Sort Posts in a thread by Author?

Often in a very long thread, especially one that goes back a while, I would just like to read posts by a few specific posters and not have to scroll endlessly.

Would a feature be possible to click on the Author column and have the posts come up alphabetically and then click back to Last Post to have them come up by date?

Or am I the only person who would find this convenient? ;-)

June

You could use your browsers "find on this page" feature and just type in the name of the poster you are looking for.

I use a similar feature to search for one poster or one phrase or even one word.

Use the control key and F... it will give you a search (or find) box to locate anything on that page. Definitely saves time and eyestrain.

I was really looking to sort posters alphabetically so I can just read those of interest without having to scroll so much. Some threads get very long and some posters take up a lot of space with a bunch of one word answers. ;-)

I'm not sure how useful that would be--if you don't have the posts in chronological order, then some of the posts won't make sense if you don't read the previous post that was made by someone else. I know what you mean about having to scroll through posts that are less than useful, but I think it would be confusing to view just one person's posts without knowing what was posted right before. If you run across a really brilliant post in the middle of a thread and know you want to find that exact post again, you can always use the new tags feature to tag that post, then you can go back to it any time you want.

On the control find all you need to do is jump from XXXs' post to the next post by XXX, and so on. It will skip the rest. I know how aggravating those one word responses can be to scan thru...

Podster - glad you understand!

The find a post by a specific author would be great if you are looking for something like a recipe or advice they posted somewhere. This is where the Control F comes in handy to get through a long thread quickly.

However, if you are just wanting to read the posts they made in a thread, those posts most likely will appear out of context and not make sense that way, as ecrane pointed out.

I find to quickly scan over the short one word posts, having a scroll wheel on the mouse is a wonderful thing.

I also like using the page up/page down buttons on the keyboard for scrolling, that works pretty fast too.

Control F. Didn't know about that. What else don't I know about? Cool....

I didn't know about that one either, nice feature. Another thing I was here a couple of months before I realized that I could click on the member name and see their page,I am delighted if they add a website and/or photos. Glad you brought this up June, will make looked for a specific thing in a thread much easier I think!

The Control F is the answer for me now, so thanks very much Ecrane. I know you'll all find this hard to believe, but some threads wander very far off topic. ;-). Sometimes I just want to find Mrs. Smith's posts (which have managed to stay on topic) without having to scroll through a mass of totally unrelated chitchat. DG is a wonderful, friendly place so that's bound to happen. I just want to be able to quickly by-pass some of the irrelevant stuff. My "scrolling" finger was developing carpal tunnel syndrome!

Thanks to all for their help.
June

June, I think we all feel that way pretty often here. Especially if I only have a few minutes to check on a thread.

If you use Firefox, you can enable its find as you type feature. With it, you don't even have to CTRL+F, you just start typing the text you seek. A toolbar appears at the bottom with forward and back buttons enabling you to find more instances.

This message was edited Jan 31, 2008 8:50 AM

Where do you start typing that, gardenwife?

It's under TOOLS > OPTIONS > ADVANCED > GENERAL. Put a checkmark next to "Search for text when I start typing".

I was wondering where you start typing also. I have the checkmark enabled, but I'm sure there is someplace you have to type? For instance, I'm typing in this reply box now and it's not highlighting any text anywhere else, so I'm pretty sure this isn't the place to type when I want to search for text.

I hope that makes sense. LOL I'm really tired this morning.

Okay, I think I figured it out. You can just start typing, no need to be in any special place, and then it brings up the quick search box all on it's own. Pretty cool.

Righto - You just have to be anywhere except in a form (like the "your message" boxes here at DG). If you're in a form, you'll just type your search term into the form.

Hmm, I just checked off what you have checked off because I want that feature, had to reread your instructions twice before my coffee lacking brain kicked in-type anywhere EXCEPT in these reply boxes, got it!
Very cool.

But as near as I can tell, it only highlights one, and then goes away. But if you do the control + F you locate the next, and the next, and the next, etc... Am I missing something?

Once you find the first instance, hit CTRL+F and the toolbar at the bottom will reappear and stay there. Then, you can click Next or Previous. You can also have it highlight every instance of the search text on the page. The highlight button toggles on and off.