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View Full Version : What's Going On Here?



Brian Ellis
26-May-2006, 10:14
I'm puzzled by the way responses to the thread "Processing Advice for Newbie" are displayed. At the top of the thread, where normally each response is briefly summarized by subject there are 7 responses shown, followed by the statement "more replies below current depth." Then on the first page there are 9 responses and no indication at the bottom that there are any more responses (i.e. no indication that there is a page 2). The only way to access the 2 or 3 responses on the second page, even if someone realizes they're there, is to go back to the top of the thread and click on the phrase "more replies below current depth."

I happened to notice this just because I asked a question that appears on the second page of the "Processing Advice for Newbie" thread and wanted to see if it had been answered. When I couldn't find my question I started looking around and figured out what I've described above, i.e. that it's there but only can be discovered if you realize what the phrase "more replies below current depth" means and then go back to the top of the thread and click on that phrase.

I don't know whether this system of displaying responses is unique to this thread for some reason or whether it happens with others. I quickly scanned a few other threads that had more than 10 or so responses and didn't see any others like this one. All the ones I saw seemed to list each response at the top of the thread and all showed page 2, 3, etc. at the bottom of the first page when there was more than one page of responses.

If this is not a unique situation and happens with any degree of frequency then I don't see why anyone would bother responding to anything once the first page is full. Obviously very few people will even be aware that there are additional responses if there's no indication of that at the bottom of the first page and even fewer will realize that they can access those undisclosed responses by going back to the top of the thread and clicking on "more relies below current depth."

Then of course there's always the possibility that I failed to notice something I should have noticed or should have done something I didn't do or did something I shouldn't have done etc. etc. that created this situation, in which case you can tell me about that and I'll slink away with my face covered in shame and embarassment, not to reappear until I've learned how to better handle this new system.

Tom Westbrook
26-May-2006, 10:30
Are you in "hybrid" display mode (there would be a tree view of the thread at the top if you are)? Sounds like you are. You'd want to click on the "more replies below current depth" link to see more posts below that level. The reason is that the depth of threaded view is set to 5 currently. I'll increase it to 10.

Jerry Fusselman
26-May-2006, 20:18
Why any limit at all? What would go wrong with 50? 10 seems not enough and a pointless limitation.

Brian Ellis
26-May-2006, 23:57
Tom - It looks fine now. What's a "tree view of the thread" and if that was the problem, how do I avoid it?

Tom Westbrook
27-May-2006, 04:16
Beats me, Jerry. I can go to 50 and see if it has any side effects--there aren't any dire warnings about going higher in the manual. My only guess would be that the higher you go, and the longer the thread, the slower the page will load, since it has to work out all the dependencies. 5 is the default.

Tom Westbrook
27-May-2006, 04:43
Brian, I was trying to describe the top pane that shows the threaded view of the discussion (or thread). If you don't care about the threaded view (you might have gotten into it my mistake), just select "Linear Mode" from the drop-down menu just above the first post on the page (see attached, to the right) that just gives you a traditional view of the thread and shows all the posts in date order. It will save the last setting you use forever until you change it. Threading has its advantages, but it is a little weird if you're not used to it. Try the different modes and decide which works best for you. I sort of like the Hybrid mode myself since it does make it easier to tell who's talking to who without the need for a lot of quoting, but unless most people use the threading feature, it's not quite as useful. The default is Linear mode.

BTW, to you can use Quick Reply to respond to a specific post and have it threaded as a response to it by clicking on the Quick Reply button http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/images/buttons/quickreply.gif to the right of the Quote button under that post. I did that to respond to Jerry's question as you can see in the attached image.