Discussion Open Position

clarkwinkelmann

Discussion Open Position

This extension controls the position (scroll/"page") at which a discussion is opened when selected in the discussion list.

This is done through a new preference that controls when a discussion should be "opened at last read post":

Always (Flarum built-in default)
Only when there are unread posts
Never = Always open discussion at the top

You can configure a global default in the admin panel and users can change it via their preferences.

The optional "Prompt" setting is experimental.
It shows a message in the discussion allowing the user to change their preference on the first visit.
Unfortunately the message is very long, so it's not very user-friendly.

Installation

composer require clarkwinkelmann/flarum-ext-discussion-open-position

Support

This extension is under minimal maintenance.

It was developed for a client and released as open-source for the benefit of the community.
I might publish simple bugfixes or compatibility updates for free.

You can contact me to sponsor additional features or updates.

Support is offered on a "best effort" basis through the Flarum community thread.

Sponsors: puppydreamwork

Links

mueenulit

👌

Hari

This is such an awesome extension which fits my need, but (sorry for the but) i want it to set a rule throughout the site for any guest users.

The user should be taken to the top (discussion URL aks first post) even if he tries to access the thread using post URLs

Why do I want this feature?
when users can not access discussion through post URLs .org/d/31153-position/200 spider also can not access. In a way, discussion URLs (first post) will be indexed properly. if possible mark that redirection as 301 redirection.

Currently, all my sub-post URLs are ranked top instead of the first post.

We have tried to set all post canonical to discussion URLs but it didn't work, google has this habit if sub-post URLs are indexed I will continue to bring users to old URLs 😝 sometimes I do not care about canonical URLs

clarkwinkelmann

Hari the global admin setting should already apply to guests.

It's not really possible to redirect the URL during direct access, because that would break the regular use case of perma-linking. You might be able to create some sort of HTTP redirect that only applies to search engine user agents but that doesn't sound like the right solution.

Search engines that don't read javascript should always see the link to the top of a discussion, because the "noscript" version of the page doesn't use the last post number logic at all (with or without this extension).

Fixing the canonical URL tag seems like it should be the correct solution. But I don't know enough to offer recommendations here. I would also suggest using the sitemap extension to help search engines start the indexing at the intended place.

I don't really see what I could improve in the extension as it currently stands.