Improvements to bookmarking

[JanineMumsnet]

Hello,

A couple of weeks ago some of the eagle eyed among you noticed there were some changes made to bookmarks. Unfortunately these changes were accidentally released a little too early - so some features were broken, and, understandably, many of you were a bit concerned. We're sorry about that.

The first change was to improve the visibility of the bookmarking feature on your mobile devices. We removed the bookmarking option from the dotted menu and created a new icon, and added some styling which changed the colour of the bookmarked post. These changes seemed to be received well and so we're going to release these in the wild today - please let us know if you've any questions or suggestions about any of that.

The second part of the change was related to how bookmarking interacts with 'Threads I'm Watching' - if you saw the changes you will have noted that by clicking 'bookmark' this automatically added the thread to your watch list. The reason we did this was based on a survey we asked users to fill in here back in February. The overwhelming feedback from this survey was that some users found it frustrating that they also had to separately add a thread to TIW and they thought this should be automatic. BUT it's clear from what you told us that there are other ways people use bookmarks, so you'll be glad to know we won't be releasing that part. We hold our hands up and admit we got that wrong, but we'll be reworking the solution to perhaps include a preference so you can choose whether you want that option or not per thread. As always, any suggestions on how you think we could best do that are always welcome.

It will be really useful to hear your thoughts on bookmarking and the threads I'm on/watching/started so that we don't miss something important - please feel free to add any feedback you have to this thread.

Thanks

MNHQ

I like the bookmark. Thank you.

Like the new bookmark functionality but I wouldn’t want all my bookmarks adding to watched threads. I read and bookmark lots of threads but don’t add that many to my watchlist.

It was frustrating experience, thanks for the update.

I really like it.
I'm so institutionalised though that for a while I kept clicking on the three dots and wondering where the bookmarks facility was.
When I was looking at it!
With my eyes!!

How about fixing things that are actually rubbish and broken rather than making "improvements"?

I don't like it! It's really annoying as the bookmark is too close to the dots on my phone so I keep selecting the dots by mistake, which are then not that easy to un-select.

Can the bookmark and dots be moved further apart from each other? How about putting the bookmark to the far right and the dots more central?

@SandAndSea thanks for the feedback. We will try to get the dots and the bookmark moved further apart. Having them at opposite ends of the post isn't possible for the moment, but I will see what I can do about moving the dots/bookmark slightly further apart.

I like it

I really like it, I'm glad you ditched the automatic watching, thank you!

I like the new bookmark function. But definitely don’t want all my bookmarked threads added to threads im watching. That would be every single thread I’ve read!! I use threads I'm watching just for threads I want to go back and read when I have more time. I don’t want to have to trawl through hundreds of threads for a recipe I saved 5 weeks ago.

I don't mind the icon, but do we really need the word as well? It's not necessary, IMO. It's jumping out at me as it's repeated so many times on my screen that it's the first thing I see.

I have pressed the bookmark but don't know where/how to re access them - if anyone knows how please.

@ILoveCrunchyAutumnLeaves - it's a bookmark like you leave in a book, rather than a bookmarked page in a browser. It remembers the last post you read to so, if you go back to the thread later, you get taken straight back to the last bit you read, rather than to the beginning of the thread. If you want to remember a thread to read later, you need to "watch" it (from the arrow down menu at the top of the thread)

I don’t know why or when I’d ever use the bookmark facility and I’ve been here over ten years now! So to me it’s just making the threads look more cluttered.

I use the bookmark facility on a lot of threads I read just in case I want to catch up later.

I bookmark almost every thread I read, so that if I ever select that thread again I'll be taken to straight to the last post I read. I don't want every thread I bookmark to be added to Threads I'm Watching please. I'd prefer to specifically watch any thread that I want to be able to find later.

I do like the new Bookmark on the mobile site.

It's great, thanks!

One question. The bookmarked post turns grey. Can I change it to a more distinct colour? So I can pick it out easier.

@Datun I'm afraid at the moment we only have the one colour available, but if this is a popular change we might incorporate the ability to customise the colour.

@ILoveCrunchyAutumnLeaves Unfortunately at the moment you would have to also 'watch' the thread too in order to find the thread. But we are working on an option whereby we make that process easier when you've bookmarked a thread (without automatically adding it to a watch list).

Ideally, of course, we'd have a separate list for bookmarked threads, but at the moment that would be too complex a change, but it's definitely something we will scope out.

Ok Janine, cheers.

I like it. I think it's a great!

I like the fact you only have to press once for bookmark now on mobile, but the colours are a problem for me. I have customised the OPs posts so that it’s easy to see when they update. With the bookmarked post now changing colour, it isn’t clear if I’ve bookmarked the OP’s post or another commenter. Hope there is scope to change this in the future. I also hope more people use the bookmark function now rather than ‘placemarking’!

I hate it. Keep almost sending posters pm’s instead of bookmarking the post.

I've never used bookmarks before, but it sounded ideal in long threads so I went to try it out. Picked a longish thread and bookmarked a post about halfway down, came out of it, and then went back into the thread, and it still took me to the OP instead of my bookmarked post.

Am I using it wrong? Or is this another issue with the Android app?

How do you un-bookmark something?? I clicked the bookmark button by mistake on a post!

I opened this thread to ask the exact same question as toffee1000. I've accidentally hit the bookmark button reading a thread on my phone and I can't work out how to un-bookmark it.