons.

Mod site up (Score: 3, Insightful)

by hyper@pipedot.org on 2014-03-07 11:50 (#AP)

Excellent work, keep it up!

Are we all supposed to be able to moderate at this point? (Score: 2, Interesting)

by unitron@pipedot.org on 2014-03-07 19:43 (#AW)

'Cause there are this things under each comment that I think sort of work, but not exactly the way they do elsewhere, so I can't be sure.

Re: Are we all supposed to be able to moderate at this point? (Score: 3, Informative)

by bryan@pipedot.org on 2014-03-08 15:06 (#B1)

Yes, the dropdowns do allow you to moderate a comment. However, they do not "disappear" afterwards like on the green site. You can freely change your vote (until the story archives.)

Re: Are we all supposed to be able to moderate at this point? (Score: 2, Interesting)

by reziac@pipedot.org on 2014-03-10 06:30 (#C4)

That's a useful policy, methinks... occasionally I do wish I could alter or rearrange my mods.

[Tho I still can't find an 'apply' type button...??]

Re: Are we all supposed to be able to moderate at this point? (Score: 1)

by reziac@pipedot.org on 2014-03-16 03:17 (#KD)

And now all seems to be fixed. Yeah!!

Progressive enhancement (Score: 4, Interesting)

by tdk@pipedot.org on 2014-03-07 20:16 (#AX)

Thanks for doing this. It looks good, even better than soylentnews .
It's possible to automatically cope with javascript (JS) being off.
You have a link with an href that points to the comment on a page of its own. In JS you then set the onclick event to a function that returns false, and does your ajax stuff.
This tells the browser to not follow the link if the function runs. This then automagically does the right thing if JS is on or off.
You can also use the jQuery event.preventDefault() call.
This is what I do on squte and it's got good feedback so far.

Jury Still Out (Score: 2, Interesting)

by khakipuce@pipedot.org on 2014-03-10 12:57 (#C9)

As others have said I like the look of this much better than Soylent. But it's really about the stories and community so I'm going to be watching both, should be an interesting race...

Like it .. (Score: 1)

by blackpaw@pipedot.org on 2014-03-10 14:17 (#CD)

Styling as well. And finally the article reply link is somewhere useful.

how to post AC? (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-03-10 18:19 (#D2)

how to post AC?
it doesn't seem to work.
this looks like a great replacement to slashdot if you can making posting here work with login