FE-FC Holden Discussion Forum

Hello,

I know this subject has been discussed many times, but I've noticed on other forums a "View all new posts" feature which shows up all new posts since your last visit.

Is it possible, without too much strain and/or effort to incorporate this here?

that is, if it's possible (perhaps willingness too on RET's behalf) and considered worth while by forum users?

Cheers

Ed

It's definitey something that I'd be interested in.  Actually it was a question I was going to ask myself!  Thanks Ed :)
Also I have noticed thqt my computer seems to 'regress' as it were - telling me that I haven't viewed things that I have!  Maybe it's blonde!!

Ed
What a great idea. There are time i dont know if i have read it or not, and dont have time to go looking though everthing. This would solve all that and more I reckon.

Cheers
Sarge

Love yer work Sarge!  ;D

It is easy.  All yer gotta do is keep watching out for fences being erected, new sports grounds, telegraph poles being replaced etc.  You'll view all new posts if you're diligent.


Spinner ;D

Hmmm.  In a word? No.

If I was going to do any programming on that "View Recent Posts" option, it would be to remove it entirely.

I believe that using this function like a news feed is one of the leading causes of confusion, irrelevancy, miscommunication and looking like a tool by repeating stuff that's already been said by others.  These discussions are in threads for a reason.

Every board identifies (with the blue dot) if it has updated threads since your last visit.  Every thread identifies (with the [new] icon) if it has new posts since your last visit.  Why would you not want to read these in their original context?  (That's a rhetorical question, too.)

However, if there are any Perl programmers out there who'd like to tackle the program changes required, let me know and I'll send you the source code.  Knock yourselves out.

cheers
RET

To answer Cat's question/observation, there is a timelimit to the "read" status, so eventually an old topic will be marked as unread or new after a period of time.

Cat,

You're right - a board that has had no activity for more than 30 days will show up with the blue light icon.  This is particularly noticeable on the rarely used boards like Reproduction Parts and the Model Cars one.  From the last post entry it is easy to see if any of the boards are suffering this regression, before going into them.

The cure when it starts to occur is to read everything (or at least everything in the boards in which you have an interest), and then on the front page click the "Mark ALL Posts As Read" button.  This resets the flags for all threads on all boards.  If you've already gone into a board and discovered that there aren't any new posts after all, click the "Mark Topics As Read" button.  This has the same effect, but only for that board, obviously.

And as a general aside, I find using a browser that supports "Tabbed Browsing" (ie not Internet Exploiter) makes using this forum a breeze and pretty much renders the Last 10 Posts link redundant.  I use Safari (for MacOSX), but Mozilla's Firefox ($2) (available for PC and Mac) also has this feature, as do others.  Browsers other than IE are also far more secure from viruses, Trojans and other nasties that plague the PC platform.  Security in IE is a bad joke, it's about as solid on that front as a colander made of swiss cheese.

Anyway, getting back to using Tabs for browsing the forum.  You open the main forum page, and then open each of the boards that show new posts in a new Tab.  Then in each Tab you simply start at the oldest topic with a new post, and click "Newer Topic" to progress forward to the latest post.  This approach gives you only the recent stuff, but with each post's full context.

cheers
RET