Open Thread (Testing New New Comments New Since Last Visit Reloaded, Reloaded, Augmented)
Part of kind of what you’ll see when you click the Show New Comments Only button
Incorporating feedback and suggestions especially from OGs Vikram and nevermoor, “Comments Since Last Visit, Reloaded” (CSLVR) re-works and builds upon “New New Since Last Visit Comments” (NNSLV), which had replaced the simple New Since Last Visit (NSLV) function introduced here last April. I’m eager to replace the not fully right NNSLV, but I think I need to beta CSLVR a bit – so its functionality will remain confined for the moment to posts (including this one) originating at the Developing… blog.
Now, most of what follows is going to be drier than Upland odd-number-address lawns ex Tuesday Saturday nights (drought rules), while the application ought to be intuitive. So I’ll refrain from providing any instructions beyond:
You’ll need to make some comments, and possibly browse away and come back, in order to see how it works (assuming it does work for you!), and it’ll be helpful if in the meantime others are commenting, too.
In other words, you can skip the rest and feel free to dive in – just treating this post as an open thread. 1
Also, the first 19 comments are leftovers from a pre-session session (thanks again, OG nevermoor).
Now the fine print:
CSLVR defines and sets visits for each thread visited. (Previous versions incorporated site-wide definitions for a “last visit”). CSLVR also introduces a set of Javascript/jQuery-enabled functions accessible by button and clickable icon that will enable users to find and scroll through new comments, to display new comments separately and sort them oldest-to-newest or newest-to-oldest, and to mark them all as read (or “old”) at any time. Part of the idea with CSLVR is also to create relatively persistent sessions in which NSLV comments retain their highlighting even after the user has offered replies or browsed to other posts.
To achieve these ends CSLVR sets three types of cookie in the user’s browser of which two, the ones that record time(s) of visit(s), may persist for up to 90 days, while one, the “session” cookie, will last for only 15 minutes (according to current default). The total cookie size is capped so that, once a certain level is reached, the function will remove the oldest cookies before adding any new ones. Note that these functions will not carry over across browsers and devices: In addition to being thread-specific, the application is also device-and-browser-specific.
If you browse “incognito,” and refuse cookies, perhaps because you like to use the internet to do evil things, then you’ll have to do without these conveniences. .
I’ll be continuing to polish the formatting, and will be happy to consider changes based on feedback. I’m also still researching an execution lag problem that should become more apparent on longer threads and more with some browser/device combinations than with others. Because one of the main purposes of the plug-in is to make browsing lo-o-o-ng comment threads easier, I’ll wait to move things over to the main site at least until after further testing.
(post re-published/re-dated 2015-09-08)
- Here are some possible topics if you’re feeling blankish:
Everything you know is wrong, and everything you like is evil and harmful.
Did you see that thing? What a thing that thing is!
America is pretty great.
America is pretty bad.
[ ] are pathetic and dangerous, but you, well, you’re pretty darn terrific.
Commenting on blogs is a complete waste of time.
Everyone should support web developers financially to the very limit of ability to pay.
RTod was right about something.
This thing is/isn’t working [on browser/device/firstvisit/secondvisit/etc.].
Tell me how to do footnotes again?
