Posts Since Last Visit

Emmie · Posted: Fri Jul 16, 2004 12:41 pm Post subject: Posts Since Last Visit

Every time I log in and look at the "Posts Since Last Visit" section, I see posts that are days old and definitely have not been posted on since my last log in. Is there anything I need to do to change that? Thanks!
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Shiloch Veneficus · Posted: Fri Jul 16, 2004 5:37 pm Post subject:

That's because "Post Since Last Visit" isn't really 'since last visit' anymore. It's "Posts You Have Not Read."

A while back, people complained that their unread flags weren't kept from one session to the next, and they would sometimes get wiped mid-session.

I recently installed a server-side unread flag database module that tracks the unread flags in the database. So anything you haven't read, on any computer, anywhere, anytime will stay unread until you read it, or until you get 300+ unread posts. After 300, it will dump the oldest and add the newest.

If you don't care to read the rest of the posts you 'have not read,' you can simply click the "Mark All Forums Read" link at the bottom of the forum list to the left to clear out your unread flags. You can also do it individually by forum in the topic list.

If people really don't like the unread flags being stored this way, it would be easy enough for me to remove it.

Emmie · Posted: Fri Jul 16, 2004 9:19 pm Post subject:

That's fine! Now I know, thanks!
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Kaosmos Tunebane · Posted: Sat Jul 17, 2004 10:08 am Post subject:

Oops, just saw this post. Disregard my duplicate question above.

And I'll cast my (strong) vote for returning this to the way it functioned before, please!!!

(Also, I'm not sure why this only started working this way for me a couple days ago if you changed it a while back...odd.)
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Shiloch Veneficus · Posted: Sat Jul 17, 2004 9:49 pm Post subject:

Well, it was only a couple weeks ago that I installed it, maybe three weeks. So maybe our timeframes are little skewed. Smile

At any rate, I'm not sure it's a good idea to go back from this type of unread flag functionality anyway. InvisionBB, one of phpBB's bigger competitors has been this way for a long time. There are others out there, most of which also track individual user unread posts. ezBoard also works this way. When phpBB 2.2 is released, it will work this way and there won't be any way to disable it.

If it's really that big of a deal (like, scrolling to the bottom to click "Mark All Posts Read" before you log out), I will uninstall the server-side unread post database. But, be forewarned, I will upgrade to 2.2 when it's released, and it will definately store unread posts server-side for each user.

Kaosmos Tunebane · Posted: Sun Jul 18, 2004 12:46 am Post subject:

Yeah, it actually is a pretty big deal for me at least. I don't see the point in converting a conveniently automated system to one requiring the hassle of manual input. Others may feel differently, however.

And I'm actually positive that this only started doing this for me 2-3 days ago. The whole time I was in Guatemala accessing the board from net cafes, it worked the other way, and here at home on both the main machine and the laptop after I returned. I have no explanation for this.
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Shiloch Veneficus · Posted: Sun Jul 18, 2004 2:53 am Post subject:

It's not really an issue of manual input vs. automation. It's an issue of losing unread post information. With the old-fashioned cookie-timestamp method, you'd lose all of your unread post information after a single thread click, or if your connection dies in the middle of browsing, or if you accidentally logout.

Now, it's impossible to lose this information without either reading the topic, or marking them read.

At any rate, poll is going up in Polling Station. Will do what the masses want. Very Happy

Kaosmos Tunebane · Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2004 8:54 pm Post subject:

It's not really an issue of manual input vs. automation. It's an issue of losing unread post information.

Not for me. But majority opinion seems to be going the other way, and democracy is a good thing. I would appreciate it if you could make it clear where the "mark all posts as read" button can be found, since I have yet to encounter it. Thanks.
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Shiloch Veneficus · Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2004 5:29 pm Post subject:

Okay, here are the screenshots of where the important links are located.

On the home page, the link that will pull up the search:

On the forum list (Index) where you can make all forums read, it is to the bottom left:

On the topic list (in the forum), you can mark all topics read just for that forum:

Kaosmos Tunebane · Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2004 7:58 pm Post subject:

Thanks, I didn't see the "all forums" link and was starting to think one had to do each one separately. Which would have made me kill myself.

It's still kinda weird that my new post count (the first thing you screenshotted) still reports the correct number (meaning the number that have been posted since my last visit), but when I click on it, it takes me to a list of EVERYTHING I didn't read the last time, meaning there's no way to access what is being reported.
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Shiloch Veneficus · Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2004 10:51 pm Post subject:

You're right. That's a bug. It still updates that number with the old method. I'm still working on a fix for that. Crying or Very sad

Kaosmos Tunebane · Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2004 11:00 pm Post subject:

Ah, gotcha.

I suppose it would be silly to ask if there were any way to easily implement *both* systems? Heh. (I know, I know, if there were, you would have done so rather than take the poll.)
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Shiloch Veneficus · Posted: Thu Jul 22, 2004 4:49 pm Post subject:

Yea, there's even been discussion about that on the developer's forum.

There are other people who've installed this sytem and had people not like it, so you're not the only one. It's been asked for, but there's no way at the current to disable it for specific users, it's all or none.

It's all kind of moot anyway, because when 2.2 is released, it's going to include this functionality. It may work better, or worse. There's just no way to know. If I had the web space to play with, I'd install the CVS releases for experimental purposes, but I'm already eating up enough of Tyr's disk space. Razz

Geadiin · Posted: Thu Jul 22, 2004 6:54 pm Post subject:

heh heh heh...he said CVS (and I know what he means!) j/k

I see the two "mark all items read" buttons that you show, but what I would *really* like is to see that "mark all items read" at the bottom or top of my "items since last visit" list. That list shows me all of the items i haven't viewd yet, spread across different forums and I want to be able to mark them all read from there instead of clicking the link to go to the Forums list and then mark them all read from there.

Does this make sense?

It's not a big deal, but just a feature request.

Thanks for all the cool work
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Geadiin ~ 67 Ranger
Akselo ~ 70 Bard
Babmatil ~ 70 Magician

Shiloch Veneficus · Posted: Thu Jul 22, 2004 7:58 pm Post subject:

Yes, yes. I saw your post in Announcements. It's a good idea and I'm going to see if I can do that. 20-hour days just aren't friendly for PHP programming. Razz

One small problem at current is that the "Posts Since Last Visit" page is just the search module with a hardcoded search. If I'm thinking correctly, if I put this link on that page, it's going to show up on every search result page. Will give it a shot and see how it comes out soon.