Forum improvement(?) suggestion

[wepwawet]

Hi,

as I often read topic reply notifications via blackberry I loose the content of "View posts since last visit".

If the reply mail would contain the new post as plain text I would not need to follow the link what causes this phenomenon.

Of course the logic of the mail is configured that way that I do not get following posts on the same topic later. but I would prefer it this way.

... if possible ...

What do you think?

[debs3759]

I'm not sure if I properly understood what you describe, but it does sound like a problem I have...

Because I have to log in from the local library, I have no control over things like cookies and other ways used to store information. A result is that if I am not online for a few days, sometimes there are more messages than I can read in the given time. I would consider it an excellent update to the site code if things could be altered in such a way that ONLY THE SERVER has to remember what you have read. That way if I don't get to read all messages on any visit, the remainder will still show up as unread next time and I don't miss any potentially useful info.

As I said above, I am not sure if we are talking about the same problem (or solution), but hopefully additional feedback will make it easier to find a useful solution

[wepwawet]

yep, debs, the reason fot your and my problem is exactly the same.
No matter if it is a pc where you can not check all the new posts or a handheld with a matchbox size display and a connection speed that remembers 14.4 times.

but if ALL posts would stay in the list as long as you don't read them you would need to klick on many stuff just to get rid of it.

Therefor I would still like the plain text of the new post in the topic reply notification AND a clear-all-button in the "view-posts-since..."-view -- since it is possible to follow your suggestion with no cookies etc.

[gshv]

I don't think it's possible to implement this. Forum software doesn't know whether you have time to read all new posts or not, and, if you don't read some new posts, it doesn't know if you did it because of lack of time or because you're not interested reading them. So, instead of this change it's better (in my opinion) to give users an option to change last visit time. I just installed a mod that shows "(Change)" link next to "You last visited on <date/time>" text at the top of each forum page. You can use it to change last visit date if you need to.

Gennadiy

[gshv]

I forgot to mention: I'll see if it's possible to add post text to notification messages.

Gennadiy

[wepwawet]

thanks gennadiy.

for both:-)

[Wizzard1]

Why not have the server remember what time the use last loggegd in, and have a queue of what time threads were last posted on, so when a user connects, the server checks to see which posts have not been displayed, and then forwards them to the user?

[gshv]

The forum already does that - it saves the last visit date on the server so that you can login from any computer and see what posts are new. Cookies only have session id and forum user name data. As I understand the problem that people are having is that when you log in to read one or a few posts and forget/don't have time to read all new posts, then the forum resets your last visit date and you won't know what other posts were new when you login next time.

Gennadiy

[debs3759]

That's right - the problem I have is when the computers at the library randomly log me out and I lose all settings, or I can't online often enough and lose some settings so sometimes miss threads that would ahve been of particular interest.

Shouldn't be a problem soon, for me, as I got most of my phone bill paid so will soon (after over a year!) be back online at home