thunder-app
Please restore multi-line (pre 0.7.0-1) comment depth indicators
Is Your Feature Request Related to a Problem?
I was disappointed to see the visual style of Thunder's comment depth indicators change with the latest prerelease, as this was one of only a couple of Android Lemmy clients that have what I consider to be usable indicators. (Eternity being the other.)
The new-style depth indicators require the user to remember which color a comment at the parent level was and maintain an extraordinary amount of focus while scrolling, or memorize the colors of the rainbow in reverse. ("This was a green comment, I need to scroll upwards to find the next, uh... red, orange, yellow, green... yellow comment.")
(It also takes an extraordinary attention to detail to notice that user "Graph..." is two, not one, levels deeper than "Cowbee..." and colors alone don't help nearly as much as colors+lines would.)
Feature Description
The old style (which was easiest to follow, IMO, in rainbow mode vs. monochrome) allows the user to simply visually follow a line, while scrolling, to locate the comment that is the parent or a sibling of the comment they just read, in order to place it in context. In a complex discussion this may be outside of the viewport, and may require quite a bit of scrolling to locate.
Alternative Solutions
No response
Additional Context
I'm not sure what the advantage is of the more popular style of depth indicators in modern software ("minimalism" I suspect), but it would be appreciated if the old style could at least remain an option in Thunder.
What's more, I just discovered that the rainbow-themed colors I had been referring to are specific to the "accent color" theme I have selected ("Mango," btw), and aren't universal Thunder colors. In other color themes the depth colors don't seem to be as predictable.
I was disappointed to see the visual style of Thunder's comment depth indicators change with the latest prerelease
Hey! Thanks for the report - I believe this is actually a bug that was introduced in the nightly build, as there were no intended changes to the comment indicators.
This change was likely due to our transition from the previous post page (pre-0.7.0) to the current post page.
What's more, I just discovered that the rainbow-themed colors I had been referring to are specific to the "accent color" theme I have selected ("Mango," btw), and aren't universal Thunder colors. In other color themes the depth colors don't seem to be as predictable.
I believe this is intended, mainly so that the colours of the comment indicators match with the overall theme of the app. However, I do see your point in that it can make the colours feel less predictable. If you'd like, you can open a separate issue on this and we can discuss further!
I appreciate the quick response, and it's heartening to hear that this was actually a bug! It just felt enough like the anti-pattern of removing helpful features for 'visual streamlining' that I mistook it to be an intentional change.
I do see your point in that it can make the colours feel less predictable. If you'd like, you can open a separate issue on this and we can discuss further!
I appreciate the offer, but I probably don't feel the need to push for this. In an environment where the depth indicators display as multiple lines next to one another, I don't think there's a strong need for the colors to be predictable, just discernible from the one next to it. Happy to take a look at how the lines display in other color themes (once the next nightly is out) to see if it feels like there's a usability improvement to be made here.