topic Re: Request for a minor enhancement to Community usability in All Things Community

Request for a minor enhancement to Community usability

PaigeMiller — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 11:46:52 GMT

Near the top right of the "All Recent Topics" page, which is the way I use the SAS Communities 99% of the time, I see a button that says "Next 100". Great, so if I know I want to find an old post, I can click on this (maybe need to do that on the next page and so on).

But if I come back from a long weekend away, and I am in the situation where I have looked at all the posts on the first page and am now at the bottom of the page, and I still haven't seen all of the new-to-me posts, to get to the next 100, I have to scroll all the way up to the top of the page. So, being lazy, I'd prefer not to do that. I'd prefer to have the "Next 100" button at both the top and bottom of the page. So that's my request.

Re: Request for a minor enhancement to Community usability

ChrisHemedinger — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 13:08:25 GMT

One thing that might help -- add ?topics=n to increase the number of topics fetched.

https://communities.sas.com/t5/custom/page/page-id/activity-hub-tbl?topics=300

You'll still see 100 at a time in the grid but 300 are loaded and available in the pagination at the bottom.

Re: Request for a minor enhancement to Community usability

PaigeMiller — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 13:26:33 GMT

Thanks! That does seem to work, and would be a solution except that it take a very long time to load. Which means the original problem I have is solved in less time than the solution proposed, and it requires roughly the same amount of effort on my part. So the best path forward seems to be to not spend more time on this and I'll just accept the situation as it is.

Re: Request for a minor enhancement to Community usability

mkeintz — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 15:32:39 GMT

I typically use the "All Recent Topics" link as well, although I honestly can't recall the last time I went beyond the most recent 100.

Even so, I agree with this request. Or possibly have the next 100 constantly displayed so that it is not scrolled off the top of the display as you progress through the 100 topics.

Re: Request for a minor enhancement to Community usability

mkeintz — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 15:44:45 GMT

Actually, as I think about @ChrisHemedinger 's suggestion, perhaps viewing only 20 or 30 at a time instead of 300 or 100, might mitigate the problem. The NEXT 20 (or 30) link is close enough to the bottom of the short topic list that a single upward stroke of the mouse wheel brings it back to the display. No repetitive or sustained scrolling required.

https://communities.sas.com/t5/custom/page/page-id/activity-hub-tbl?topics=25

The problem of course would be how to make that into the default topic count of the "all recent topics" link.

Re: Request for a minor enhancement to Community usability

ChrisHemedinger — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 16:23:30 GMT

Good suggestion @mkeintz. When I built this years ago I landed on 100 as the sweet spot (not too slow to load, but enough content). Of course you can use the ?topics=25 in a browser bookmark. I may still look at Paige's original idea of putting a "Next" at the bottom...but wanted to provide some options for right now.

Other parameters you might like -- filter to those where a specific author participated:

https://communities.sas.com/t5/custom/page/page-id/activity-hub-tbl?topics=25&author=mkeintz

Limit to a specific board:

https://communities.sas.com/t5/custom/page/page-id/activity-hub-tbl?topics=25&board=programming

(Board id is part of the URL for the forum page you're interested in. Example: https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Programming/bd-p/programming)

Re: Request for a minor enhancement to Community usability

PaigeMiller — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 16:29:51 GMT

@mkeintz wrote:

Actually, as I think about @ChrisHemedinger 's suggestion, perhaps viewing only 20 or 30 at a time instead of 300 or 100, might mitigate the problem. The NEXT 20 (or 30) link is close enough to the bottom of the short topic list that a single upward stroke of the mouse wheel brings it back to the display. No repetitive or sustained scrolling required.

https://communities.sas.com/t5/custom/page/page-id/activity-hub-tbl?topics=25

The problem of course would be how to make that into the default topic count of the "all recent topics" link.

I could set up two links and bookmark them in my browser. One is the actual link (which shows 100 posts) which I would use when I first come to the SAS Communities in the morning, as likely I will be looking at more than 25 posts; and another link which is the link above showing 25 recent posts, which I could use the rest of the day. I might experiment with this to see if it feels like an improvement.

Re: Request for a minor enhancement to Community usability

ChrisHemedinger — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 16:59:21 GMT

I think we've shared some good tips here and I'm grateful for the discussion. I've added the pagination buttons at the bottom as well, so now you have options 😉

Re: Request for a minor enhancement to Community usability

ballardw — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 18:00:08 GMT

@ChrisHemedinger

Am I the only that has seen a change in the forum font/font size this morning?

Did something piggy-back on this setting change?

Re: Request for a minor enhancement to Community usability

ChrisHemedinger — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 18:35:57 GMT

We did change the font family for headings in topics -- been working this in as part of our overall branding aligned with other SAS digital properties.

Re: Request for a minor enhancement to Community usability

ballardw — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 19:01:24 GMT

@ChrisHemedinger wrote:

We did change the font family for headings in topics -- been working this in as part of our overall branding aligned with other SAS digital properties.

As long as it was intentional.

I will say that with my eyes I cannot tell the "bold" unread from the read subjects very well.

Re: Request for a minor enhancement to Community usability

ChrisHemedinger — Fri, 22 Apr 2022 16:42:46 GMT

@ballardw Made some more font tweaks for "unread" vs "read" - does it help?

Re: Request for a minor enhancement to Community usability

ballardw — Fri, 22 Apr 2022 16:48:25 GMT

@ChrisHemedinger wrote:

@ballardw Made some more font tweaks for "unread" vs "read" - does it help?

@ChrisHemedinger

Maybe a little better. The font for subjects looks small to be a subject line.