Hi everyone, I’m writing this after a discussion @L e n a had with @ingo9 about Flexbox and some articles published on Puce & Média.Out of curiosity, I went to read the related thread myself, and I have to admit I had real trouble finding and following the actual exchanges.For context, I’m not directly involved in that discussion, but I wanted to understand how it unfolded.Since the new version of the forum, I find it difficult to read threads and follow conversations, especially when replies are nested. For example, in this thread: Methods for image gallery+captions, flexbox vs gridbox At first glance, I only see one comment, while there are actually many replies hidden inside nested threads.To read them, I have to manually expand each level, and if there are replies inside replies, I have to repeat the process.As a result, it becomes quite hard to:understand the full conversation, see where replies were added, or even notice that new answers exist at all. In this case, the original poster added comments, and @L e n a replied to some of them. When reading the thread afterwards, nothing clearly indicates that these replies are there. You really have to go searching for them. Because of my background (former ACP), I first tried to check the back room to see if there was some guidance or explanation about this new behavior, but access was denied. That’s why I’m posting this question here instead. So I’d like to ask:Is there a recommended way to follow nested replies properly? Is there a setting or workflow that makes new replies easier to spot? Or is this simply how the new forum UI is intended to work? This is not meant as criticism, but as a genuine usability question. I’m trying to understand how we’re supposed to efficiently read and follow technical discussions with the current interface.Thanks in advance for any clarification.

Legend

Answered

How to properly follow discussions with nested replies?

Forum|Forum|8 days ago
February 6, 2026
8 replies
150 views

Hi everyone,

I’m writing this after a discussion @L e n a had with @ingo9 about Flexbox and some articles published on Puce & Média.

Out of curiosity, I went to read the related thread myself, and I have to admit I had real trouble finding and following the actual exchanges.

For context, I’m not directly involved in that discussion, but I wanted to understand how it unfolded.

Since the new version of the forum, I find it difficult to read threads and follow conversations, especially when replies are nested.

For example, in this thread: Methods for image gallery+captions, flexbox vs gridbox

At first glance, I only see one comment, while there are actually many replies hidden inside nested threads.
To read them, I have to manually expand each level, and if there are replies inside replies, I have to repeat the process.

As a result, it becomes quite hard to:

understand the full conversation,
see where replies were added,
or even notice that new answers exist at all.

In this case, the original poster added comments, and @L e n a replied to some of them. When reading the thread afterwards, nothing clearly indicates that these replies are there. You really have to go searching for them.

Because of my background (former ACP), I first tried to check the back room to see if there was some guidance or explanation about this new behavior, but access was denied. That’s why I’m posting this question here instead.

So I’d like to ask:

Is there a recommended way to follow nested replies properly?
Is there a setting or workflow that makes new replies easier to spot?
Or is this simply how the new forum UI is intended to work?

This is not meant as criticism, but as a genuine usability question. I’m trying to understand how we’re supposed to efficiently read and follow technical discussions with the current interface.

Thanks in advance for any clarification.

Correct answer osgood_

Birnou, l agree 100%. The replies are 'hidden' and easily missed, the thread in most cases makes no sense. Looks pretty but in my opinion as it stands very very poor usability.... young kids of today rolling this type of appallingly solution out.......got to laugh or you would cry.

Obviously any new format takes time to understand but some features just make it unnecessarily frustrating.......less is usually more. I'm sure you can remember the previous forum and the uproar when that one was rolled out.

Nancy OShea

Community Expert

Clicking your screen name displays all your recent activity. See screenshot.

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert

B i r n o uAuthor

Legend

Thanks for the suggestion.

I did try navigating via notifications, and while it does take you to a specific comment, it doesn’t really solve the problem of following the discussion as a whole.

When a thread contains multiple nested branches, clicking a notification scrolls to the targeted reply, but there’s no visual highlight to clearly show where you are in the conversation. You then have to re-read the surrounding replies to understand the context.

Also, to move to another notification, you need to scroll back to the top of the page where the notifications are located. That breaks the reading flow, and you quickly lose track of the discussion you were following.

In practice, this ends up being the same as clicking the link from the email notification. It brings you to a single reply, but doesn’t help you understand how that reply fits into the overall conversation, especially when multiple branches are active.

That’s why, from a day-to-day usage perspective, notifications don’t really address the issue of following a technical discussion across nested replies.

B i r n o uAuthor

Legend

Just out of curiosity: how many readers of this thread are able to locate and follow my last four comments posted across different nested branches?
The most important one is the reply to Nancy.

B i r n o uAuthor

Legend

Thanks, @osgood_ , that’s exactly what I experienced.

