Marking individual forums or sub forums read

tim wrote in post #17303625
Oh there is a "like" link... that's a fairly unintuitive place for it. I'd have expected it with the other buttons, not hidden in grey text.

That is about where it is on FredMiranda or even Facebook. Lower left corner of the general post area....

Picture North Carolina wrote in post #17305600
Take a theoretical user who is only interested in one forum on POTN: The Business of Photography.

Using the existing features, how would that user come to POTN and check for any new threads or new replies to old threads since the last logon (without needing to view any other threads from any other forums)?

(Repeating the same behavior each day).

Although not a perfect solution I have been using the information on the right. In some ways it is a actually better

I think Hollis described it best with his post, and if people manage their thread reading that way, I could see that value as a future addition. Personally, I have never used that feature in any forum I frequent. I just scan the first page or two of posts to see if anything new exists from the last time I went through. Then again, I have a pretty good memory, and perhaps I am using that much like how people are using the "mark all threads read" function?

Picture North Carolina wrote in post #17305127
I do NOT want to follow or like all threads.

I want to see which threads are new since my last log on.

I scan the thread subject titles and decide THEN if I want to follow it. If it is not of interest, I do not follow it.

Having all new threads bold and older not bold (since last logon) was the most useful tool on POTN there was.

Just my personal opinion but removing the ability to determine which threads are new since last logon was the hugest design mistake that could have been made.

hollis_f wrote in post #17305584
I open a forum and start opening interesting-looking threads, from the top (newest) downwards, stopping when I get to the end of the unread threads. I then mark that forum as read. The next time I visit the forum I can see that the top 12 threads contain new, unread stuff. I'll read the interesting ones (say, thread 1,2, 5 and 7) then mark the forum as read.

With the current setup I open the forum and every single thread is marked as unread. There's no way to tell which threads I've seen before yet ignored. So I start from the top and read the intersting-looking threads (1, 2, 5 and 7) but I'm not sure if the threads beyond thread 12 might be interesting or not.

Here's a pic from another forum. You can see all the posts that have changed since I last visited (and marked the forum as read).

Hosted photo: posted by hollis_f in
./showthread.php?p=173​05584&i=i76022882
forum: Forum Talk

This is how/why I use the older "mark all as read."

I will give some credit to AMASS. Once you have read a thread (or at least clicked in it), the forum will remember that and next time you'll see something like "click to see new" and all you have to do is click the thread like normal. It will open to the page and even hans a finger pointing to the first new message.

BUT - you have to first click any given thread to "enable" that feature. And that still doesn't help with getting that quick view of unread threads.

I don't go into every forum. Of the 20 or so here, I view only about 7 or 8. Clicking the "new and followed" link will show posts form threads I don't care to read and from forums I don't care to read. I have no interest in Nikon; I own no Nikon gear and I'm not switching, so all of those will be clogging up the "new and followed" topics as an example.

I understand how Pekka may find no use in "mark all read," but that doesn't mean it isn't valuable to others. It actually is quite useful given my (our for the quoted) style of going through the forums.

The flip side - as Pekka stated, this is basically v1.0. (The auto preview is nice).

dalto wrote in post #17305353
There is a difference between something being intuitive and it being familiar.

This is getting off of the original topic, so this is the last comment that I will make on it in this thread, but...

While I agree that editing the specific quotes within in a multi-quoted thread is not as easy as it could be in most forum software, especially if one quote is embedded inside another quote; and I agree that the submit/cancel buttons are in the wrong place; I disagree that the new way is more intuitive than the standard way other forum software operates when multi-quoting posts.

I performed a quick test of just how intuitive the AMASS version of MQ really is.

I work for a software development company so I asked my boss in the office next to mine to try making a multi-quoted posted. As he is not an online forum user in any way, there is no familiarity with how other software packages handle multi-quoting.

I asked him to quote your post and the one above it, and to make a comment on each one, much like Pekka's post earlier in the thread.

He figured out that MQ stood for multi-quote based on the tool tip that popped up when he hovered over it, so he clicked on the MQ button for your post, and the one above it.

Then he clicked "reply" as that made sense to him. After all, he was trying to make a "multi-quote" reply. He did not see any of the quoted text. So he cancelled what he was were doing, after looking around for the cancel button which he did not feel was in a logical place either, and went back to make sure that he clicked on the "MQ" buttons.

