Subtle changes, bugs and feedback

When you receive a notification email the subject area says

New update from LFGSS

and you have to open the email to see what thread the email is from.

Previously it used to say 'Reply to thread ... and the title of the thread'

any chance of that coming back please?

We had chosen that phrase New update on LFGSS as it remained the same and would not clutter an inbox even when you had many conversations triggering it.

Gmail and other webmail providers group emails into conversations usually according to the subject.

So if we had 10 conversations triggering emails... then with the subject we chose you'd only have 1 email thread in your inbox.

If we changed this to a pattern like [LFGSS] New comment in Subtle changes, bugs and feedback then in the same scenario you'd have 10 items in your inbox.

Basically: We'd appear to be considerably more noisy and spammy for the same number of emails.

We can do it... just not sure people actually would want it.

I missed this the first time round, but could I suggest that the title attribute isn't the best place for this?

I know making the microcosm.app/out/ links is pretty damn important, but could you do a very similar thing to what Google does and hot-swap out the href attribute on hover/mousedown so that the usual pop-up in the bottom left is meaningful (showing 80% of the actual URL)?

Something I just noticed - on iOS in the 'following' tab, it shows private messages as from @user***** but it shows their name on the desktop tab.

Something I just noticed - on iOS in the 'following' tab, it shows private messages as from @user***** but it shows their name on the desktop tab.

I don't understand.

Could you take screenshots explaining what you see and what you expect to see.

If you've got a good example of this code I'll look into it.

The window.status has long been deprecated for security reasons, and Google seem to do it via lots of obfuscated JavaScript.

What I don't want to do is put something in that is half-baked and proves to physically break links that work today.

Actually, reading up on it I think that Google would penalise us and all sites using us.

We aren't allowed to use window.status (even if we could) as it would deceive user about where the link was going (even though the destination is as advertised).

We aren't allowed to cloak the URL or otherwise send a visitor to a different URL to the one they expect.

Yes Google do this, but Google set the rules and are allowed to. It would be far too risky for us.

Looking into it properly, it looks like Facebook do exactly this to protect users from spam/bad links. Link

They describe simply doing this (if you're using jQuery):

function linkShim($link) {

	var dest = $link.data('href'),
		via = $link.attr('href');

	$link.on('mouseover', function() {

		this.href = dest;

	}).on('mousedown', function() {

		this.href = via;

	});
}

$('a.external').each(function() {
	linkShim($(this));
});

Although, what you say about Google's penalisation for it sounds most likely correct — I can't find any decent/official word on it anywhere?

Hmmm...

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2721217?hl=en

Though Facebook won't care as they like being a walled garden.

And Twitter won't care, as Google have a deal with them to get raw tweets via their firehose.

Yeah, there's still no clear wording for this kind of practise though — it doesn't mention ending up at the same end place:

Using JavaScript to redirect users can be a legitimate practice. For example, if you redirect users to an internal page once they’re logged in, you can use JavaScript to do so. When examining JavaScript or other redirect methods to ensure your site adheres to our guidelines, consider the intent. Keep in mind that 301 redirects are best when moving your site, but you could use a JavaScript redirect for this purpose if you don’t have access to your website’s server.

Like cloaking, this practice is deceptive because it attempts to display different content to users and to Googlebot, and can take a visitor somewhere other than where they expected to go.

It seems more about what content you're directing them to, rather than which URL you're directing them to, which just depends on whether they deem ‘microcosm.app/out’ to be content or not.

Murky waters indeed.

Actually I think I just got mixed up and pressed something weird - it's the today tab and it shows users instead of posts at points. One of which was '@user*****', which (I thought) I tapped on and it took me to a new PM from someone with a proper display name. I thought maybe the today tab was showing user numbers rather than names but it seems I just pressed something weird. I can't show you unfortunately as the power button on my iphone is broken!

Ah, the today page shows everything new today.

That includes new users, hence you seeing those.

It also includes new messages you may have received.

It's just "everything new, today".

Might be nice to add a condensed version of that ^ in the right hand column on the today page - it's the only page that doesn't have a little explanatory blurb, isn't it?

Done

Thanks @Velocio for the detailed answer!

Why when I upload a image it has to show up in full size? I mean, why can't it be just small thumbnail at the end of the post and if someone wants to see it just click on it?

Minor bug in Opera (Opera/9.80 (Windows NT 6.2; Win64; x64) Presto/2.12.388 Version/12.17)

When I highlight part of a post and hit reply, the ">" gets placed after the quoted text instead of in front of it.

why can't it be just small thumbnail at the end of the post and if someone wants to see it just click on it?

Can't answer the first part of your question, but you can make thumbnails which people can click to see the full size image if you roll your own, and BBCode now works (and apparently simple HTML always did) so it's easy to import clickable thumbs from most image hosts.

Curiously, I can change my avi pic on the mobile (iOS7) but I can't change it on the desktop (FF16)

Is there a way to hide avatars like there was in the good old days?

why can't it be just small thumbnail at the end of the post and if someone wants to see it just click on it?

@Velocio how about some kind of widget next to each item in the "upload a file" area, to select full or thumbnail attaching?

Being able to label the file and select a mime type would help fix the weirdness I've had uploading from Android.

What weirdness did you encounter?

I've just tested uploading directly from the camera in Android 4.4 via Firefox. It worked fine.

What do I need to do to reproduce it?

Upload from Documents to select a file that already exists, you get a funny filename that renders as a link to a download.

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• image%3A163863

When uploading from an Android device (Nexus 4) I can only upload 1 image at a time.
If I want to add more then it just replaces the existing image.
I have to go back and edit the post to add another (again 1 at a time)

Testing upload from existing files. Android 4.4.3, Chrome 37.0.2062.117.

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