Add 'reply on comment' feature

Tue, 30 Apr 2019 12:55:18 -0300 última edição: Tue, 30 Apr 2019 13:02:12 -0300

Max Kostikov via Zotlabs|Hubzilla Development

kostikov@tiksi.net

!zotlabs.org | Hubzilla Development

I have added merge request with new "Reply on comment" feature.
https://framagit.org/hubzilla/core/merge_requests/1614
Now you can enable button to reply on specific comment.

When pressed on you'll be redirected to comment input field where post author which you reply will be mentioned. Also "Submit" button will be marked with arrow indicator and floating hint.
This also should resove issue with Mastodon threaded comments
https://framagit.org/hubzilla/core/issues/1357

show all 56 comentários

Tue, 30 Apr 2019 13:46:04 -0300

Haakon Meland Eriksen (Parlementum)

parlehaakon@elsmussols.net

Tue, 30 Apr 2019 14:10:55 -0300

Mario Vavti

mario@hub.somaton.com

Just curious, will the new comment be displayed beneath the commented comment ir at the bottom?

Tue, 30 Apr 2019 15:23:43 -0300

Max Kostikov

kostikov@tiksi.net

@Mario Vavti
At the bottom. No changes with comments displaying at this moment because we have not common understanding how it should looks like.

Tue, 30 Apr 2019 18:09:14 -0300

Alexander

alexander@deko.cloud

If Hz gets usable conversation threads in comments I'll migrate :)

Tue, 30 Apr 2019 18:21:03 -0300

Alexandre Hannud Abdo

aleabdo@hubzilla.com.br

This is great, thanks @Max Kostikov .

About display, a hint on the comment pointing to the one it replies to would be convenient, but I'd stop at that.

Tue, 30 Apr 2019 18:25:50 -0300 última edição: Tue, 30 Apr 2019 18:30:22 -0300

Max Kostikov

kostikov@tiksi.net

@Alexandre Hannud Abdo
I thought about this but don't know how to do it in better manner.
But when (if) we will get threaded comments it will be obvious :-)

Tue, 30 Apr 2019 22:55:46 -0300

hEARt PhoniX

tobias@hubzilla.rocks

Wed, 01 May 2019 02:45:47 -0300

Max Kostikov

kostikov@tiksi.net

@h.ear.t
Thanks for mention. It seems I missed Diaspora compatibility test. I'll try to investigate this.

Wed, 01 May 2019 03:14:06 -0300

hEARt PhoniX

tobias@hubzilla.rocks

Wed, 01 May 2019 05:19:32 -0300

Max Kostikov

kostikov@tiksi.net

Fix for Diaspora compatibility with Hubzilla 'reply on comment' feature is merged
https://framagit.org/hubzilla/addons/merge_requests/245

Wed, 01 May 2019 05:30:58 -0300

Max Kostikov

kostikov@tiksi.net

I'll be appreciate if somebody will test this update with Mastodon threaded comments
https://framagit.org/hubzilla/core/issues/1357

Wed, 01 May 2019 05:49:35 -0300

Mario Vavti

mario@hub.somaton.com

Works with mastodon...

Wed, 01 May 2019 06:06:51 -0300

Mario Vavti

mario@hub.somaton.com

The only issue i found so far is that comments to friendica comments don't arrive in friendica. That is not necessarily related to this though since federation with friendica is wonky since they implemented AP.

Wed, 01 May 2019 06:11:17 -0300 última edição: Wed, 01 May 2019 06:13:36 -0300

Max Kostikov

kostikov@tiksi.net

@Mario Vavti
I see, thank you. Perhaps someone experienced with Hubzilla - Friendica protocols interaction will be able to fix it in near future.

Wed, 01 May 2019 08:17:32 -0300

M. Dent

dm42@hub.webgoeslocal.net

Regarding referencing the previous comment, what about something like:

In reply to previous comment by xxxxxx:

Make the word "comment" a hyperlink to the item in the same way done in the "notifications" sidebar.

Just a thought.

I like this kind of format better that actual threaded comments anyway. It is more in line with how real conversations work.