He was able to figure out that if he clicked on the "quote" button on your post he could at least get your post to quote, but he could not figure out how to get the multi-quote to appear even with the MQ buttons selected, until I pointed out the "quote" text on the left actually opens a menu. He didn't really pay attention to that section as at initial glance he thought the stuff over on the left was simply to change the text styling and add emoticons.

I know one is a very small small sample size, but tell me again how is sticking a quote command menu (that doesn't look like a menu) in the middle of the "style" editing section and not seeing all of the selected quotes in the editor window when first editing a post at all intuitive when making a "multi-quote reply"? I would like to see Pekka move the quote menu somewhere that makes more sense, and include all of the MQ posts when first editing. That would make it more intuitive for the end users and it could even be an improvement on how native vBulletin handled multi-quotes, if the editing is easy enough.

Picture North Carolina wrote in post #17305600
Perhaps the fault lies with me - not fully understanding the operation of amass.

So a question for Pekka or anybody:

Take a theoretical user who is only interested in one forum on POTN: The Business of Photography.

Using the existing features, how would that user come to POTN and check for any new threads or new replies to old threads since the last logon (without needing to view any other threads from any other forums)?

(Repeating the same behavior each day).

I have thought about this and my solution proposal is this:

We add the FOLLOW FORUM command which does this

- you are notified of all new posts to a forum (in a separate or divided top notification area) just like the followed + notified threads are now.

You get the new content count grouped by forum like

Member Activities: 23 new posts in 5 threads
The Lounge: 223 new posts in 16 threads

Then you have a "CLEAR ALL NOTIFICATIONS" command there.

To browse with above daily:

Two possibilities to code it,

click a forum name in the notification info, and it opens up a list showing the threads, then you click a thread you'd like to see. That resets the notifications for that thread.

or

Click a forum in the notification info, you are taken to forum index where threads that are notified are marked clearly as [NEW] like it is now with followed and own threads notified:

HOSTED PHOTO
please log in to view hosted photos in full size.

Pekka wrote in post #17305799
This method of doing it needs no reference to you getting out and coming back, it is an "ongoing" notification system that does not depend on your last visit times. That sounds to me better than relying to color of thread, which btw is another "vanilla" read marking system already running on top of this.

You do not mark all read, instead you mark the notifications seen. It is 100& accurate in showing you what you have missed.

Basically this would need some time to code, I have of course all the "components" needed, but I won't just slam anything there just for being fast and without proper testing.

Look, I'm willing to work a LOT to get you guys happy with the site. But I want to do it the AMASS way

That makes a lot of sense.....how would email subscriptions work in this model?

Pekka wrote in post #17305799
You do not mark all read, instead you mark the notifications seen. It is 100& accurate in showing you what you have missed.

The "Mark all read" command is not to mark "what I have read" (or "what I have seen") but instead it is to tell the system that "I have read everything" when I really have not. I, for example, actually open and look at a small percentage of the threads in the forum areas I look at. However, I want the system to eliminate the bolding of ALL threads as I leave the forum area so I click on the "Mark All Read" tool. That way, when I get back to the forum area the next time I can easily see every thread that's either brand new or has new posts. I still won't open more than a small percentage of those threads, but each time I leave I want to wipe the slate clean again.

I do this with all the forums I use and there's no other practical way for me to avoid the eye-hurting scan for new and interesting threads/posts.

SkipD wrote in post #17306090
The "Mark all read" command is not to mark "what I have read" (or "what I have seen") but instead it is to tell the system that "I have read everything" when I really have not. I, for example, actually open and look at a small percentage of the threads in the forum areas I look at. However, I want the system to eliminate the bolding of ALL threads as I leave the forum area so I click on the "Mark All Read" tool. That way, when I get back to the forum area the next time I can easily see every thread that's either brand new or has new posts. I still won't open more than a small percentage of those threads, but each time I leave I want to wipe the slate clean again.

I do this with all the forums I use and there's no other practical way for me to avoid the eye-hurting scan for new and interesting threads/posts.

EXACTLY!

It took a while to get here, but what I and many others have been saying!

