Unread posts

[ngreenwood6]

I am actively part of another community that has a great feature that I think would benefit this community. They have 2 links at the top of the forums. One says "show unread posts since last visit" and the other says "show new replies to your posts". I love the show unread posts since last visit link because I can see all the new posts and help someone that is in need of help (you can mark all as read when you return so that you can start with a clean slate). It also helps you find out if someone replies to a post. The show new replies to your posts is also great so you can see if someone replied directly to your posts (which could then turn off instant email notification saving some bandwidth). Just thought you might want to look into some of those features because they would only make this an even better community.

[si_the_geek]

Thanks for the suggestions, but we basically have both of those features already (and have done for a long time).


For "show new replies to your posts", simply click on the "UserCP" link just above the first post in this thread (or any VBF page).

Note that your subscription option (via "UserCp" -> "Edit Options" -> "Default Thread Subscription Mode") needs to be something other than "Do not subscribe".


For "show unread posts since last visit", use the "New Posts" link at the top of the page.

It isn't quite the same, as it actually keeps track of the threads you have read (so if you didn't read 10 threads last time you were here, those 10 will still be listed along with the more recent ones).

You can mark all of our forums as read by clicking on "Quick Links"->"Mark Forums Read", or mark an individual forum as read by opening the forum and clicking "Forum Tools" -> "Mark this forum read".

[Kasracer]

I wanted this as well but eventually gave up and use subscriptions. I would prefer to do all of my posts but vBulletin doesn't know how to implement it or something.

[si_the_geek]

I'm not sure what you mean, could you give a bit more info?

[Kasracer]

I'm not sure what you mean, could you give a bit more info?

One of his points was basically clicking on a link and it'll show all of the threads you've posted in with the latest ones at the top. This way you're not cluttering up subscriptions (especially since I enabled subscriptions about 1-2 months ago so I'll never know if someone responds to something I posted 3 months ago or even longer).

The Zune forums do this and it's very handy. I'm not sure why vBulletin hasn't implemented it as it should be a pretty easy feature.

[si_the_geek]

I don't see a problem with "cluttering up" subscriptions, I've got over 14000 and don't have any issues - but then I only use them for this purpose (Brad has said before that it is a non-issue in terms of database size, etc).

I've got no idea what the default setting is for subscriptions, it may well be "no email notification" - but as you've been around for several years, perhaps that particular option wasn't available back then (I've always had email notifications), and when it became available your existing choice was respected.


One way or another, this feature has been available for many years - but perhaps at some point in the past you required email notification to enable it.

[Kasracer]

I originally was under the impression that subscriptions could only be e-mail delivered as my typical experience with subscriptions was you actually get something periodically but the no-email subscription seems awkward to me as you don't actually get anything, it just displays it for you if you go into your control panel. I was not aware of this otherwise I would have enabled it.

Subscriptions work but I don't think it's very clear (at least it wasn't for me). Not saying that's VBForum's fault; that's something vBulletin would need to clear up.

I still think a feature that shows only my posts would be nicer and leave Subscriptions as actual notifications but that's really on vBulletin's end.

Anyway I could get a DB guy on your end to subscription me to every thread I've ever posted in?

[si_the_geek]

The word subscriptions is arguably not ideal, but if you had checked the values you would have noticed.

However, as time goes by you'll be subscribed to more threads (any new ones, and any old ones you reply to), so it will become less of an issue.

I still think a feature that shows only my posts would be nicer and leave Subscriptions as actual notifications but that's really on vBulletin's end.

You could do a Search on your username, but without a bit of manual fiddling you will see all threads rather than just those with new replies - but at least the ones with new replies are shown in bold.

Anyway I could get a DB guy on your end to subscription me to every thread I've ever posted in?

Only Brad/Joe have any kind of access to the DB people, so you'd need to ask them.

As the DB people tend to be very busy (upgrading the forum software across all our sites, etc) I wouldn't bet on it happening.

[brad jones]

Only Brad/Joe have any kind of access to the DB people, so you'd need to ask them.

As the DB people tend to be very busy (upgrading the forum software across all our sites, etc) I wouldn't bet on it happening.

Not likely to happen for a one-off request like this. (Our DBAs also support 100+ regular sites)

Brad!

[Kasracer]

Not likely to happen for a one-off request like this. (Our DBAs also support 100+ regular sites)

I figured but it never hurts to ask.

What if I wrote the SQL and your guys just ran it?

[si_the_geek]

It would need to be fully checked by the DBA's before being run, so wouldn't save much of their time/effort.

[JPnyc]

That's why vb has email notice for new posts to subscribed thread, and auto subscription mode.