How quoting works

[Mathew Anderson]

In an effort to bring out some of the branching topics from Ben's letter announcement, I'm starting a new thread here discussing the following:

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/68454483

This is the default on how quoting works. You'll see a few lines, but if it's lengthy and you want to see it all, you click on the "Expand" button on the quote window.

Example from our staging site (the first teaser of Light Mode I think for you ):

I would encourage everyone to adopt this practice if there are questions within Ben's letter, or other lengthy threads, about the new system. We can be quicker to answer and even provide these teasers as we go along, if there's a distinct thread for it.

Thanks all for the great questions coming in! Expect a consolidated FAQ posted asap by us.

 

[Addlepate]

One of the things I find useful about the current forums - and some others, including I think some Xenforo forums - is the nested quotes capability, whether colours, quotes inside quotes, etc. That way I can pick and make clear what I'm answering from a series of posts.

 

[MAC]

One of the things I find useful about the current forums - and some others, including I think some Xenforo forums - is the nested quotes capability, whether colours, quotes inside quotes, etc. That way I can pick and make clear what I'm answering from a series of posts.

yes indeed, nested quotes and colors

 

[Mathew Anderson]

One of the things I find useful about the current forums - and some others, including I think some Xenforo forums - is the nested quotes capability, whether colours, quotes inside quotes, etc. That way I can pick and make clear what I'm answering from a series of posts.

yes indeed, nested quotes and colors

The quoting simple won't need as much elaboration, given how simplified the view is. That said, nested quoting is possible, but it's done by manual bbcode. The default is to quote a single individual that you are interested in responding to.

 

[dspoel]

One of the things I find useful about the current forums - and some others, including I think some Xenforo forums - is the nested quotes capability, whether colours, quotes inside quotes, etc. That way I can pick and make clear what I'm answering from a series of posts.

yes indeed, nested quotes and colors

The quoting simple won't need as much elaboration, given how simplified the view is. That said, nested quoting is possible, but it's done by manual bbcode. The default is to quote a single individual that you are interested in responding to.

Anything that requires users to adopt a certain workflow is doomed to fail. If there are buttons to do it (like it is now), it may work.

 

[Smaug01]

For what it's worth, I like the threaded view here, but I don't miss it in other fora.

Folks just have to learn how to quote properly and then the threaded view isn't necessary. (that's why off-the-shelf forum software doesn't have it built in) Maybe re-name the subject appropriately?

 

[Mathew Anderson]

Quick update here that we have the ability to remove the "Click to expand" function so photos are revealed in full right away. This is currently being reviewed internally, but we'd appreciate your thoughts.

--
DPReview Community Manager

 

[MAC]

Quick update here that we have the ability to remove the "Click to expand" function so photos are revealed in full right away. This is currently being reviewed internally, but we'd appreciate your thoughts.

yes, leave it expanded from the get go

if you want to see a long thread with some of the most amazing photography in flat view, go here:

African safari talk...recommendations? - Canon-mount SLRs - Photography - FM Forums

 

[Mathew Anderson]

Quick update here that we have the ability to remove the "Click to expand" function so photos are revealed in full right away. This is currently being reviewed internally, but we'd appreciate your thoughts.

yes, leave it expanded from the get go

if you want to see a long thread with some of the most amazing photography in flat view, go here:

African safari talk...recommendations? - Canon-mount SLRs - Photography - FM Forums

Nice!

The only instance where I can see this being an issue is if 10 folks reply to the same photo in a row with a quote of it... you'd see 10 of the same photo in a row. I'm not sure if that's a serious issue though here.

 

[robert1955]

Quick update here that we have the ability to remove the "Click to expand" function so photos are revealed in full right away. This is currently being reviewed internally, but we'd appreciate your thoughts.

yes, leave it expanded from the get go

if you want to see a long thread with some of the most amazing photography in flat view, go here:

African safari talk...recommendations? - Canon-mount SLRs - Photography - FM Forums

Nice!

The only instance where I can see this being an issue is if 10 folks reply to the same photo in a row with a quote of it... you'd see 10 of the same photo in a row. I'm not sure if that's a serious issue though here.

That could certainly become a problem. Is there a limit to how many images can be put in one post, and will they all be displayed in full or just the first one?

 

[Mathew Anderson]

Quick update here that we have the ability to remove the "Click to expand" function so photos are revealed in full right away. This is currently being reviewed internally, but we'd appreciate your thoughts.

yes, leave it expanded from the get go

if you want to see a long thread with some of the most amazing photography in flat view, go here:

African safari talk...recommendations? - Canon-mount SLRs - Photography - FM Forums

Nice!

The only instance where I can see this being an issue is if 10 folks reply to the same photo in a row with a quote of it... you'd see 10 of the same photo in a row. I'm not sure if that's a serious issue though here.

That could certainly become a problem. Is there a limit to how many images can be put in one post, and will they all be displayed in full or just the first one?

We can establish some limits here if needed. This is one reason why the "Click to expand" is nice to have.

 

[Smaug01]

Quick update here that we have the ability to remove the "Click to expand" function so photos are revealed in full right away. This is currently being reviewed internally, but we'd appreciate your thoughts.

