Sort order for Comments within a task

Hi Ron and Brian, You guys both did a great job on explaining your thoughts and suggestions. 😃 Perhaps adding an option to let users choose to add comments to top or bottom in Settings would be good (like how we did for adding task)?

Yup. 😃

GREAT 👍

My intent is to use COMMENTS for Task status updates and notes.

Thank you for your response!

Having new comments appear at the Bottom of the comment stream is counter-intuitive to me. But to be fair I see this all the time in apps. However when I think about how Chat and IM apps work they always have the Add a Comment box and Button at the bottom and the convo thread is most recent LAST. So perhaps this is why QUIRE does it this way.

TASKS / PROJECTS are a different context imo: When I look at a list of comments (especially in the context of a Project or Task) I do not want to have to look at or go to the bottom to see the most recent comments. Comments in this context are UPDATES and Notes, not a conversation. I want to quickly see the most recent when I glance at my TASK Comments, I want to see the last comment I made at the TOP.

A simple Sort Order setting would suffice - and Yes that would allow users to see the most recent comments on TOP of the Comment stream. I can live with the Add Comment button being at the bottom if that is the only option.

Aaargh - all the way down there in the right edge is a question mark to open the help. I did not see it before. Again - most users don't (want to) search for buttons down there. I would expekt that one up here:

Hi Ron, Currently, when there are new comments at the bottom of a task, you can simply click on "New comments" near the bottom-right to jump to them. Perhaps it would help? Or, you prefer to have an option to let users add comments to the top (instead of bottom) so to save that "one-click" effort?

ok - might be the better choice for newcomers...

Hi Brian, Yes, you got it all clarified now. 👍 When @karlheinz.gerster was suggesting the naming of the checkboxes, I was thinking exactly the same thing (aka the solution in your last paragraph):

1. If choose "Newest first" then new comments would be added to the top.
2. If choose "Oldest first" then new comments would be added to the bottom.

Great job! 😃

Hi Karlheinz, Sorry, we prefer to keep to the default setting, which is newest at bottom. 😃

Hi Ron, Karlheinz and Brian, You can now choose to see newest comments at top in each project’s Settings -> Options -> Features. 😃

Hi Karlheinz, Did not think too much of the option names yet. But yes, that made sense. Thanks for the suggestion! 😃

you might have more feedback also from others, if you would link this forum in a more visible place.

YES

• SMART in that it leverages a convention already in use n the QUIRE UI.
• I am not a UI expert but as a user, this works just fine for me.
• This approach nets out to the same effect in that each new Comment sits above the one that was posted before.

Thank you again, Crystal, for engaging on this discussion with us.

Now if you can only make it so 😃

no - that wouldn't be good. Please see my comment below.

by the way - you might apply it in this forum 😏

I personally believe that being able to toggle the order of the comments is extremely useful. It all comes down to user preference though.

The notification and highlighting where you have unread comments is great, but it does not solve the problem.

When using comments as a status tracker, it is definitely important to be able to quickly look at the most recent comment- this is useful during meetings and for quick review.

I would suggest that you provide a button to switch the order of the comments at the top of the comment block. This is something Atlassian does within JIRA.

I think adding the capability to switch the order with a single click (keeping default as is) would be a first step to solve the issue relatively quickly, and then allowing users capability to customize their default comment sort order would be a good second phase 😃

Hi Karlheinz, I got your point. @rikusc mentioned about integrating the bottom and top menu bar recently too. We shall definitely think about their whereabouts. 😃

I of course, SECOND what Brian said (much better than I did).

Just to clarify- I think we're talking about two different things here.

1. Sort order of the comment
2. The data entry point for the next comment.

@ronsheridan was suggesting that if the comments were ordered newest to oldest from top to bottom, it would make sense to have the data entry point be at the top of the comments list (instead of at the bottom where it currently resides).

@karlheinz.gerster is making note that the chronological order of the comments could get "broken" if you're allowing comments to be added either to the bottom or top of the list without specifying the sort order, and suggests naming the setting differently (up-down/down-up instead of add to bottom/add to top).

Technically, there would be two settings necessary to allow both customizations.

1. Default comment sort order: Newest first or Oldest first
2. Comment Data Entry Point Location: Above Comments or Below Comments

Or, last but not least one setting that takes Ron's Suggestion and ties both together. If you choose Newest First, the Data Entry Point would be above the comments. If you choose Oldest First- the Data Entry Point would be below the comments. (which is the current design).

I hope that all makes sense.

yes - the last passage is the right solution:

" u choose Newest First, the Data Entry Point would be above the comments. If you choose Oldest First- the Data Entry Point would be below the comments. (which is the current design). "

Hi Karlheinz and Ron, Got it! Will keep you guys updated on this. Thank you for discussing with me so promptly and enthusiastically. 😃

that would be nice

all that said if many people are adding Comments to a Task then it is more like a Chat/IM thread but this is THE ONLY mechanism to add UPDATES or Status Changes so most recent at top, makes more sense. Thx again

right now the newest is the last one I see - I want to be able to reverse that. I realize the entry box is on the bottom but I look at a list and ALWAYS look at the TOP not the Bottom.

good morning (afternoon) crystal. To the comments - I would like to keep the chronology, but let the user choose if he wants it upwards or downwards. Letting users add comments somethimes on top and sometimes below would break this chronology and make it more difficult to follow and take some posts out of the logical context. I fear I got that suggestion of you wrong in the first time:

Option should be up-down or down-up.

Hi Karlheinz, This feedback community can be found under Help (?)

and in other pages like the home page of Quire. Is there a more visible place you suggest? It would be great if you could point it out. Thanks!