Show at least two lines of text from collapsed posts in the Discussion Forum

[boson]

Discussion Forums are very hard to navigate and it's difficult to find relevant information among the vast number of posts posted there. One available feature to simplify this is the ability to collapse the posts so a user can easily scroll through them and find the ones relevant to him.

But this feature fails to serve its purpose, because the text prompt shown in the collapsed post is so short, that it's almost impossible to judge whether the post is relevant for the user or not.

The solution for this can be to show a longer text prompt from the post, at least the first two lines, to ensure that the user can have enough information to decide whether the post is relevant to him and if he should expand it further. 

User Role: Student

[Stef_retired]

Thanks for sharing this idea, @boson . Are you using the Discussion Enhancements feature preview (which is still a beta project) or is this suggestion directed at the classic discussions view?

[boson]

Thanks for your reply Ms @Stef_retired. I am not exactly sure which one is it. I am using the default version that was assigned to me by my university (UIUC). I have attached a screenshot of the collapsed discussion forum for your reference. 

As you can see, only a partial comment statement is visible, which is insufficient to judge whether the post is worth expanding. This should be expanded to at least a couple of sentences and provide enough info to the user to make a decision if it's relevant.

[Stef_retired]

Thanks for the reply and the helpful screenshot, @boson . This appears to be the standard Discussions interface. We're currently working on a Discussions/Announcements Redesign project (you'll find the discussion here) with a completely different interface, and we're still working on how the Expand/Collapse functionality will work in the new design.

We'll move your idea forward for broader conversation, but would you also add your comments about the too-short previews for collapsed threads to the product manager's post at  Feedback Request: Barrier(s) to Adopting the Redes... ? Our developers would love to hear from more students.

[boson]

Hello @Stef_retired,

As per your advice, I've added this comment to the product manager's post. I hope my feedback helps the team in improving this feature.

Thank you. 

[ProductPanda]

Comments from Instructure

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