For instance, it a not unreasonable for me also at this point to discuss how interactions with friends a and Diaspora would not be able to take advantage of such links - unless the comment was public.

Is there a standard bbcode way to reference previous items? (How do we handle bbcode that is not supported on foreign networks currently? Is it stripped before being sent? Or could it be?)

Wed, 01 May 2019 09:12:06 -0300

Max Kostikov

kostikov@tiksi.net

I'm a little confused. I found in incoming data from Friendica that they use thr_parent as link reply on previous message in thread and parent_mid as link on a top post.
In my solution those fields used in opposite manner. Maybe I misunderstood their purpose?
Any thoughts?
@Mario Vavti @Mike Macgirvin @M. Dent

Wed, 01 May 2019 09:39:36 -0300

Max Kostikov

kostikov@tiksi.net

@M. Dent

In reply to previous comment by xxxxxx:

I thought about this but I'm don't sure how this link will looks like in other hubs or even networks. I'm afraid that it will contains URL which will points to originate hub.

Wed, 01 May 2019 09:48:49 -0300

Alexandre Hannud Abdo

aleabdo@hubzilla.com.br

@Max Kostikov : right, and there is also the issue of translation. This is really something to be handled by the UI not in the message content.

Wed, 01 May 2019 09:51:40 -0300

Alexandre Hannud Abdo

aleabdo@hubzilla.com.br

I'm a little confused. I found in incoming data from Friendica that they use thr_parent as link reply on previous message in thread and parent_mid as link on a top post.

I believe in hubzilla parent_mid always refers the top post, as that is where permission stuff is drawn from. So thr_parent would indeed be the item replied to.

Wed, 01 May 2019 10:02:49 -0300

Max Kostikov

kostikov@tiksi.net

@Alexandre Hannud Abdo
If so I need to rework code. Perhaps this will resolve Freindica issue and didn't broke Mastodon.

Wed, 01 May 2019 11:25:50 -0300

Max Kostikov

kostikov@tiksi.net

I have commited discussed changes to use thr_parent with reply on comment feature.
It seems now Friendica and Diaspora receives all Hubzilla comments. I see one more small issue with Friendica (comment displayed without threads when reply on comment from Hubzilla) but I hope it can be fixed.
Thanks to @Alexandre Hannud Abdo for his clarification.

Wed, 01 May 2019 11:43:29 -0300

Mario Vavti

mario@hub.somaton.com

comment displayed without threads when reply on comment from Hubzilla

This might be dependent if you are connected to friendica via diaspora or AP

Wed, 01 May 2019 12:15:07 -0300

Mario Vavti

mario@hub.somaton.com

@Max Kostikov it seems threading does not work now anymore with mastodon...

Wed, 01 May 2019 12:19:00 -0300

Mario Vavti

mario@hub.somaton.com

Have you looked at what has been done in zap?

Wed, 01 May 2019 12:54:16 -0300

Max Kostikov

kostikov@tiksi.net

@Mario Vavti

it seems threading does not work now anymore with mastodon

I was afraid of that.

Have you looked at what has been done in zap?

No. There is a similar feature now?

Wed, 01 May 2019 13:12:39 -0300

Max Kostikov

kostikov@tiksi.net

@Mario Vavti

This might be dependent if you are connected to friendica via diaspora or AP

Yes, I see all comments in one channel but only part of in other.

Wed, 01 May 2019 13:18:24 -0300

M. Dent

dm42@hub.webgoeslocal.net

@Max Kostikov

I thought about this but I'm don't sure how this link will looks like in other hubs or even networks. I'm afraid that it will contains URL which will points to originate hub.

That's one reason I mentioned bbcode. My thinking is make sure there is a "a name=" in each item that references either the item mid or the uuid of the item - and then have something like a bbcode tag [replyto user=xxxx uuid=yyyy] or [replyto user=xxxx mid=yyyy] or something like that. Then have it generated in the bbcode translation layer. I just can't remember what happens in the other interfaces when they run across bbcode they don't know what to do with. It may be dependent on protocol/interface.

