Discourse on Mobile

Meta
#1

My usage of Discourse is about 25% desktop browser, 75% mobile browser (usually Firefox). I have two small issues and am hoping that somebody else might have some tips.

  1. Accidentally “liking” / heart-icon during scrolling.
    This is happening very frequently… As I scroll down a thread/topic, it seems like almost once per topic my thumb happens to be on the like button and it’s not realizing that I’m just scrolling. I don’t seem to have this problem in other similar mobile apps/sites like Reddit etc. Is it just me? Maybe there’s some adjustable setting to make it harder to “vote” on things? I apologize to other posters if you’ve seen a lot of heart & un-heart activity from me in Discourse. Trying to figure out how to work around this…

  2. Getting to next-most-recent Topic
    I feel like others here have a similar workflow (as evidenced by the “mark all unread” discussion). I attempt to view all new posts in the order they’re posted. On mobile there’s no way that I have found to move up or down the topic list from within a post. On the Google Groups mobile site next to the back arrow there’s a left and right arrow to get to the equivalent of previous-topic and next-topic. Currently it seems my only option is to read the topic, then click that header “Talk TiddlyWiki” image, scroll back down to the next-newest etc. etc. Is there no other navigation options on mobile?

#2

add 2) I do get Suggested Topics if I scroll down. They contain New and Unread.

The last line of the site says:

There are x unread and y new topc remaining.

#3

The hamburger menu top right contains direct links to Latest, New, and Unread.

Unread is personalized to you. If you set your category watch/notification preferences you can customize what appears there.

The mobile app is mostly a wrapper for the website but has mobile notifications built in, if that’s something you’re interested in investigating.

#4

Thanks all

@pmario - I think your suggestion of the suggested links at the bottom is at least better than what I was doing, so thank you for that. As long as the suggestions continue to surface the unread stuff then that works and saves me a lot of clicking. I’d feel better if I had more control over what was suggested (maybe I do?)

@boris - I get what you’re saying (I think) and that’s important to know when looking at a list of topics (which pertains to the other conversation of the mark all as read). My specific/different irk was trying to get back to a single-click within a topic to go to the next unread topic rather than continually going back to the list and then re-picking etc. I think I had the same workflow as others on the view each, but I don’t have any concerns with the current latest / new / unread lists like others.

#5

Got it. Sideways links, sort of.

If you research Discourse themes there may be a different component.

#6

For anyone where I am - I did a bit of research on what makes up the “Suggestions” at the bottom and this is what I found ( On what based the suggested topics are displaying? - feature - Discourse Meta)

Our algorithm is:

  • Pick unread for user
  • Then pick new for user
  • Then try top pick a bunch of random topics from the category
  • Then if we are still stuck and have room:
    • If limit suggested to category is ticked, bail out
    • If it is not ticked, just pick random topics across categories

I’m posting this here because I think this may be interesting to those also looking for the mark-all-as-read type workflow too.