User avatar
Jeff @box464@mastodon.social
1y
Mastodon's latest version has the ability to fetch missing replies from a conversation (under an experimental flag, not enabled by default).

This is a big deal, especially for smaller instances. Mastodon joins other platforms - of which I know of: Streams, GoToSocial, IceShrimp.NET and Bonfire - that pull back replies on request.

The hard work on the backend is done, and now there needs to be a discussion about how this interaction works as part of the user experience.
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User avatar
Jeff @box464@mastodon.social
1y
Right now the experience is a bit awkward on most platforms:

* Open a post detail view
* This triggers a request to pull down missing replies in the background.
* Sit and wait X number of seconds/minutes, hope the reply task is finished, refresh the screen - and maybe some/all of the extra posts are downloaded.

Not the best user experience.
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User avatar
Jeff @box464@mastodon.social
1y
What is needed to improve it? A streaming endpoint? A "pull all replies" button that auto-updates, displays them as they come in?

This will require front end updates to every client, which will obviously each handle this a bit differently.

What we've seen in the past tho, like with post quotes, is that once a single app figures out a way to represent the process, the others follow suit.
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🪨 @Varpie@peculiar.florist
1y
@box464 I think server-sent events would be a good solution for it. Instead of manually refreshing, the client can just display it when it arrives, and the server can send multiple chunks if needed (so it can send first-level replies first, then the next level if there is one...)
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