issue that I hadn't thought of, which will probably bug people (and may be bugging J): sometimes there are a lot of threads with a match in the subject, and that pushes the first of the message body matches way down the list. I was visualizing the subject match list being short.

Yes! That's what's bugging me! In the search I did this morning, I was presented with more than a page of threads (which could not be simply clicked away in one click, but rather scanned individually to know when the actual posts started) until I got the first actual post - which was all I wanted to see. And all of them were from May of this year, which was incomprehensible because I knew there were some posts just last night containing the term. (This, by the way, was in a group other than my own.) I was sure there was a bug and was about to report it when I saw this change had been made.

Bottom line, if there is no way that I can *immediately* see *all the most recent posts* that contain the search term, in reverse chrono order (which is my choice), without having to scan through who-knows-how-many relatively ancient threads first, the search is a failure IMO. A total thumbs-down.

That was my number-one, bottom-line request and the only one I felt was necessary: that search returns all the most recent posts containing the term, in reverse chrono order (if that's what I select). That is not happening if all the threads appear first!

I don't see the problem with returning threads only if the search is performed from within threads view. I'd actually like to have the ability to get all the threads as threads that can be acted on (e.g. to merge, close, etc.). But not at the expense of what I consider the number-one essential thing about search.

--
J

Messages are the sole opinion of the author. 

It's dumb to buy smart water.

I also prefer the term "Offlist" to "Private", as the word "private" carries a lot of baggage.

I was just on instagram and noticed their mechanism to make a comment not be public (sort of their reply to group equivalent). It's a greyed out arrow button to the left of where you write your comment, that turns green when you click it, and then adds the words " sending as direct message" above the comment area where you type.  This makes the comment go in to an inbox rather than on the group/public comment thread. I had forgotten that there "private" messages are referred to as DM's / direct messages.

I think they are referred to as Direct Messages on twitter and slack too.

Maybe that's useful info.

Maria

- Thread matches are always included, even if there's also a message
match.

- Thread matches are always grouped at the top, before message matches,
regardless of search ordering.

- When toggling between Relevance and Date, it should now remember your
last date sort and display that.

There is actually one scenario in which I want to get threads, rather than messages, back from a search: namely, sometimes I want to find all threads (not single messages) involving a certain subject (usually, a cat, so containing that cat name) so that I can merge them. Returning threads would be very useful for that (and possibly other) purposes. (Someone may want to close all threads containing a term, or make them stickies, or otherwise act on them.)

However, even in that scenario, I don't care at all about the thread *title*. Group  members can be really sloppy about their titles and they are most often barely meaningful, at least in my group. I'd want the threads that contain some post that contains the term. And to have threads returned from a search in messages view with "date" chosen as the sort order is extremely frustrating. To find the posts, I have to slog through a bunch of old threads, with dates older (possibly much older) than the newest individual posts containing the term.

I think the the threads could be returned only if the search is done from threads view. I think returning the individual posts in order of date is more important than having threads and messages view return the same results, if those results are going to be "threads first, no matter what."
--
J

Messages are the sole opinion of the author. 

It's dumb to buy smart water.

Messages are the sole opinion of the author. 

It's dumb to buy smart water.

Personally, were I in message view, and any messages that contain search terms are included, there is no reason to include threads that contain those messages in the results at all, and if including threads with the search terms in the subject which do not also have messages with the search terms those would most logically be placed at the bottom of the list.

That would be whether sort order is date or relevance.  The likelihood of a thread title ever being the search objective in a messages search is very small.

Even in a threads view I'd separate out threads with the search term only in the subject, but not in any messages, particularly if there's some clear way of marking the returned threads at the end that are "in the subject only" items.  That way I can immediately distinguish one from the other.  There are times when I'm looking for a specific thread, that is, I know what I'm looking for is part of the Subject/Title, while others I know I'm trying to find either a thread or threads where the search terms are in messages.

If the search itself doesn't give me a mechanism for specifying look at subjects, message bodies, or both there should be some way the results are presented in threads view that indicates whether a thread has no messages in it that match.

--
Brian

A lot of what appears to be progress is just so much technological rococo.  ~ Bill Gray

I have separated out the Drafts into its own menu link. It's only displayed if there are any drafts. Please let me know what you think.

 

It's great. 

Maria

The ticker did increase when the last message was a draft and decrease after being sent.

I also quite like that the Drafts navigation only appears when draft messages are actually present.  Otherwise it's just clutter, but I will add that it's clutter I'd prefer be a permanent fixture rather than going back to the combined New Topic with hidden drafts button.
--
Brian

A lot of what appears to be progress is just so much technological rococo.  ~ Bill Gray

just noticed the Drafts tab and am loving it.

Seconded.  I have just created a test draft and this acts precisely as I would expect it to.

This message was also "drafted" and the ticker went up, just as it should as well.  Now lets see if it goes down once I hit the "Send to Group" button in the production system.
--
Brian

A lot of what appears to be progress is just so much technological rococo.  ~ Bill Gray

Another alternative is to do this only if "revelance" view is selected.

--
J

Messages are the sole opinion of the author. 

It's dumb to buy smart water.

Messages are the sole opinion of the author. 

It's dumb to buy smart water.

Mark,

Would you consider doing the new order only if the search was initiated from threads view? These new results are so inconvenient that they're driving me crazy now. I would like to continue see the most recent posts containing the the search term at the top. That is no longer happening!

Begging here. If you have to put threads at the top, maybe do that only from threads view?

Thanks for your consideration.
--
J

Messages are the sole opinion of the author. 

It's dumb to buy smart water.

Messages are the sole opinion of the author. 

It's dumb to buy smart water.

Ok. So by "thread matches," you mean threads with the term in the title? I have no problem with that because to me, having the term in the title is the same as having it in the post. (And I thought you *already* included all threads that had at least one post containing the term. So this change seems unnecessary?)

What I don't like is the threads with the term in their titles always grouped at the top. This is resulting in very old matches at the top, which is counter-intuitive when I have my sort order set to "date." 

--
J

Messages are the sole opinion of the author. 

It's dumb to buy smart water.