Previous Next Controls Feature request

Hi @elixirgraphics,

I have a feature request for Alloy 3.

In the Blog Entries stack, in ‘Full Entry - Previous / Next Controls’, would it be possible to swap (or have the option to swap) the Previous / Next buttons round? Currently, the “Previous” button takes you to the LATER post chronologically, and vice versa with the “Next” button, which seems counterintuitive.

I’ve relabelled the buttons to swap them, so that “Next” takes you to a later post, and vice versa, but now I have “Next” on the left, and “Prev” on the right, which just looks wrong.

No idea if this is easy/hard/impossible, but thought I’d ask!

Best,

Adam.

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The good news is you can label those buttons as you like. But many folks are used to the blog structure: which uses reverse ordering. So what the buttons are doing by default is intuitive in the realm of blogging.

But the option to use your own wording is a key. One might sometimes use something like “newer” and “older” depending on the audience.

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That’s interesting! I had no idea :+1:

I do think it would be great if we could have the option to swap them round, so that the relabelled buttons don’t look the wrong way round (at least for those of us who aren’t au fait with the blogging realm) :grinning:

Swapping the buttons is nothing more than relabeling them. They still do the same task. That said, the Previous / Next Controls match the blog’s own pagination. If you have more than one page of posts you’ll notice the pagination at the bottom of the summary view works the same way.

Ah, I hadn’t quite got as far as having the second page of posts!

In which case, is there any possibility of having the option to swap that functionality, so that Previous / Next equate to Older / Newer posting dates, rather than the other way round? I’m not sure my site visitors are going to be used to the ‘realm of blogging’ - it certainly confused me!

Relabelling does work, but with “Next” on the left, and “Previous” on the right, it looks wrong, and (I now learn) will be counter to the way the blog list works, once I go over a single page-worth, so it’s not an elegant solution.

I get that many users will be traditional bloggers, but I’d imagine that many will want the navigation to reflect posting chronology, too, so it would definitely be good to have that option, if at all possible.

My suggestions would be to use different words then. Older & Newer perhaps. Or no words at all.

LOL, I’ll take that as a “No” then.

Older & Newer seems to work :+1:

Appreciate the response on a Sunday.

It isn’t a “No.” I’m simply looking to solve your problem though without adding complexity to an already very complex stack. More complexity can often lead to slower Edit Mode perforce in Stacks. Keep this down is important.

The Blog Entries stack currently works the same for the both the blog pagination and the previous & next controls. The blog pagination is pretty standard for blogs, and Alloy has had this model since the very first version in beta testing.

If I were to add this functionality it would not be soon as I have some other more important priorities that need to be looked at, so I was trying to help get you a solution that is palatable for you that wouldn’t require extension code changes.

Apologies if my response seemed flippant. Absolutely not my intent.

I appreciate your suggestion, Adam. It’s a more than palatable workaround until you get a chance to see if it’s possible to implement without seriously impacting things - which is in nobody’s best interest. And I fully appreciate that whilst it confused me, I may well be in a minority.

As ever, I’m excited to see the fruits of the other priorities. You know how much I love your work :grinning: