post count within thread

[Chris]

Jul 14, 2013 16:49:18 GMT -8 Wormopolis said:

there is still the issue of referring to replies in later posts.

lets say you make a reference to reply #10 in a later post, say reply #25. then someone deletes reply #5. what used to be reply #11 is now #10 and the reference in (now post #24) wont make any sense now.

Was this not always the case in V4? I don't recall ever seeing anyone saying a post they referenced was deleted and now their numeric reference refers to the wrong post and in fact since this feature has a number of requests all for the stated reason of being able to reference older posts I would assume this was not viewed as a problem in V4 (or deletions are just not that common). Also given the fact that the number is hyperlinked as a "link to post", it can be right-clicked and copied as an url and used that way for those that preferred the more durable "link to post" reference rather than a quick numeric pointer.

[Wormopolis]

in v4 the reply numbers were sent as part of the post display itself up in the top left. I want to say when you deleted a post, it didnt renumber the posts following, they maintained the number they had. viewing them you would see it skip from reply 4 to reply 6.

the above code just looks at the posts displayed on the page and THEN numbers them. so if a post is deleted, the next refresh just numbers them all in order again.

short of using a post key to somehow store what reply number the post being made is on a set_on, I dont see how the accuracy is maintained when a post is deleted. even using a set_on runs into the problem of 2 users posting at the same time - which one will actually be post 24 and which one will be post 25? if you do something like scan for the number of replies right before a new post is created, or quick reply submit is hit, then without being able to re-poll the server for an update on reply count right before you submit the key data, it would lead to TWO posts saying they were reply 24.

I could be overthinking all of this. if a post is never deleted, then all of this is moot anyways. I just wanted to bring that point up.

[Chris]

Jul 14, 2013 19:09:02 GMT -8 Wormopolis said:

I want to say when you deleted a post, it didnt renumber the posts following, they maintained the number they had. viewing them you would see it skip from reply 4 to reply 6.

I actually tested this on a V4 forum by adding 3 new posts to a thread that had no replies then deleting "reply #1". What was "reply #2" now became "reply #1" and so on

[Wormopolis]

I stand corrected then. I remember referring to posts by "reply #" when we were doing code support and someone asked a question that already been answered in previous pages. I guess the deletion thing never came up there for me to notice it happened.

so yeah... its only going to be an issue IF a post gets deleted and the referrals are really important. I bet you could track deletions on a thread key though. bind a function on the delete button that added the reply# to a thread key. then as the algorithm that added numbers to the posts went through if a reply number was greater then a number stored, it jumped the number by one. it would be one of those "exercise in fundamentals" codes.

[Chris]

My point is since this deletion behavior was standard in V4 and there was no mass hysteria because of it why would it be an issue now? The request was to bring back a feature from V4 that was apparently liked either because it was useful feature or just for nostalgic reasons and in either case by changing the behavior would it not change the reason for requesting it?

[Wormopolis]

no no Im not dissuading the request at all. I think its a fine request. and Todge already filled it. I was just pointing out a possible future issue that I thought v4 had handled (I was wrong).

[scratchmod]

This is a useful feature and it works great.