We have a lot of computer-challenged users. They quote something without trimming the irrelevant bits and we have to scroll through pages of photos that we've already seen.

To someone who is keen to see them, it's takes one click and less than a second. To others, it prevents us from seeing the same pictures over and over when a thread is posted.

It might be a good poll topic, as we are divided already.

 

[Alan Sh]

Please don't have full screen images from the outset. It's overpowering and it only takes 1 click to expand what you are interested in. It also makes scrolling down posts take longer.

Alan

 

[Mathew Anderson]

Please don't have full screen images from the outset. It's overpowering and it only takes 1 click to expand what you are interested in. It also makes scrolling down posts take longer.

Alan

That's kind of how I feel about it too.

The reason we have been considering this is for photo challenge and similar posts. You can then scroll and see all the photos without having to click each one.

Here's an example of Click to Expand in action with a photo:

You can see how it doesn't show much of the photo, which we're worried about. Let us know what you all think about it only partially being visible (keeping in mind this is for quotes only... source posts will still have the image shown in full).

--
DPReview Community Manager

 

[Alan Sh]

Please don't have full screen images from the outset. It's overpowering and it only takes 1 click to expand what you are interested in. It also makes scrolling down posts take longer.

Alan

That's kind of how I feel about it too.

The reason we have been considering this is for photo challenge and similar posts. You can then scroll and see all the photos without having to click each one.

Here's an example of Click to Expand in action with a photo:

You can see how it doesn't show much of the photo, which we're worried about. Let us know what you all think about it only partially being visible (keeping in mind this is for quotes only... source posts will still have the image shown in full).

OK - that's something different from what I was envisaging. No, I don't like what's shown above at all.

My thoughts are you display a thumbnail image of the photo of around 1200 x 1200 (adjusted for portrait/landscape etc) which should be large enough to give a good amount of detail, and then expand it to full screen when they click on it. Have a look here https://dprevived.com/t/the-weekly-landscape-thread-34-20251003/7614/#post-107757 for an example (although it takes 2 clicks to get to full screen, so it's not perfect).

Alan

--
Try www.the-photo.org for a community-run creative photography resource
where we focus on images. Now with portfolios. Part of the dprevived.com community.

 

[Smaug01]

<snip> You can see how it doesn't show much of the photo, which we're worried about. Let us know what you all think about it only partially being visible (keeping in mind this is for quotes only... source posts will still have the image shown in full).

Showing part of the photo is no problem in your example. That, plus the prompt "click to expand" will let people intuitively know what's going on. Even computer-challenged people.

 

[Mathew Anderson]

Please don't have full screen images from the outset. It's overpowering and it only takes 1 click to expand what you are interested in. It also makes scrolling down posts take longer.

Alan

That's kind of how I feel about it too.

The reason we have been considering this is for photo challenge and similar posts. You can then scroll and see all the photos without having to click each one.

Here's an example of Click to Expand in action with a photo:

You can see how it doesn't show much of the photo, which we're worried about. Let us know what you all think about it only partially being visible (keeping in mind this is for quotes only... source posts will still have the image shown in full).

OK - that's something different from what I was envisaging. No, I don't like what's shown above at all.

My thoughts are you display a thumbnail image of the photo of around 1200 x 1200 (adjusted for portrait/landscape etc) which should be large enough to give a good amount of detail, and then expand it to full screen when they click on it. Have a look here https://dprevived.com/t/the-weekly-landscape-thread-34-20251003/7614/#post-107757 for an example (although it takes 2 clicks to get to full screen, so it's not perfect).

Alan

Oh, then that's how we were thinking of it I think. The image is shown in the constraints of the forums and if you want a full screen view, you click on it.

Just imagine the above without the ghosted clipped out part...

--
DPReview Community Manager

 

[Mathew Anderson]

<snip> You can see how it doesn't show much of the photo, which we're worried about. Let us know what you all think about it only partially being visible (keeping in mind this is for quotes only... source posts will still have the image shown in full).

Showing part of the photo is no problem in your example. That, plus the prompt "click to expand" will let people intuitively know what's going on. Even computer-challenged people.

k, thanks for the feedback. It can feel like you're "missing" the photo, but it's easy to click on that link, and ideally you would have already seen the fully shown photo in the original poster's message (those are not hidden like this since it's not a quote).

 

[robert1955]

We should maybe think about the reason we want to quote a photo that was put in the thread earlier. I'm assuming in the earlier post you get the full thing
I think you mainly want that to have a clear reference to what you are commenting on: that particular post 3 messages up, or the third photo four messages up. I think expand wouldn't be a problem then, but you want to stay in the thread even if expanding

 

[Mathew Anderson]

We should maybe think about the reason we want to quote a photo that was put in the thread earlier. I'm assuming in the earlier post you get the full thing
I think you mainly want that to have a clear reference to what you are commenting on: that particular post 3 messages up, or the third photo four messages up. I think expand wouldn't be a problem then, but you want to stay in the thread even if expanding

Correct, the original post (OP) shows it in full anyway. There is also a link back to that OP's post as well for convenience.

One area that this was considered is photo challenges and weekly photo submission events.