iPhone won't hide favorites

January 9, 2012 12:23 PM

Comment favorites count shown on iPhone even when profile says to "Hide Favorites."

Also, humanity is a cesspool of violence and corruption.

posted by swift to Bugs at 12:23 PM (24 comments total)

I know this may be a stupid question, but you know that profile preferences are cookie-based and thus are set by device? I just want to make sure that your preferences are set this way on your phone and not just in your profile generally. I've got mine turned off on my iphone and they seem pretty well off.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 12:28 PM on January 9, 2012

Ditto to jessamyn. Because preferences are mostly cookie-based, you may need to re-set the preference how you like it explicitly from whatever computer/device you want to see that behavior on.
posted by cortex (staff) at 12:34 PM on January 9, 2012

Is that why some of my machines have the professional white background and some blue/green/grey? Hmmm. I can't believe I did not figure that out. Mumble mumble mumble.

Thank you swift for your post. It has helped me immensely.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 12:42 PM on January 9, 2012

I know this may be a stupid question, but you know that profile preferences are cookie-based and thus are set by device?

Okay, that's what it is. I'd set Hide Favorites on my computer, and afterwards the settings page on the phone said Hide Favorites as well, though I hadn't explicitly set it to do anything. So I mistakenly assumed whatever it said there must be device-independent.

To turn the favorites off on the phone, I switched the Comment favorites style to another setting, saved, then switched it back to Hide Favorites and saved again.
posted by swift at 12:46 PM on January 9, 2012

Maybe the Preferences page could be more helpful in explaining this? Currently some preferences are server-side and some are browser-side and there's no indication of which is which.

The cookie-based preferences are fine if you understand how cookies work -- and they let power users have different preferences for work, home, mobile etc -- but they're confusingly different to how most sites handle preferences.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 12:47 PM on January 9, 2012

If it makes you feel better, I think that cockroaches have it worse.
posted by Melismata at 12:48 PM on January 9, 2012

Currently some preferences are server-side and some are browser-side and there's no indication of which is which.

Yeah, good point. I'm not even sure which are which. Maybe we can have a visual indicator which things need to be set per-device.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 12:54 PM on January 9, 2012

MetaFilter: a cesspool of violence and corruption otters chasing butterflies.
posted by desjardins at 1:01 PM on January 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Maybe we can have a visual indicator which things need to be set per-device.

Yes, that would be good. I remember asking pb a similar question once upon a time and feeling very silly when he pointed out it was browser-side. It's not obvious!
posted by librarylis at 1:11 PM on January 9, 2012

All preferences under "Website Settings" are cookie-based because they affect the display of the site in some way. The rest of the settings are about things on your profile page or how you get messages delivered. So yeah, we need to find a way to explain that better.
posted by pb (staff) at 1:14 PM on January 9, 2012

This is one of those things that is super useful to the 1% that want to use different settings on different computers, and confusing to the other 99% who don't.*

* Numbers made up.
posted by smackfu at 1:46 PM on January 9, 2012

The selection of the "Comment favorites style" dropdown seems to be populated by the server-side setting, however, regardless of the actual behavior determined by the cookie. So if I set "Show 'has favorites'" in one browser, then "Hide Favorites" in another browser, the profile pages in both will say "Hide Favorites", even though the first one is still putting "has favorites" next to comments. The confusing part for me was that I was expecting the selection in the dropdown to be based on the cookie.
posted by swift at 1:52 PM on January 9, 2012

ah, I see what you're saying swift. Yes, we store the value that you last set on the server side and that's what we show on the profile settings page. But your cookie could be something completely different.

It is confusing and something we need to work on explaining. We've heard over the years that people love being able to set different settings for different devices. So it's not something we're going change. But we do need to find a way to explain how it works without causing more confusion.
posted by pb (staff) at 2:12 PM on January 9, 2012

Might it help to think of there being two sets of display settings -- a "default" setting (which is stored server-side) and a "for this browser only" setting (which is stored in the cookie)?
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 2:20 PM on January 9, 2012

So, if I clear cookies and redo the settings, will humanity no longer be a cesspool of violence and corruption, or is that a server side setting?

all this time I never realized
posted by zomg at 2:31 PM on January 9, 2012

*basks in finally being a power user at something*
posted by arcticseal at 3:00 PM on January 9, 2012

So, if I clear cookies and redo the settings, will humanity no longer be a cesspool of violence and corruption, or is that a server side setting?

Only if you log humanity out first.
posted by swift at 3:04 PM on January 9, 2012

Is it absolutely necessary to do the dance of changing some setting, saving, then changing it back and saving, or is it sufficient to just make sure the settings are as you want them, then save?

In any case, it seems to me that the most natural way to handle the browser-side vs. server-side settings would be to make the settings page display the settings actually in effect for the device displaying the settings page, perhaps using a bit of client-side script that interrogates the current cookies. Settings stored server-side would only be displayed if no cookie existed for them.

Also, "Display settings" is, I think, a better heading for that section than "Website settings".
posted by flabdablet at 8:39 PM on January 9, 2012

A checkmark inside the "Display settings" box labelled something like "Save these display settings as defaults" (checked by default, so if it's not explicitly turned off, the page works as it does now) would probably be useful too.
posted by flabdablet at 8:43 PM on January 9, 2012

swift, have you watched the boater rescuing the dog at sea?
posted by Meatbomb at 7:55 AM on January 10, 2012

Is that a swift boat joke?
posted by gman at 7:58 AM on January 10, 2012

Good idea, flabdablet. We changed it to "Display Settings" and added a link to a new FAQ entry about them: How Do MetaFilter Display Preferences Work?
posted by pb (staff) at 10:35 AM on January 10, 2012

pb, would it be possible to change that to: Fucking MetaFilter Display Preferences, How Do They Work?
posted by gman at 10:46 AM on January 10, 2012

nah, I don't think they qualify as a miracle.
posted by pb (staff) at 10:59 AM on January 10, 2012 [1 favorite]