It seems the Wix forum manages text in three levels of hierarchy:
Posts (top-level).
Comments (belong to a post).
Replies (belong to a comment).
To create a comment on a post, you just type into the "Write a comment" box as shown below:
On the other hand, to create a reply to an existing comment, you first scroll to the comment you want to reply to, and click the "Reply" button:
After clicking on "Reply" then you enter your reply text in the "Write a reply" box.
Now, the problem is that if you write a new reply (not a new comment), it can be very difficult to find that new reply because it gets buried in the middle of the discussion.
Wix offers the option to show newest comments first, so you see them at the top of the list. This seems to be the (new?) default setting for the forum now.
But Wix seems to offer no option to show newest replies. This means that if there is an old comment in the middle of a thread, and someone makes a reply to that old comment, then the original comment (because it is old) stays in the middle of the comment list. Only if you manually search through all the comments can you find the existence of the newer reply.
I understand why Wix offers the different "comment" and "reply" functions (it's to allow a separate thread of discussion to occur around a single comment). But it would be nice if there were some way to see all newest replies to a post.
Is there any way to find new replies to a post?
Here's a specific example. @LarryDee made a post on April 27 here: https://www.theradioboard.org/forum/solid-state-radios/2-transistor-shortwave .
I made the following old comment on May 11, so it is in the middle of the comment list and difficult to find:
Then @LarryDee made a new reply to that comment, today, on July 2:
That reply is new (July 2), but the comment to which it belongs is old (May 11), so it appears in the middle of the comment list for the post (which was made long ago on April 27).
When you access the April 27 post at https://www.theradioboard.org/forum/solid-state-radios/2-transistor-shortwave , is there any way to show the above new reply at the top of the comment list?
The three-level hierarchy qrp-gaijin described (Post, Comment, Reply) is something I've seen on other forums where it is perhaps better suited than it is for TRB.
On NextDoor, for instance, many posts get 100 comments/replies, and the comments/replies there are so short that you can often see 15 or so on the screen at once. The Replies are visually "nested" by indenting them just below their parent Comments; this makes them easy to follow, and can be especially helpful for posts that get small contributions from many, many people.
In contrast, TRB posts more often get something like 10-20 comments/replies, and each of these tends to be longer and carry much more information. The possibility of seeing all of them on a single screen, nested into a visible outline, is pretty much gone -- and might not have added much value to these discussions anyway. As it is now, the three-level multithreading adds some confusion when you read through a post for the first time.
If Wix has a global switch for disabling the Reply feature on future posts (without losing any of the Replies on existing posts), I think that would improve readability and logical flow. It would become a two-level hierarchy with a single chronological order, much like the old TRB, and if you want your comment to make reference to another's, you could accomplish that just by pasting in a snippet of their text.
Of course, each of us could just refrain from using the Reply button, too. I have learned my lesson now after having littered Greg's post on variable caps.
Many thanks to Larry for setting this place up!
Casper
@LarryDee said the links in the e-mail notifications work for him.
But actually, the links in the e-mail notifications and in the web notifications don't seem to work for me. They just take me to the forum top page, even though they are supposed to take me directly to the new comment or the new reply.
Are the e-mail notification links working for anyone else?
The e-mail notifications do seem to work to inform you of both new comments and new replies to a post, if you are "Following" that post. Below are the screenshots of what I saw in my e-mail.
For W5JAG's comment, I received this in my e-mail:
Then, happily, also for W5JAG's reply to the comment, I also received a similar-looking e-mail:
So if you watch your e-mail notifications, you will know if someone made a new comment or reply.
However, when reading on the web forum, I could not figure out any way to display the newest replies at the top of the comment list.
As an additional note, when reading on the web forum, there is a "notifcations" page that can be viewed by clicking on the alarm bell icon at the upper-right. Similar to e-mail notifications, this web notifications list will display a list of newest comments and replies to posts that you are following. Unfortunately, this web "notifications" page does not provide you with a preview of the content of new comments and new replies -- you have to click each one individually to see what is in it. In contrast, the e-mail notifications provide you with a one-line preview of the new comment. Below is a screenshot of the web notifications I received for this post. Note there are two web notifications from W5JAG -- one for the comment, and one for the reply to the comment.
To make it easier to find new replies, maybe the most realistic option is to ask the support folks at Wix if they can simply add a one-line summary into the web notifications page (similar to the e-mail notifications), so that when reading on the web, you can get a quick preview of all new content (which includes new comments and new replies).
Failing that, we need to keep watching our e-mail notifications to find the newest replies.
Wow, I was looking into all this too. I got lost looking up stuff. I get notifications via email on all responses and posts to a comment or reply, and the link will put me right to the correct spot. But scrolling from the top of an initial post is a bit confusing. I'll be looking into it. Thanks very much for figuring it out.
comment
I'm not 100% sure, but I think that if you are "Following" a post (with the "Follow(ing)" button), then any new comments and new replies to comments will cause an email notification to be sent to you.
Could someone do a test for me?
1. Add a new comment (not a reply!) to this post, by typing into the "Write a comment" box.
2. After adding a new comment, click the "Reply" button and add a new reply to your comment by typing into the "Write a new reply" box.
Because I am following this post (with the "Follow" button), I think I should get two notification emails -- one for the comment, and one for the reply. If that works, then I think that is the only way to be made aware of a new reply in a long thread. There doesn't seem to be a way to bring new replies (to old comments) to the top of the comments list.