New way to show total post counts

[timdiggins]

Currently the total number of messages are represented within a circle that changes colour when there are any unread messages. I find this really confusing (and just hide it with css in the main apps) . However I see the benefit to showing the total number of posts in a topic, and would like to change that to a textual annotation.

The question that the remains is whether to remove altogether the circle at the left.

My suggestion if we want to keep it is to incorporate a notion of change, by showing the avatar of the topic creator, and the most recent poster (except where there is only the initial topic, in which case it is just a single avatar). Could still change the outline colour when some are unread. Don't have a concrete graphic design for this yet, but thinking about it.

[glebm]

My suggestion if we want to keep it is to incorporate a notion of change, by showing the avatar of the topic creator, and the most recent poster.

I must've missed this issue when it was originally submitted. I really like this idea.

One of the users (@moondcr) actually implemented it for their forum (unfortunately, that forum is now gone and I don't have screenshots). It used two overlapping circles, one centered and large, and the other one about half the size and positioned to the bottom right of the large circle.

[timdiggins]

Great! I'm still keen to do this, but not sure if I have it in my radar right now.
@moondcr's graphic solution sounds good. We could ring the big circle with the a 2-3px $thredded-brand colour when unread.

As a side note, might be nice to have an option for the avatars to be gmail/trello style (initials) if there's no avatar defined? To svg would make sense I think. Looked for a gem, but haven't found anything maintained without extra unnecessary dependencies .

[glebm]

We also currently also use the color to indicate locked posts btw.

As a side note, might be nice to have an option for the avatars to be gmail/trello style (initials) if there's no avatar defined? To svg would make sense I think.

One issue is that we don't know if an avatar is defined or not before Gravatar responds.
We can provide a d= argument to gravatar but it doesn't seem to support SVG.

The following service, however, seems to work with Gravatar: https://ui-avatars.com/

[glebm]

@moondcr's graphic solution sounds good

To clarify their solution, IIRC, the large circle has the last poster, and the small circle the topic creator (or maybe vice versa). I don't remember where @moondcr put the posts count.