Jumping Pony on Mobile

October 31, 2018 12:26 PM

The jump-down anchor visible on posts on mobile takes you all the way down to the tags. I imagine most people use it like I do: to get to the comment box and/or last comment more quickly. Could this be adjusted to remove the need to scroll up each time?

I know that the intent is to go to what would be the sidebar on desktop. That seems fine on the front page so you can see the announcements/notifications. The tags are less useful on mobile, however.

posted by cichlid ceilidh to Feature Requests at 12:26 PM (25 comments total)

This is a perfectly reasonable and doable request, if people are using the jump-down arrow in this way, so I'd like to open it up for discussion before going ahead with any changes.
posted by frimble (staff) at 12:28 PM on October 31, 2018

Yup, I use it specifically to get myself to the comment box/end of the thread that much quicker.
posted by Fizz at 12:40 PM on October 31, 2018 [2 favorites]

That's how I use it! To get to the comment box in long threads.
posted by cooker girl at 12:53 PM on October 31, 2018

potentially foolish question but does it not return to the top of the page when you press T with the cursor outside the textarea?
posted by poffin boffin at 12:57 PM on October 31, 2018

I also use this 95% of the time to jump to the last comment to keep reading a thread I was reading at work/home/etc. I'm sure there are better ways to do what I'm doing but [skip to menu] is right there so I haven't tried too hard. I'd rather scroll down the 5% of the time I did want to be at the menu area.
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 1:05 PM on October 31, 2018 [2 favorites]

I also use it to get to the comment box rather than the tags.
posted by Etrigan at 1:05 PM on October 31, 2018

Yeah, I use it to go to the bottom of the thread, not the bottom of the page. In the rare event that I want to get to the bottom of the page, it's just a single flick.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 1:44 PM on October 31, 2018

Samesies. Bottom of thread not bottom of page.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 4:50 PM on October 31, 2018

Yes, skipping to the comment box, not the tags.
posted by Margalo Epps at 5:18 PM on October 31, 2018

Agreed! This would be a great change!
posted by Night_owl at 6:13 PM on October 31, 2018

Comment box, not tags.

I’m other news, for some reason lately when I tap that down arrow on mobile, it often opens a whole new tab, unbeknownst to me. So at some point I look down and notice I have 12 instances of the politics mega-thread open. *sigh* I’m not sure what changed. This never used to happen before.
posted by greermahoney at 7:28 PM on October 31, 2018 [1 favorite]

I was going to say the same thing. The button finally works for me again. Yay!
posted by Literaryhero at 9:18 PM on October 31, 2018

I use it to get to Recent Activity, but I can deal with it changing.
posted by rhizome at 10:54 PM on October 31, 2018

I fixed it a few months ago while tidying and fixing a bunch of CSS / Javascript.
posted by frimble (staff) at 11:35 PM on October 31, 2018 [2 favorites]

I'm so glad you fixed it, thank you!!

I also use it to get to the comment box of a thread, so heartily endorse this request

The other way I use it is to get to the special search box on the fanfare front page, which I see is working again in this way, so would further request that this be maintained if possible, it is very useful.
posted by mosessis at 11:43 PM on October 31, 2018

Same here. I love this request , thank you.
posted by _Mona_ at 1:41 AM on November 1, 2018

I’m other news, for some reason lately when I tap that down arrow on mobile, it often opens a whole new tab, unbeknownst to me. So at some point I look down and notice I have 12 instances of the politics mega-thread open. *sigh* I’m not sure what changed. This never used to happen before.

This has been happening to me, too, all the time and it's a little frustrating. Anyone else having the same trouble? I only ever use this to get to the bottom of the politics mega-threads so maybe it's a function of the size of the page to be scrolled? Dunno.
posted by Mothlight at 8:07 AM on November 1, 2018 [1 favorite]

I have the same issue on mobile as greermahoney - click the "jump to bottom" button and a new tab opens. So, to get to the end of the MegaPolThread, I end up with four tabs pen (top of metafilter.com, bottom of page where sidebar links are, top of megathread, bottom of megathread)

I'm using Firefox on Android (Samsung S7 Edge)
posted by jazon at 9:41 AM on November 1, 2018

Yes please, comment box. Thank you.
posted by rtha at 10:30 AM on November 1, 2018

Same here with the new tab issue. A new tab opens when I click the "jump to bottom" arrow on the front page (Android with Firefox). However, it doesn't open a new tab when I click it in a thread (though I swear it was doing that recently).

I'd love to to see it go to the bottom of a thread rather than the comment box or tags -- but I'm someone who doesn't comment a whole lot and instead just find it handy to get near the end of super-long threads to pick up reading where I left off on a different device.
posted by theory at 12:22 PM on November 1, 2018

I kind like how it takes me to the bottom and requires me to scroll up a touch. It’s just enough to nudge me to think “is my comment really needed?”
posted by nikaspark at 4:05 PM on November 1, 2018 [2 favorites]

I think they are, nika. I like your comments.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 5:05 PM on November 1, 2018 [3 favorites]

I guess this is the modern equivalent of the "skip to menu" thing in mobile classic?

I would very much like for "skip to menu" to keep skipping to, uh, to the menu. Yes.
posted by Dysk at 4:58 AM on November 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

Definitely comment box and/or last post.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:09 PM on November 4, 2018

Another vote for bottom of thread, rather than bottom of page.

Also, since we’re mentioning possibly related errors like the android tab thing: when I check the megathread [less frequently nowadays, both for reasons of my mental health and continued employment] after a certain size the sidebar (which I think is the part at the bottom where the jump arrow currently takes you?) will tend to repeatedly crash on reload, requiring a fresh new front page tab and opening the megathread anew. This is on a relatively elderly iphone running Safari. It’s not a big problem - in fact, it often makes me reassess whether I genuinely want to refresh the megathread, or whether I’d rather do some work, or go for a walk. But it happens fairly frequently and I thought it might be helpful to mention it.
posted by chappell, ambrose at 7:15 AM on November 5, 2018