AppleVis: When did the forums get updated?

By Brian, 14 September, 2026

Forum

Site News, Updates, and Feedback

Hello all,

As I was perusing some of the new post this morning, I noticed a brand new and shiny "reply" button at the end of everybody's comment. So I'm wondering, when did the forums get updated? And is this the layout that was attempted, and disregarded, before?
Or is it a new update to the host software?

Thanks for reading, and please discuss! 🙂👍

Disclaimer, apologies if I put this in the wrong forum.

Options

Comments

Ooh, it’s back!

The ability to reply to specific comments is something that has come and gone from the site a few times now. Ultimately I think the idea is good and makes sense, but it's resulted in issues where comments have ended up as threads within threads, sometimes you’ve needed to expand a thread to view it in full, it's not been entirely clear which comment something was in response to etc. Will be interesting to see this new approach if it's sticking around.

testing...

Yes sorry I can't think of anything particularly interesting to say, I just wanted to try it and see what happens.

Replies are Baaaaack!

Hi all,

As of a few hours ago, replies are once again back on AppleVis! I had been intending to make a post about this, but am running around trying to get our iOS/iPadOS release content out the door.

We have a wonderful web developer who does all of our Drupal work. I meet with him weekly, and last week I mentioned our previous reply functionality, told him how I would like it to work, and asked if he could research current options to get something like that working again. On Friday he came back to me with a very minor change to allow user reply to comments, and I asked him to please put it into production ASAP. And so here we are. I am quite excited about this, to say the least.

noticed that too

I noticed that too and am so happy to see it!

Testing a reply to Michael Hansen

Hi,

Let us hope this replies system works better than the last one you guys tried to implement. 😱

Re: Replies

OK, I like how the forums are staying in a list view, with just some added functionality. Kudos to the Drupal devs on that one. I did notice however with my reply above, that the word, "bookmark", still shows up on a reply that is auto pasted when you use the reply function. Wondering if that can be fixed, or if that bug is here to stay, I know it's been around for a while when we copy last text on a subject heading and then paste it into a new subject line.
Also, has anyone else noticed that when you navigate by headings, each of the comments have the word bookmark at the very end?

Re: bookmarks

I'm not hearing the word Bookmarks anywhere except in your last post unless I'm being my normal dozy self and missing it.

What I have noticed - if I select Reply, at the top it says something like this:

Add New Comment To <em Class="placeholder">AppleVis: When Did The Forums Get Updated?</em> 2 of 2

So I am hearing some of the html which I think isn't intentional.

I am using Safari with Tahoe.

But otherwise, seems good to me - nice and simple and doesn't drastically change the way you navigate comments.

mr grieves

That's interesting that your Mac does that. On Firefox for Windows, I don't have the bookmark issue at all, but on voiceover for iOS, I do. For example, your last comment looks like the following:

Re: bookmarks, heading level 3, Bookmark
New
By mr grieves on Monday, September 14, 2026 - 16:19

Note the word, "bookmark", at the end of the heading. Every single comment reads like that for me on the AppleVis website.

I love to see new features

I love to see new features still being added to this forum. It's one of my favorite forums to visit, and I'm still so happy it's around.

I Hear Those Bookmarks

Brian, I can confirm I hear the same thing as you do on iOS 27 RC. Thank you for flagging this - I will send to our developer.

It comes and goes

The reply button came and went for a few times. I wouldn't be happy if it went again, but wouldn't be surprised either.

an idea I have in mind

From a technical standpoint, was this done in drupal cor or coded by hand? In either case, would be dandy if replies were listed on their own headings, I'm thinking heading 4? I navigate headings all the time and it's kind of hard to tell weather it's a reply or not. Anyways, keep up the good work.

That Threaded Comments Functionality

The threaded comments functionality we enabled for one day last year was my non-developer attempt to get replies to work. I'm glad we tried it, but oh what a mess that was. I still laugh about that whole thing because it was so bad it was comical.

What Do You Have in Mind?

Hi Jonathan, so are you saying you would like comments at level 3 and any comment as a 'Reply' to be at level 4? If the comments were still presented in chronological order regardless of whether they were replies or not, would you still want this?

Indeed

That was where my brain was headed. Yes, main comments as they always were and replies at heading level four. Because lets say you only wanna skim through the main comments but not replies. Plus easier to tell if a reply is a reply without having to look at the whole thing. I hope this is making sense. I don't know I just like making navigation easier. However I'm wondering what other people thinks about this whole thing or if it's a stupid idea all together Lol.

Applevis has crossed a new milestone

Forget llm, forget agents.
A new, already proven / working technology has arrived. Replies work!
Let's go IPO guys. I'll invest!

New replies

I really like the chronological approach as it’s more like a classical forum and reading is very straightforward.
One thing that I noticed, however, is that the link after “In reply to” is not a traditional in-page link (anchor link) so activating such a link does not take you to the comment that another person has replied to.

About "Bookmark" Verbosity

Hi Brian,

I checked with our developer, and links to individual comments are coded in the HTML as "Bookmark" links, which, based on our research, we believe is the correct implementation. This is not a change that was made with our addition of 'Reply' functionality - the bookmark coding was there previously. It appears that VoiceOver on iOS is now picking up on this attribute whereas, for example, JAWS on Windows does not.

RE: New Replies

Hi Manuel,

Thank you for this report - I will share with our developer. What platform/screen reader are you using?

For Mr Grieves

Hi Mr Grieves,

The issue with the extra HTML verbosity should now be resolved - thank you for reporting. At your convenience, please let me know your findings and if you have any other feedback.

Hi

Who usualy works on the website. Is It volunteers, or what.

Re: Replies Are Baaaaack!

Hi Michael,
I'm so happy to see replies back!! I can't tell you how many times I wanted to reply to someone's comment or reference it, but couldn't! Thank you!

Thanks

That was quick - now seems good. Thank you!

Re: RE: New Replies

I use Safari on Mac, iPhone and iPad with VoiceOver. However, it's a general problem that the links are not anchor links, every platform should behave incorrectly at the moment (at least I think that it would be desired that a click on the link should take focus to the heading of the referenced comment).