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    Feature request: link to parent of a comment ☶ meta
    gerikson avatar authored by gerikson 15 days ago | 4 comments

I know you’re not supposed to propose a new feature without a pull request, but this is beyond my powers.

When there’s a lot of replies to a comment in a thread, it’s hard to figure out which comment a reply is replying to. Having a “parent” link to each reply that jumps to that comment would help with this.

Hopefully someone agrees and supplies a patch.

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    1. 3
      david_chisnall avatar david_chisnall 14 days ago | link

      The thing I’d really like (which, I think, can be done with some css-fu) is for the parent comments to remain at the top of the screen as I scroll down a thread, up to some limit of screen real estate (on a phone, that might just be the first sentence of the parent, on a desktop with a big window it might be 2-3 smallish comments). I could then use the existing ‘link’ link to jump back.

    2. 3
      pushcx avatar pushcx Sysop 15 days ago | link

      It’s ok to post a meta story for a feature request without a PRs.

      The issue template on GitHub asks people not to post feature requests because they were largely new users who don’t understand how the site works demanding that it work in a way that’s more convenient for self-promo.

    3. 3
      caius avatar caius 15 days ago | link

      I think you’d want to insert something around https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters/blob/master/app/views/comments/_comment.html.erb#L79 along the lines of

      <% if comment.parent_comment %>
  | <%= link_to "Parent", comment.parent_comment.path, tabindex: "0" %>
<% end %>
    4. 2
      5d22b avatar 5d22b 15 days ago | link

      This is something I’ve especially wanted on mobile, where there aren’t the lines connecting parent and child comments that there are on desktop.

      I had wondered whether the absence of parent comment links was an intentional difference from HN and Reddit; e.g., maybe it was determined that having such links would lead the tone of discussions in an unwanted direction. I guess not?