Two questions - first more important to me than the second
Is there a way to limit how far back the forum searches when I click on the “Participated” link?
Is there a way to make the ‘Participated’ link appear on standard mobile layout?
I’ve looked for both, and if there’s a way, I’ve missed it (apologies for taking your time if there is)
Re: #1 - As I’m reasonably chatty, I use the Participated link as my forum landing page to find out if new discussion has been made to the posts I took enough interest in to comment on. The participated link takes about 5-10 seconds to load for me, where as if I just load forums.plex.tv it takes ~1 on average. I presume if I could limit my Participated link search to the past 6 months, it would load quicker.
I also presume it would lend to less server load.
As for #2, it would just make my occasional mobile view that much quicker. Now I have to switch to full site view and then go to the link.
1 - No
2 - use this link, https://forums.plex.tv/discussions/participated, to open the forum as a shortcut. There isn’t a way to get to that page from the mobile view, but using the link will bring up your participated page in the mobile view (go figure)
Also, if your mobile web browser allows for requesting “full site” or “desktop version” try it. In my experience the “desktop version” is responsive enough to adapt to small screen and works much better than the “mobile” version.
Marked question as answered, as unhappy as I am about the answer to #1.
@“MovieFan.Plex” - When Plex first went to vanilla, they got the “Participated” feature added (I believe by Vanilla itself, as V didn’t have a feature like this matching one that was used by many Plex-ers on previous forum software)
I’ve looked at vanillaforums.com and find no ‘non-customer’ support or suggestion method.
Though I just now emailed support saying ‘hey, though not a customer, your site loads slow for Participated searching Plex’s hundreds of thousands of topics for my 250+ discussions, please add a history limit feature’, I doubt it will go far.
Anyone on Plex end have more of a inside ear from Vanilla maybe email them?
Here’s what I sent
Good day.
Please add an option in Vanilla's user preferences to set a time frame limit or maximum return count limit for the "Participated" conversation feature.
Reasoning:
I'm not a customer, but a daily user of a forum you host, https://Forums.Plex.tv
When Plex first started using Vanilla a few years ago, a large group of users complained there was no 'view replies' feature for posts we'd participated in.
My understanding is that you added "Participated".
Life was good. We use that link and can get a list of discussions we've participated, along with how many new replies have been posted (if any).
It's a great way to keep up with what interests us.
Unfortunately, now, several years later, there's an issue.
Some of us (me!) are chatty.
The response time on first load of that link now takes ~10 seconds.
I have over 9 pages pages (250+ posts) of participated discussions that the server has to filter and paginate (from presumably hundreds of thousands if not millions) every time I use that link. Response time of the forum when I use that link, if it's been more than an hour or two since I've used it (presume cache hit no longer exists), is about 5-10 seconds to load on average.
Not only does the wait seem like an eternity, I'm reasonably certain it places strain on your server while it searches.
(I can load straight to https://forums.plex.tv in less than a second or two, so I know it's not traffic/speed of my PC from my end)
Please add this enhancement.
Sincerely,
<my name>
I have over 9 pages pages (250+ posts) of participated discussions that the server has to filter and paginate (from presumably hundreds of thousands if not millions) every time I use that link.
Hah. I have 100+ pages. For me, it takes about 3 seconds to load any of the sections (participated, recent discussions, my discussions, my bookmarks, etc.), I don’t think it has to do with the number of threads you are involved in. I can pass the question along, but I wouldn’t expect any change to happen.
Have you tried opening the browser console to see what is taking so long to respond. For me, it is user images from Gravatar.
@“MovieFan.Plex” - No, and in fact, I constantly forget the browser console has so much info. I use Firefox. It has a performance tab, but in just quick review, much of it is ‘greek’ to me I’d have to learn to translate.
Unfortunately, now that I just loaded the page a few moments ago (which then led me here, along with my notification icon), it won’t take as long to load.
My first visit after a few hours (or next day) will take a long time. I’d guess average of 7-10 seconds.
From there on out, consecutive loads either using back button or loading the link will take 2-3 seconds also.
It’s as though the first time I load it, whatever cache system Vanilla uses doesn’t have the content, so calls on a long slow server lookup. After that, it’s quicker, until I give it a time out (next day or few hours later) period.
Now that I’ve posted, I’m curious, am I the only one seeing this? @coder-alpha - I’m throwing your name out since you liked my post, have you noticed anything like this on first load. Slow first, fast consecutive?
(I understand perfectly if you were just liking my post since I was outgoing and silly enough to email support)
Vanilla rep responded.
Nice yet somewhat script sounding. And wow, it sure does seem like Plex and Vanilla both like keeping the roadmaps locked up.
Hello <my name>,
Thank you for your feedback. While I unfortunately cannot disclose our roadmap, I can say that we are always working to improve the user experience in Vanilla, and that scaling and efficient data handling are a high priority. I have passed along your suggestion to our developers for consideration, but I wont be able to provide any ETAs or details on implementations and changes.
If you have trouble with the forum, please reach out to your community administrator, they have an account manager that can help investigate and file issues.
Thanks!
<name and email withheld to protect the nice innocent rep>
@JamminR said:
Now that I’ve posted, I’m curious, am I the only one seeing this? @coder-alpha - I’m throwing your name out since you liked my post, have you noticed anything like this on first load. Slow first, fast consecutive?
(I understand perfectly if you were just liking my post since I was outgoing and silly enough to email support)
I see that issue happen sporadically but only on the first load like you said but probably that’s either due to browser cache or the site caching (does the site cache the db requests ?). I generally used to brush it as maybe my connections was glitching or their servers were overloaded until I saw your post
(I understand perfectly if you were just liking my post since I was outgoing and silly enough to email support)
and that too
PS: Unrelated to this issue… I use Firefox as well but personally feel Chrome does a better job in handling Javascript.
