visualizing journal entries

[darkoshi]

Slightly related to: https://darkoshi.dreamwidth.org/751846.html

I just realized why I'm always so confused when I see these links at the bottom of journal pages:
" Previous 20 | Next 20 "
or even
" << Previous 20 | Next 20 >> "


I'm never sure which link goes to the journal entries further back in time versus forward in time. "Previous" seems like it could mean the more recent ones I just read and "Next" could mean the next ones I haven't read yet but want to. Or "Previous" could mean further back in time and "Next" could mean forward in time.

The difficulty is because I visualize the older entries being on the right side.
That's opposite from how I visualize numbers on a number line, so I don't know why I visualize entries that way. But realizing that, I finally understand which way the links are supposed to go!

Now let's see if I can remember it.

.

Later: Ok wait. So I need to click the link on the left to go to the entries on the right. Yes, that is it.

Comments

[marahmarie]

Always had the same problem on LJ and through some of my time on DW. How I remember now is "Previous: older; Next: newer" which sort of helps my brain stop flailing so I can decide which link to click.

(Now I wonder did we have s2 on LJ to reverse the link order because I agree it should be the other way around. And now I wonder what it'd take to reverse it in s2 over here...)

(And thinking about making a formal suggestion for the ability to flip them around (if I haven't already, heh) but that might wander into "too many features" territory, I don't know.)

[darkoshi]

I was thinking there might be a way to customize it to say "older entries" and "newer entries" instead of "next" and "previous". But I'm too lazy.

Next/newer is a good mnemonic; I'll try remembering that.

But why is it that we are confused by the default? Number lines go left to right. Books go left to right. How did you and I end up expecting journal entries to go the other way? I haven't figured that out yet.

[marahmarie]

I was thinking there might be a way to customize it to say "older entries" and "newer entries" instead of "next" and "previous". But I'm too lazy.

Under Options/Text: https://www.dreamwidth.org/customize/options?group=text if you look for Prev # / Next #, you can change them to whatever you want.

Doesn't reverse the order of Prev/Next links, though, which is what I'm after (I don't change the text as I like less of it, generally speaking, so to keep things manageable I stick with the defaults).