Using the New Forum Page
Learn about the differences and new features of the forum page.
OpenReview is releasing a major update of the forum page for venues using the new API (v2). While the interface will look familiar, it should be faster, more flexible, and offer new ways to quickly find the content you are looking for.
Here is an example of a typical forum comment:
An annotated example of a forum comment
Every post on the new forum page contains the following information:
- 1.Title: title may be provided by the author of the post or it may be a generic title. Clicking the link icon next to the title copies a direct link to this post to your clipboard.
- 2.Reply Type: represents the type of forum reply, and comes from the name of the invitation that was used to create the post.
- 3.Signature: shows the identity of the user who posted the reply. If the reply comes from a group and you have permission to see the members of the group, their identities will be shown in parenthesis next to the signature.
- 4.Creation Date: shows when the reply was posted and when it was last modified
- 5.Readers: shows who this post is visible to
- 6.Revisions Link: see a list of all edits made (for more see "Editing Posted Content" below)
- 7.Edit & Delete: allows you to modify or hide the reply (for more see "Editing Posted Content" below)
- 8.Content: shows the complete content of the forum reply
- 9.Collapse Toggles: allows you to show more or less of the content of the note. The top button will collapse everything down to a single line displaying just basic information, the middle button will only show the first 5-10 lines of content, and the bottom button will display the entire contents of the note.
- 10.Reply Buttons: show all the available options for replying to this post. Clicking one of the buttons will open a form that allows you to submit your reply.
The new forum page provides advanced controls for sorting and filtering replies such as comments, reviews, private responses, and PC decisions. The new controls look something like this:
An annotated screenshot of the filter controls on a new forum page
- 1.Invitation Filter: show only replies of a certain type. Can select multiple invitations (types) to show replies matching any of those invitations.
- 2.Author Filter: show only replies signed by the selected user or group. Can select multiple authors to show all replies that include any one of the selections as a signature.
- 3.Keyword Filter: show all replies that match the phrase. Matches can come from the content of the reply, the title, or the invitation.
- 4.Sort Control: change the order of replies shown to either most recent first or oldest first
- 5.Layout Control: change the level of nesting of the replies. The three options are Linear, Threaded, and Nested
- 6.Collapse Control: change how much of all the replies is shown. By default the entire contents of the reply is visible, this corresponds to the three lines. Selecting the middle button (two lines) will only show the first 5-10 lines of content, and selecting the left button (one line) will condense the replies down to a single line displaying just basic information.
- 7.Link Button: copy a URL to your clipboard that includes all the currently selected filter and sort options. This is useful for sharing specific views of a forum page with other people or bookmarking for later.
- 8.Readers Filter: show all the replies that have the selected users or groups listed as a reader. Clicking a button twice will turn the button red – this means that only the replies that DO NOT include that group as a reader will be shown.
- 9.Preset Views: venues can configure sets of filters and layout options that are displayed as tabs above the filter form. Clicking on a given tab will switch the current filters over to those settings.
As mentioned in the section above there are currently three layout modes available for forum pages. These are:
- Linear: all replies are shown at the same level of nesting (no indentation). This is useful to quickly see a chronological feed of all forum replies. If a given post is a reply to another reply (not a general reply to the submission note) the title of that reply will be shown in gray above the title. Clicking on this gray title will scroll the page to that reply.
- Threaded: one level of nesting is shown. This layout is useful to group conversations into overarching topics.
- Nested: two levels of nesting are shown. This is useful for breaking larger conversations down into sub threads.
If you are logged into OpenReview and have permission to modify the content of a submission or a forum reply (aka a Note) you will see a dropdown button labeled Edit to the right of the title. Clicking this button will display a list of all the available ways to modify the note (aka edit Invitations). For a submission note this might include options to revise the submission or withdraw the submission, and for a reply it might include the option to edit the content of the reply.
You can see a list of all the edits of a given note by clicking on the Revisions link below the title.
We hope that you find the new functionality useful. If there is anything you would like to see changed or added please send an email to [email protected] with the subject "New Forum Page Feedback".