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Show threads in flat(vBulletin) mode

ploki122·10/22/2013, 11:10:03 PM·15 votes·4,715 views

Hello everyone, Basically, I'm creating this thread as the solver of Kryhlos' hints. In short, he announced that there was a "easter egg" that allowed you to view the posts flat-styled like in the old forum. Also, this filters them chronologically, making it very easy for RPs and such.

How to do it is pretty simple. In the address bar, you simply, in most cases, add ?show=flat. However, if you followed a permalink or many other ways (basically, if there is already a ?), you have to append &show=flat. In the case that you came from clicking on new, it'll change your show_mode to "new", meaning that in the url, at the end there will be a "{?/&}show=new", just replace "new" for flat.

Onto the real topic. What do you guy sthink about the flat mode?

EDIT : Props to Kira Onime for the initial post.

EDIT 2: In that fashion, this thread would look like :
[[http://community.na.leagueoflegends.com/c/beta-feedback/hxXvaHBd-show-threads-in-flatvbulletin-mode?show=flat]](http://community.na.leagueoflegends.com/c/beta-feedback/hxXvaHBd-show-threads-in-flatvbulletin-mode?show=flat)

EDIT 3: Apparently, you can't choose sort order flag with the show flag anymore.

N.B. sorry for messy markdown, but that cluster of parenthesis/brackets isn't appreciated by their parser.

53 Comments

RiotKrylhos10/23/2013, 1:53:15 AM6 votes

Hey guys,

I wanted to clarify that this is not a supported feature at this time. This hidden piece of functionality is available to provide an easy way to have a point of reference when comparing nested score-sorted to flat created-ascending-sorted conversations.

While I appreciate feedback and suggestions on this discovery, I give no guarantees that we will put development focus on the "flat" view.

Thanks!

SlumlordThanatos10/24/2013, 12:43:16 AM3 votes

While I appreciate feedback and suggestions on this discovery, I give no guarantees that we will put development focus on the "flat" view.

What Kira said...you reeeeeeealy should.

That being said, this layout is much better and easier for me to read. However; I can't see who is replying to who, and I can't upvote/downvote posts in this view.

But this is a feature you guys really need to pursue and develop. This would make a wonderful bit of middle ground for those who dislike the Reddit layout.

Kira Onime10/22/2013, 11:58:08 PM2 votes

<3

SlumlordThanatos10/25/2013, 8:45:49 PM2 votes

In response to Mr T's post:

We wouldn't be here if we disliked the beta, and that thread was created when the interest was really high.

For some reason, I can't reply directly to your post. Might be because I've already replied to Krylhos above.

Anyway, the ONLY reason I'm here is because I dislike the beta and want to help fix it. In fact, I think the only subsection I've posted in so far is the Beta Feedback forums.

Riot is definitely taking steps in the right direction, but the general consensus (to me) is that the Reddit layout still needs to go, or an option for a flat layout implemented. They are listening and addressing a great deal of our gripes, but they still seem to be dancing around our biggest complaint.

Also, it saddens me that they've been quiet on the subject of forum avatars and post signatures.

Goldoak10/22/2013, 11:50:29 PM2 votes

I am intrigued! This is so much more readable. Even in the nested mode, I'd kill for those double line post borders. I still think more emphasis on a post's author (perhaps an underline between their name and avatar the post text itself) would be nice, but this is really enough to sort out all my issues with who's talking at any given point in time.

Now! Improvements!

The "show parent" link serves well to provide context, but I'd love a way to link back to that post directly so I can see more around it, preferably one I can open in a new tab. I'm not entirely sold on the positioning of the preview either. It might just be me yearning for more quote-like behavior, but I'd prefer if the "parent" line could be hosted beneath the author's name of the current post.

On second thought, it might just be the color scheme. The washed out look is hard to read for the parent post and the lack of a dividing line between it and the "child" post is visually confusing.

Moving away from that, the information on display in the header of each post could use some work. The community an topic path doesn't need to be repeated for every post, but I would benefit from more emphasis on the timestamp. I think I'd prefer exact instead of a relative timestamps for this view, and it would be better if they were more separated from author's name, perhaps justified to the right of the post header.

On the most pie in the sky level, I'd love some way to aggregate adjacent posts by the same author into a single one, perhaps broken up with separate "show parent" links.

This might actually prove useful as an entirely separate view option: isolating an important poster in a thread and getting a complete listing of all their comments with their context would be incredibly useful to me. I find myself often searching within a page for a given author, especially when I'm revisiting an archived thread.

Oh, and the Rioter Comments "jump to this post" link seems to be broken in this view.

SlumlordThanatos2/10/2014, 6:14:04 AM1 votes

Just a reminder to everyone that this option still exists, but Riot is still not supporting it.

Does Riot want to give us a truly superior experience? A surefire way to do that is to compromise with us...and yet, here we are, four months later, with nothing done to support this neat little setup.

Pryotra10/23/2013, 5:31:44 PM1 votes

Trying this out, I prefer flat, unless I am the thread creator, in which I like nested. Why not both?

Take a leaf from the Book of FEK, everything should be togglable, or at least have a setting that can be changed. If someone doesn't want a feature, don't force it on them.

Also, I think sorting would be way better if you could apply oldest, most recent, and other sorts to the flat view. I think it would really help.

SonsofaBastages10/24/2013, 4:03:55 AM1 votes

Kind of digging the flat view - shame you can't post in it. Suffers from the same issue as the nested though: way too much unused space over here -->

Goldoak10/25/2013, 5:16:11 PM1 votes

I'm not sure that analogy is apt. I can actually follow a conversation in flat view, and I can't pull that off in nested. I only flick over to it if I'm linking to a specific comment, probably one I jumped to through the "new posts" view, or from the Red Tracker.

I don't disagree with the goals of a nested view, and cataloging the relationships between posts provides useful information. Frankly, it makes the site flow far better as a conversation than relying on each poster to provide their own quotes for reference, and I really like that each post must have a context.

It just isn't a comfortable way to primarily follow a conversation. There's simply too much info in one place and not enough division between each person talking.

Edit: This post was posted from flat view and intended as a response to this this post. I'm going to leave it here to keep demonstrating the problem but I'm reposting this response in the correct place to preserve the nested conversation.

Ryster11/20/2013, 9:14:19 AM1 votes

Sorry, this is kind of a necro, but the best way, I feel, for the people who are accustomed to the flat view is to allow both the flat and layered styles be used in the same thread. This can make both sides of the spectrum happy. This is a quote from someone who does not like the layered look and feels the flat view is a bit off of the mark and gives a suggestion to making the flat view a bit more compact.

[QUOTE]It's a matter of space efficiency and readability.

Compare this http://puu.sh/5nRnH.png which is largely space inefficient and very difficult to follow, to this http://puu.sh/5nRpk.png which is far more space efficient, far easier to follow, and as such, flows better and is more comprehensible without wasting time trying to figure out what you were even discussing in the first place. [/QUOTE]

Thoughts?