Feature request: clear column

[vengefulpunk]

The one feature missing from Fedistar for me is the ability to clear columns that way after I have read them I can clear the column and just see new posts/toots when I open fedistar next.

[h3poteto]

What do you mean?
Do you want to remove columns?

[vengefulpunk]

Not remove columns but a feature that I did use often in the past with tweetdeck was the clear feature. Which just removed all the posts in that column. It would then populate like normal when new toots are posted.

[h3poteto]

Ah, I got it.
But I don't know tweetdeck. What do you like about this feature? I don't understand the benefits at all.

[vengefulpunk]

I suppose the easiest way to describe its benefit is if you compare it to email, as it is like marking an email message read. When you have busy columns that is beneficial in order to know where you left off.

[h3poteto]

Emails don't disappear after I read them. I understand if it's an unread notification.
Generally, unread items are displayed in a way that makes them stand out (color or bold fonts), it will be in normal font after I mark read. Fedistar already has this implementation for notifications.
Why do you need to clear? When I clear the column, all statuses are removed from the column, right?

[amboutwe]

For me, this feature is crucial, too. When I open the app, I see all the columns I added. These columns go back hours, even days. I start at the top of the column and skim through toots. I close the app and go about my day. A few hours later, I open the app again. How do I know where I left off? Have I read the toots in this column already?

Clearing the column allows me to open the app, scroll to the bottom of the column and read from oldest to newest. Once I've looked at all of the toots in a column, I click clear. Now the column is empty, ready to be filled again with newly published toots. I move on to the next column. Rinse and repeat; never wasting time figuring out if I've already seen/read something. With a clear button, I can keep up with more toots in less time. 🎉

It is similar to the 'mark as read' in the notifications column but when the column is marked as read, toots are hidden in the column. TweetDeck didn't have a way to bring them back (mark as unread) so that could be a nice improvement. To improve upon the email mark as read/unread analogy, the clear is like the archive button in Gmail. In your inbox, you mark an email as read. Now you see a brighter unread email, a dimmed read email and when you click archive on either, they go to a different folder. Now your inbox is empty ready for the next email. You don't have to scroll through to find where you left off.

Here's a short clip to show what the clear button does in TweetDeck. This one shows using an app wide clear (uses a browser extension to trigger the per column clear but in bulk) but the same feature is available per column.

This is a requested feature on lots of Mastodon apps.

Example:
mastodon/mastodon#1539
mastodon/mastodon#8253
NicolasConstant/sengi#520
NicolasConstant/sengi#427
eramdam/BetterTweetDeck#40 (repo archived but they included it so might give an idea on how they did it)

[h3poteto]

If you want to read from where you last read, isn't it enough to remember the last position? like: h3poteto/whalebird-desktop#574
Of course, Fedistar doesn't have this feature too, but I don't understand why you need to clear columns to archive it. Even if we can clear the column, we need to scroll to the bottom of the column to read from the last read position. If Fedistar can remember the last position, we don't need to scroll to the bottom. Isn't this more convenient?

[vengefulpunk]

If Fedistar could remember the last position that would work for me

[amboutwe]

Save last position would work for me, too.

[h3poteto]

OK.
I don't have much passion for this right now, but I think it is better to save the last position when implementing.