Make replying more intuitive

[evbogue]

I've noticed from on-boarding a few people into the lite client that it's not intuitive how to reply to a post in Patchbay. Most people seem to reply with a new message in the stream, which isn't the correct UX for threads.

I don't have any ideas about how to fix this, but I figure I'd open an issue about it.

[dominictarr]

hmm, how about a "reply" button that opens the thread in a lightbox? or takes you to the thread?
prehaps with the textarea focused. I'd like for it to show the whole thread somehow, because that incourages more considered replies.

[benjajuarez]

simple idea: ...why not
add a simple text of "... reply" next to the hour?

this way people would click it. I would

[evbogue]

Beyond the UX issue, I've discovered the actual issue here is threads do not work when you're running the lite client at a port and serving it up at a url. When you click a thread, it just opens patchbay in a new browser window.

Threads do work when you save the lite client to your desktop. This is also a faster experience because the browser isn't downloading 2mb of javascript every time you reload the page.

@benjajuarez are you using the lite client from ssb.evbogue.com or did you download the patchbay-latest html file from my site?

[benjajuarez]

1. not in browser at ssb
2. yes, I downloaded the patchbay-latest html file from your site

[dominictarr]

@evbogue do you have ssb-links and ssb-query installed?

[evbogue]

@dominictarr I didn't have them installed on my server. Installing ssb-links and ssb-query fixed the permalinks issue at http://ssb.evbogue.com/

[dominictarr]

@evbogue aha, I see it. when you click re: link it opens it in a new tab.
I put this in https://github.com/dominictarr/patchbay/blob/master/modules/tabs.js#L79-L80
and it stopped doing this (weird thing is that it only happens when use use http served html, but not when you open it as a file) the reply links must be being triggered via a different path...

[dominictarr]

Aha, no, the problem at
https://github.com/dominictarr/patchbay/blob/master/modules/tabs.js#L84

Which assumes that any http link is external. Instead, we need to check if it's on a different domain,
and treat links to the same domain as local links. I'll fix this.

[dominictarr]

fixed in 1.7.6!

[dominictarr]

oops, no i broke other stuff...

[dominictarr]

okay fixed in 1.7.7

[evbogue]

confirmed fixed when deployed to ssb.evbogue.com

[evbogue]

I believe 1.7.7 and #41 resolve this issue.