Wed, 01 May 2019 13:47:10 -0300

Mario Vavti

mario@hub.somaton.com

Yes @Max Kostikov, zap has threading implemented since quite a while...

Wed, 01 May 2019 14:15:17 -0300

Max Kostikov

kostikov@tiksi.net

Looks like Mastodon threads also works well now.

Wed, 01 May 2019 15:20:50 -0300

Mario Vavti

mario@hub.somaton.com

You sure? Just did a quick test and the comment to a comment still appeared as top level post comment...

Wed, 01 May 2019 15:30:10 -0300

Max Kostikov

kostikov@tiksi.net

@Mario Vavti
No, I do not because I just registered there and a bit confused by their interface :-D

Wed, 01 May 2019 15:36:00 -0300

Mario Vavti

mario@hub.somaton.com

Btw. here is the initial commit for threading in zap: https://framagit.org/zot/zap/commit/cb59d4a144946ea4fda64a7a1b669f2b38f4d593
There are some following commits with fixes etc.

Wed, 01 May 2019 16:59:19 -0300

Max Kostikov

kostikov@tiksi.net

@Mario Vavti
I have commited update to ActivityStream module which should finally resolve issue with threads in Mastodon.

Wed, 01 May 2019 17:19:19 -0300

El Dorado

mike@z.macgirvin.com

Zap has all the changes I made to support threading in osada, but this is turned off in zap.

We use thr_parent for the immediate parent and parent_mid for the top level post.

Hubzilla has a threaded conversation display interface - complete with a number of bugs, if you turn it on. I did have to add the comment link to the template, which you've done. The next issue was conversation display. I use a number of right arrows on each post to display the depth rather than move the left margin. This was my own innovation and I like it a lot more than watching conversations drift off to the right until they get narrow and hammer the right margin.

I now provide a thread level (int) in the item schema which is calculated at delivery time to save processing at display time. The biggest issue I had was due to the conversation thread class being recursive. I tried a number of times but haven't solved it yet. It has to do with the conversation only showing the "last three" comments. With recursion it shows the last three comments on every sub-thread and if two people keep replying to each other (the archetypical "staircase" thread) it will never collapse any comments and just keep going for screen after screen of replies. What I wanted to do was rewrite the entire ThreadItem class so it wouldn't use recursion and created the conversation with a sort, but it's a hard problem to do this correctly without recursion. You need something like a fourier transform to sort threads into buckets and then order and assemble all the buckets.

Wed, 01 May 2019 21:25:52 -0300

El Dorado

mike@z.macgirvin.com

Oh and to turn it on I did this in the ThreadItem constructor:

$this->threaded = get_config('system','thread_allow',((defined('NOMADIC')) ? false : true));

$this->threaded is false in Hubzilla. NOMADIC is defined for Zap, but not Osada and is what I use in that code base to trigger one behaviour or the other.

Thu, 02 May 2019 03:38:13 -0300

Max Kostikov

kostikov@tiksi.net

@Mike Macgirvin ⚡
Thanks for advice! Done.
Now I'm fightig with Mastodon threads. Atfer latest changes we have replied correct message ID in thr_parent but seems this is not helped. Perhaps I missed something in packet creation stage.

Thu, 02 May 2019 03:48:44 -0300

Mario Vavti

mario@hub.somaton.com

@Max Kostikov you might need to apply some changes you did yesterday to /Zotlabs/Lib/Activity.php to its eqivalent in /addon/pubcrawl/as.php

We do not re-use /Zotlabs/Lib/Activity.php for AP in every case yet...

Thu, 02 May 2019 05:44:24 -0300

Max Kostikov

kostikov@tiksi.net

Finally threaded comments with Mastodon works fine. Thanks to @Mario Vavti , @Mike Macgirvin ⚡ and other guys for advises and participation.

Thu, 02 May 2019 06:04:01 -0300

ivan zlax

zlax@ussr.win

Also thanks to @Max Kostikov for realization.

