“Go to first new post” button?

[gtg947h]

Ok, I feel kind of dumb, but I’m not seeing any button or area to click that will take me to the first unread post in a given thread. I know I can click on the date of the last post and it will take me to the last post, but I don’t see anything for the first unread post...

Am I missing something?

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

So - you can click on the topic then hit jump to new

 

[Hobbes]

From the 'New Posts' page, when I click on the topic title I'll go to the first unread posts. So you don't need a separate 'go to first new post' button...

 

[TomS]

From the 'New Posts' page, when I click on the topic title I'll go to the first unread posts. So you don't need a separate 'go to first new post' button...

Same from basically anywhere. Anywhere on the site, when you click on a thread title, it should take you to the first unread post. Thing is, if you haven't been in a thread since before the upgrade, it doesn't know what the last post you read on the old system was, so you go to the top of the thread.

 

[dan_inbox]

Anywhere on the site, when you click on a thread title, it should take you to the first unread post.

This mostly worked well initially, but now I am getting 3 issues with this feature:

1. when somebody "likes" an old post somewhere in the middle of a thread, that post becomes the "first unread". It may be by design, but IMO it is not optimal. Not too useful and confusing.
2. some threads seem to have a stuck first unread pointer. Several days, many posts and visits later, that thread still goes to the same post. I happened a lot on the Latin American thread, no idea why.
3. recently, the "first unread post" pointer gets erratic and sends me anywhere in the threads, not the first unread. Happens a lot in the last few days, but not always. Anyone else sees this?

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

I don't know - I rarely use the function.

I generally click new topics from the "latest posts" menu - this specifically takes you to the latest post.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

After investigation with the vendor, this is how the unread posts tracking works.

Only 30 days of read marking data is kept (this number is configurable but 30 is the default).

If you have never viewed the thread before, or the thread was last viewed over 30 days (default) ago then we wouldn't know how far you have read into the thread anymore.

When that happens, it takes you to the first post.

Note that the button you refer to says "Jump to new". Not "Jump to unread". We can't take you to the first unread post, because we don't have the read marking data anymore.

So "new" in this context is the first post which was posted within the last 30 days (30 days being the auto read-marking data lifetime).

This behaviour works OK on normal forum topics which come and go in a short timeframe, but less well when a topic might revive after months or years of dormancy.

However, the only way around it is to keep a database table with the read status of every topic, for every user, for ever. That is indeed what SMF forum did, and the table containing this data grew very large over time, impacting on the speed of the forum and occupying disk space.

I can trial increasing read marking data to, say, 365 days.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Altered read status retention period to 365 days. I figure after a year, you should probably read from the beginning anyway

 

[dan_inbox]

Thanks, Paul!
I had no idea this would be a symptom of such deep design issues. And I really appreciate your investigation.
Indeed 365 days should take care of most of it, except the worst necromancy posts. And then we'll know why.

Thanks a bunch again.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

People use the site differently, and I might never encounter a problem that you find, so its great to voice any issues you find.

I can't promise to fix everything, because sometimes its just a limitation of the software that can't be altered, but it always pays to investigate. Overall I'm still personally much happier with Xenforo. I can do board admin tasks on my phone, easily.