Has anyone else noticed that the list of unread posts has an inconsistency in the display? If there’s only one new post on a topic, the list MIGHT or MIGHT NOT display a button on the right side. This is something that I’ve noticed for quite some time, but just had a great example pop up, so I took a couple of screenshots (below).
Here’s an example of when the screen showed that there were 2 topics with unread posts:
After clicking on the button to display the list, the first topic listed had the “New” button displayed to the right; the second topic listed didn’t. Why does it do that?
Yes, there is this little inconsistency. Better yet is sometimes when you refresh the web page you lose the count of unread posts. I see this often, where I know that there are a number of unread posts in a thread but it does not give an unread post count and I can only go to the last post and scan back to find the first unread (by me) post. Irritating. Even better yet is when there is an unread post count and the link takes me to its proper first unread post, but there are posts above that that I have yet to see.
SF said
Has anyone else noticed that the list of unread posts has an inconsistency in the display? If there's only one new post on a topic, the list MIGHT or MIGHT NOT display a button on the right side.
Yes. I have experienced this from the onset of the new forum.
When using the ‘back’ button on my iPad I sometimes revert to the list of remaining unread posts (good), but sometimes not, so I have to invoke the ‘list unread post’ button over again.
"What he is showing is correct (Or how SP works) but it is confusing.
He showed 2 topics with unread posts.
When he clicks on the popup he is shown the 2 topics which is correct.
The “New” button on the right means that after he read some of the posts in the topic there were more replies. So that button takes him to the first new reply, in that topic, that he has not read.
When there is no ‘new’ button that means that topic is new and he has not read any of the posts in that topic. In that case he would click on the topic name text and it will take him to the forum post #1 of that topic."
Would it make sense to have him reprogram it differently? If so, what would you all suggest? This certainly is not intuitive the way it is currently programmed.
st50maint is correct (thank you). There was only one unread post in each of those two topic threads when I took the screenshot. I’d read both threads earlier. In fact, I’ve been reading posts on the second topic - the one without the button - almost daily since I joined the forum.
Regarding the part where the programmer wrote:
"When there is no ‘new’ button that means that topic is new and he has not read any of the posts in that topic."
...it would appear that something's not working correctly, then.
The “New” button seems to show up most of the time on the list, but I’ve yet to detect a reliable pattern. If possible, I’d prefer it always appear, as clicking on the little loopy arrow to the left of “Last Post” to read the most recent post is a bit of a bother.
I agree with the above. I have also found that when there is a “new” button and I use it to read all the new posts in that thread (say six of them) and then go on to read other threads, if a new post is made to the first thread it will show seven new posts rather than six and, if I click on “new,” it will take me to the first of the six posts I already read.
@stevem2 - I’ve noticed something similar. It seems like I never quite know where it’s going to land - sometimes it’s on posts I’ve already read; sometimes below the point where I left off. Most of the time it seems to go to the right spot - or at least be in the ballpark.
Does this mean I’m going to have to learn how to find things all over again? As it is, the forum has become like the junk drawer in my garage - it’s a complete mess, there is no order, but at least it’s settled to a predictable state of chaos and I can occasionally find what I’m looking for.
Peanut Butter said
Does this mean I'm going to have to learn how to find things all over again? As it is, the forum has become like the junk drawer in my garage - it's a complete mess, there is no order, but at least it's settled to a predictable state of chaos and I can occasionally find what I'm looking for.
Really? I wonder if you could help me figure out what's "a mess". To me the new forums are soooo much easier to use, see what I like and read posts than any we've ever had, that I guess i am stumped by your comments.
And I found the Vanilla forums much easier to use. All threads listed in order of most recently posted, and I could easily and reliably go to the first unread post with one click. Much easier and MUCH faster!
I can easily change the order of the threads from beginning to end (as it is now) to last first if that’s what you want. I did that at first and everyone freaked out. Also, when you go to the forums area, the latest forum to be posted is shown, making it super easy to see who and what subject people are posting on. This seems really intuitive to me.
Shall I change things to the last posted first on threads?
wingsounds13 said
And I found the Vanilla forums much easier to use. All threads listed in order of most recently posted, and I could easily and reliably go to the first unread post with one click. Much easier and MUCH faster!
J.P.
+1
And clicking to the right of the button you need use to get to the posts you haven’t read didn’t mark all posts as read. A real pain in the neck.
Paul McGowan said
I can easily change the order of the threads from beginning to end (as it is now) to last first if that's what you want. I did that at first and everyone freaked out. Also, when you go to the forums area, the latest forum to be posted is shown, making it super easy to see who and what subject people are posting on. This seems really intuitive to me.
Shall I change things to the last posted first on threads?
The order threads are presented has little to do with the ease of use of this forum software. In fact when you had it reversed it couldn’t reliably take you to the correct page of posts when you wanted to get to the first post you hadn’t read when there was more than one page of posts.
Many forum software packages do a better, more reliable job of keeping track of what you have read and what you haven’t. This software updates some of the information it displays about posts you haven’t read when you open the first page and other counts dynamically. Often I see that there are, say, three unread posts, but the button that gives you a list of posts you haven’t read has nothing in it or conversely lists the posts I’ve already read - neither one is ideal.
If you make the mistake of clicking on the “mark everything as read” button, it takes a lot of time to go to each forum and then try to find the last posts you read in each topic. After all we don’t usually read posts in the order they were posted.
