The Z-key is back! SB Nation’s commenting section just got a massive upgrade

It took a while, but it’s back! Coral, SB Nation’s new commenting platform, is getting a massive upgrade which every single member of this blog was looking forward to — the Z key functionality is finally back!

What is it?

Unread comments are marked in yellow on this site. Pressing the z-key allows you to mark each of those comments as “read” and move to the next comment. This was one of the highlight features of the old SB Nation commenting system, something that made it unique and infinitely better than Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, or any other forum on the internet really.

With the Z-key, having discussions about the club we love is smoother than ever, and if you joined us after we made the switch to Coral, you’ll see how amazing it is! This post can be your testing ground, so try it out to your heart’s content!

The upgrades everyone wanted

There is now a way to have the entire comments section loaded all at once, and have automatic updating of comments in real time without needing to refresh the webpage. The slowdown issue some users faced has been fixed, and I can attest that our Iceland vs Germany gamethread was as smooth as butter. No need to refresh anymore!

Also, the Z-key automatically expands any new comment when you press it. Basically, your need to click “show more replies” and “load more” is completely removed due to the implementation of this feature. This should make every single thread, especially gamethreads, a lot more enjoyable.

Extra features

Longtime users of the site know what the Z-key is and how to use it, but there’s more! You can now use your mouse to click on whichever comment you want, and it’s marked as read. Then you can use the Z-key to continue reading from there.

Basically, this way you can scroll through long threads and pick and choose which conversations you want to read and at which time. Combined with Coral’s sorting options, the new commenting system provides versatility that the old system didn’t have!

Other shortcuts

Coral also has some other shortcuts which you may or may not be aware of:

• Z – go to next unread comment
• shift-A – mark all comments that have loaded as ‘read’
• C – go to the next comment, regardless of if it’s new or not
• shift-C – go to the previous comment
• control-B – add/remove bold text in the comment you’re writing
• control-I – add/remove italic text in the comment you’re writing

Z and C should be your main methods of navigating the comments section. Try it out! The experience is amazing!

A message from us at BFW

Huge thanks to the Coral team for getting this out as soon as they could, and being clear an transparent on what they were working on and how things were proceeding. I put my faith in them and promised that the Z-key function would be coming back soon, and they delivered.

Hopefully, any of you who were put off by the switch start commenting like you used to. Coral is different, but with the Z-key back, it really is amazing. And if you haven’t made an account and like reading our blog, sign up and say hi!

We’re just about to go into a key part of the season, where we face RB Leipzig and Barcelona. We have everything here, from analysis to news to podcasts, to massive live game threads. This place is a great community so if you’re a Bayern Munich fan, feel free to join the discussion! There’s no better time than the present!