view new posts

On most of the other boards I look at, there is a place to click to jump to the new posts ("first unread") in a thread. On some this button is on the first page of the thread; on others (better) it's next to the thread title in the topic list. Obviously it requres a user to be logged on, presumably with cookies enabled. If HPC Factor has this feature, I haven't been able to find it. Is it there somewhere, or can it be added? It sure is nice to go directly to the first unread post, especially when there are several pages.

Across the menu bar in the forums area you wll see "latest threads" As you say, you must be logged on for the system to know what you have read and what you haven't read in the past.

Just click on it and it will show a list of every new thread since your last logon. It actually goes to the last page of the thread. So if there were a lot of new posts since your last logon, you might have to go back a page to catch up on all the new posts. From there you can navigate to each thread and read the old and newer posts however you like.

I always use the the "latest threads" command. From there I right click on every new post and open it in a new tab on IE8. That way I don't have to go back and forth. As I read/comment on each thread, I close the tab.

I love this feature. Some forums only show the newest threads without the original posts...hence sometimes you are left wondering, "what was this all about again?" Others open only to the first page as you mentioned...I hate those too.

Of course, in the user settings area, you can also permanently unsubscribe or subscribe to individual threads to keep your screen neat and tidy and only include those areas that interest you.





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Thanks, I hadn't seen that... but it's not exactly what I wanted. On many forums, there's an icon or button that jumps directly to your first unread post in any particular thread. In some it's at the top after you've opened the thread, while in others (better) it's next to the link for the thread in the thread list.

I'm guessing the differences are probably due to the fact the HPCFactor was never primarily a forum site. For a long time there was no forum whatsoever. Later C:Amie added the forum.

Pretty cool considering everything you see is custom written by him, including the forum controls. One-of-a-kind in the entire world.

Going to the first unread thread would be a nice feature...but not anything I'm going to lose sleep about if it isn't there...just flagging threads with new posts is fine with me.

Dana, as a surface thought it's certainly something that I can look into, however I am not likely to have the time as I'm pretty much swamped in real life at the moment.

If you give it a month or so and then come and harras me on it again, I'll see what I can do.

I'm sure it's a canned feature of some commercial BB software. Is this a homegrown one? Certainly it has some features I haven't seen elsewhere and I don't see any "powered by" notice like the others all do.

There are two systems involved here, the v2.5 kernel that runs the site and the pd9 forum kernel. I was involved in the development of the pd9 kernel back in 2003 and have rewritten a large percentage of it in this bespoke implementation since. It is such that it wouldn't be remotely compatible with the pd9 database or kernel.

I started with the pd9 core because it saved some time back in the day rather than waiting for me to write something entirely from scratch - which I then rewrote anyway.

The HPC:Factor v2.5 kernel is entirely self penned and runs under the pd9 core (so the forum needs it but the site doesn't need the forum).

The plus side is the customisation and control that I have, the down side is that you don't get to run a exe file to install 1001 new features.

I usually work on two annual development cycles, 2 weeks over xmas and a couple of weeks over the summer. This year however the summer isn't looking too promising.