- A clean slate from the previous session.
- You scan bold (new or newly posted in) threads to see if there is anything of interest.
- You don't open because you are not interested in the thread titled "I take pictures with my nose."
- when you are finished for the day, you click all read which removes bolding from the ENTIRE forum.
- Next day, same procedure.
- You do not click on whatever you are not interested in, and click on what you are. If you are fully interested in something, you either post in the thread or subscribe to it so you can follow it even easier in your subscriptions
- Easy Peezy.

This methodology that many say they use is a HUGE time saver - and more efficient than any other method and requires less clicks. (maybe even less bandwidth, too !)

Pekka,

I appreciate the reply. I did not understand all of it on the first read. I will go back and re-read it now.

Pekka, you are a gem!

First, to add code to make us happy speaks a lot about who you are.

First, one clarification: when I and others wrote about "new since last visit" that was sort of half-right. The bold NEW threads in the old forum did not unbold until Forum Read was clicked. So it was actually the manual action of clicking that differentiated new and old from the previous visit, not simply just visiting POTN.

Your solution sounds great. If I understand it correctly, perhaps even better than the old Mark Forum Read method. To be able to follow only the forums we are interested in with quick clicks would be the way I had always hoped the old forum would work.

Excellent! (So can you code and make the changes by tomorrow? )

I work the same way as Hollis and not having a simple Mark Forum as read button is a right pain, I just can't get on with the current setup, and my patience is wearing rather thin.

I went to visit the forum and had a sense of dread, now that is not good, and I thought why am I going to a site that I don't like anymore, rather sad.

artyman wrote in post #17306306
I work the same way as Hollis and not having a simple Mark Forum as read button is a right pain, I just can't get on with the current setup, and my patience is wearing rather thin.

I went to visit the forum and had a sense of dread, now that is not good, and I thought why am I going to a site that I don't like anymore, rather sad.

Small steps. There are differences, but I can see that only after two days people are starting to see how this is a better place now. I am sorry if I caused you trouble with the update, but I assure this is not as hard, it is just different.

If you care to tell me the main culprits (apart from forum marking which is discussed in this thread) please do so. I'm happy to help as much as I can.

dalto wrote in post #17304886

tim wrote in post #17304875
When replying to a post.

I believe those are undo/redo arrows. Pretty useful actually.

tim wrote in post #17304875
Also - I hit the MQ multiquote button, then hit reply to thread, and the quoted text wasn't there to read. Am I using it wrong?

You then use the quote tool on the left. There are all kinds of options about what you can do with quotes now. It is actually kind of cool once you get used to it.

Hitting reply then having two more clicks makes it more difficult to use IMHO. This is especially true given there's no quick reply.

Ok, at the risk of saying something that elicits a "already covered" reply, I'll state my particular issue.

I don't have time to look at all new postings in all areas of the forum. My normal entry to POTN on a daily basis was to the cp.php page. On that page, I was presented with two blocks of listings. The first block had new posts that are in treads I have either followed, started, or commented in. The second block of listings were of the (in my case) TWO categories that I subscribe to (G&N and Transportation). That's all I saw. I don't want to have to look at new postings in other areas of the forum, since I'm specifically there for those two areas or others that I may go to manually on rare occasion and comment.

It took only a few minutes to check-in, look at what I wanted, and get back out. I would go into Transportation, look at all of the aircraft related threads, skipping cars, ships, roller skates, etc. Then I would mark Transportation as read and go back to the control panel page. I would then go to the G&N area, look at what or whoever I want, usually all of the unread, and then back to CP again. At that time, I would be fully caught up, unless there had been a fresh post while I was looking at other things.

This is the sort of use that works for me. If I have to weed through all new postings on the forum, I just don't have that sort of time.

You took on an enormous task by designing and coding this huge (look at the numbers!!!) forum, and it looks really good. I only hope many are not lost due to the completely different way it is designed to be used. Making this sort of change for some of us old farts is a bit hard to do. The brain doesn't wrap around new things well. I used to write a little code myself, but I can't follow a simple logic tree well any more.

Again, great job on the coding, but please allow some of us thick headed people a simple way to "do it the old way".

Thanks, Pekka. Huge project!

Gary, check out https://photography-on-the.net/forum/newposts​.php?followed=1

There you have also a drop down to choose forums. You can order the forums in index page https://photography-on-the.net/forum/index.ph​p and also hide all you do not need in https://photography-on-the.net/forum/personal​forums.php

We'll get it done so that it works for oldies, too