Thu, 02 May 2019 08:06:48 -0300

mrjive

mrjive@hub.libranet.de

In reply to previous comment by xxxxxx:

Could "previous comment" either bring to the comment reffered to but with a down arrow, thus to be able to go back quickly

or

open some kind of popup with the comment we are referring to?

Thu, 02 May 2019 08:18:05 -0300 última edição: Thu, 02 May 2019 08:32:08 -0300

Max Kostikov

kostikov@tiksi.net

@mrjive
Yes, to have a quick link will be nice. But this mostly about UI. Now we can add refferal links in both reply and replied comments. I suggest to do this somewhere in Hubzilla layout but not in a message body.

Fri, 03 May 2019 13:54:27 -0300 última edição: Fri, 03 May 2019 14:02:37 -0300

Max Kostikov

kostikov@tiksi.net

Maybe something like this will be ok (see double arrows in left-top of comment). On click you'll be redirected to the initial comment.
https://framagit.org/hubzilla/core/merge_requests/1629

Fri, 03 May 2019 14:04:26 -0300

ivan zlax

zlax@ussr.win

@Max Kostikov, in my opinion, this double-arrow icon would be more intuitive after the answer arrow in a form of regular button.

Fri, 03 May 2019 20:33:25 -0300 última edição: Fri, 03 May 2019 20:35:57 -0300

Max Kostikov

kostikov@tiksi.net

@mrjive

Add arrows to scroll between related comments

Just have been added too. You can try how it works on @Zotum experimental hub.

Sat, 04 May 2019 02:50:41 -0300

mrjive

mrjive@hub.libranet.de

I like that! We could discuss if the position is right and or how to make it more readable/usable, but I definitely like it ;) thanks @Max Kostikov

Sat, 04 May 2019 06:08:06 -0300

Manuel

manuel-jf@tiksi.net

@Max Kostikov Temptation lives on top ;-)

Sat, 04 May 2019 06:10:34 -0300

Manuel

manuel-jf@tiksi.net

@Manuel Magnificent utility! Thank you, master :-)

Sat, 04 May 2019 06:37:22 -0300

Max Kostikov

kostikov@tiksi.net

Just submited fix for case if comments is not collapsed (thanks to @Sophie).

Sat, 04 May 2019 12:10:05 -0300 última edição: Sat, 04 May 2019 13:47:23 -0300

Max Kostikov

kostikov@tiksi.net

We have side effect with this feature - now we can see replies to comments from Friendica (and perhaps Mastodon) too. :-)

Sun, 05 May 2019 05:20:47 -0300

Mario Vavti

mario@hub.somaton.com

@Max Kostikov i have commented to your MR already. Query the item table during render time will most likely slow down page loading time a lot for some people. Have not looked to all the code yet but is there a way to accomplish this without this query? There is for example the parent id saved in the parent column of the item...

Sun, 05 May 2019 06:30:17 -0300

Max Kostikov

kostikov@tiksi.net

There is for example the parent id saved in the parent column of the item

I thought about this on the start of work but it seems parent use to store previous comment id requires a rework of other code parts. But this can be a way too.
I answered with one more option in discussion on Framagit.

Sun, 05 May 2019 07:26:03 -0300

Mario Vavti

mario@hub.somaton.com

Hm... I am not very enthusiastic for either solution... What if you add thr_parent to the html elements via data attribute and reference this instead of the item id?

Sun, 05 May 2019 07:52:07 -0300

Max Kostikov

kostikov@tiksi.net

@Mario Vavti Thanks for idea, I think this can be a better way in this situation. I'll try to implement this.

Sun, 05 May 2019 07:54:35 -0300

Max Kostikov

kostikov@tiksi.net

Also I'll be appreciate for any ideas on possible better way to navigate between related comments for current Hubzilla unthreaded (flat) comments view.

Sun, 05 May 2019 09:05:11 -0300

Max Kostikov

kostikov@tiksi.net

@Mario Vavti I have commited changes to use comment mid instead id to navigate between related comments.

Sun, 05 May 2019 09:11:57 -0300

Mario Vavti

mario@hub.somaton.com

I think what you did is pretty cool...