In fact, I’m not looking for a special workflow or hidden features. I simply tried to read the discussion after @L e n a mentioned it Methods for image gallery+captions, flexbox vs gridbox, and it was honestly difficult to follow. Replies are there, but they are easy to miss, and once you miss a few, the thread quickly stops making sense.

I understand that the platform is still evolving, but in its current state, following a technical discussion is not easy, especially when you arrive later or when you are not the original poster.

For me, the issue is not about clicking more or less. It’s about being able to clearly see the conversation and understand how replies connect to each other, without having to search for them.

Since we don’t have access to the back rooms as non-members, this thread is really a field feedback from regular users. If someone from Adobe is reading, this kind of usability issue has a direct impact on how the forum is used day to day.

I also noticed other UI and usability problems while using the new forum, so this is not an isolated case. I will probably open a new thread for the other UI and usability issues, to avoid falling into exactly what we’re talking about here 😉

Thanks again for the input.

Nancy OShea

Community Expert

In very long discussions containing threaded & non-threaded replies, like Preran’s Welcome to the New Community, click the + Show More button to see previous posts.

The main topic reports 90 replies. But buried inside it are many more uncounted replies that we are presently unable to move to other product forums. As of this writing, the actual post count is closer to 300.

This new platform is a work in progress. Completion is expected to take 8-10 weeks. In the meantime, Adobe’s team are communicating with Gainsight based on input from Community Experts and Adobe employees.

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert

B i r n o uAuthor

Legend

Thanks for the clarification.

I understand the current limitations of the platform and that this is still a work in progress. The information about the real number of replies versus what is displayed actually confirms the confusion from a reader’s point of view.

That said, using “Show more” and manually expanding nested replies doesn’t really address the core issue raised here. The difficulty is not how to reveal hidden replies, but how to know they are there, how to spot new activity, and how to follow a technical discussion over time without actively hunting for messages.

From a usage perspective, this makes long or active threads very hard to read and track, especially for people using the forum as part of a daily production workflow.

I’ll wait for additional input from other community experts, as I suspect there may be more practical ways to approach this in the meantime.

Thanks for the update.

Nancy OShea

Community Expert

See screenshot.

The highlighted text will take you to the most recent post, threaded or non-threaded.

Hope that helps.

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert

O

osgood_Correct answer

Legend

Birnou, l agree 100%. The replies are 'hidden' and easily missed, the thread in most cases makes no sense. Looks pretty but in my opinion as it stands very very poor usability.... young kids of today rolling this type of appallingly solution out.......got to laugh or you would cry.

Obviously any new format takes time to understand but some features just make it unnecessarily frustrating.......less is usually more. I'm sure you can remember the previous forum and the uproar when that one was rolled out.

Nancy OShea

Community Expert

...the thread in most cases makes no sense.

========

There’s no going back now. Too much time, money & sweat equity are invested in this new platform.

Open up the More + links to show threaded replies.

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert

B i r n o uAuthor

Legend

Thanks for the clarification, @Nancy OShea .

I understand that the platform is now in place and that expanding replies via the “More +” links is currently the only way to access threaded discussions.

However, just to restate the original point of this thread: the question was not how to reveal hidden replies, but how to follow a discussion in practice.

More specifically:

how to clearly see that new replies exist,
how to track where activity happens in long threads,
and how to read a discussion without having to systematically expand and search for content.

On that usability aspect, the current workflow remains difficult, especially for readers arriving later or using the forum as part of daily production work.

So while the mechanism itself is understood, the underlying readability and tracking issue is still unresolved from a user point of view.

Thanks again for the clarification.

I

ingo9

Known Participant

I agree, it’s confusing with threads intertwined. However, often the issues are linked to each other which is also important to grasp. Lena suggested I start a new thread for a side topic which I will try from now on.

I’m in the midst of learning DW from scratch so I have loads of questions. Following various YouTube courses is extremely useful but tends to produce even more questions.

Ingemar

O

osgood_

Legend

I agree, it’s confusing with threads intertwined. However, often the issues are linked to each other which is also important to grasp. Lena suggested I start a new thread for a side topic which I will try from now on.

I’m in the midst of learning DW from scratch so I have loads of questions. Following various YouTube courses is extremely useful but tends to produce even more questions.

Ingemar

Well if you want my advice you probably want to explore using AI for producing simple coded websites these days or simple components to include in a website as its extremely efficient and fast albeit you need to be explicit in the information you provide an AI agent so the more knowledge of how websites are structured and the code they use is a prerequisite.

B i r n o uAuthor

Legend

just a new post in the mean time for testing as the previous one

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded