Intelligent user interface

**Antneye** · 09-20-2005

I tried doing a print screen to desscribe what I am talking about, but it wouldn't work. I can only direct you to the site for an example. I am a member at www.hometheaterspot.com. It's a site for home heatre enthusiasts....but thats not really important right now is it? Unless of course you want to watch some Sunday HD football on my big screen.....lol

Their interface is set up so that if i am logged in, and click on a forum room, each thread shows me (through color coding and text) if there are any posts in the thread that I have not read. This makes it very easy for you determine if you have any need to revisit a thread.

I have no idea how tough this would be, but it is extremely user friendly.

I have been using the search new post feature on our site, but if i use it, and don't get to read a thread the feature will not bring it back, so I feel i am missing out on some threads that might have been interesting.

Anyway, it's just a thought for a little better user interface.

**Girevik** · 09-20-2005

This forum does the same thing for me. You can't tell which forums/threads have new posts?

**ChieF** · 09-20-2005

Originally Posted by Girevik

This forum does the same thing for me. You can't tell which forums/threads have new posts?

Just CLick " New Posts"

**Yvraine** · 09-20-2005

For me, threads with new messages are displayed in bold, and when I click on the thread and click "display first unread", it will bring me to the first post that was made since I last logged on. This is perfectly normal and expected behavior.

However, I have an issue where, if I stay logged into the site for a while, my last-logged-on timestamp gets reset. So after that point, only threads and posts made after the new timestamp will show up as unread.

This is a problem because I often read the forums at work, and if something comes up that I need to take care of (like ACTUAL WORK

) then I won't always finish reading the new threads before my timestamp gets changed. So when I come back, I don't know what I haven't read yet.

This is compounded by the time being off. For instance, I will now click "submit" and my computer thinks it's 1:33 pm....

... And the post displays a time of 1:56 pm. Not huge, just enough to be disconcerting.

**Antneye** · 09-20-2005

On a closer look, it actually does put the main title in Bold, but if I dont read it on this session, and then come back it is no longer bold. At least thats what seems to be happening.

As someone else said, sometimes you dont get to them all, and it would be nice to have it stay bold so you know you never read it.......and if it piles up you could select "mark all read" or something like that to re-set.

The other thing the site i quoted does is bring you right to the post you left off on so you dont have to guess where you were....thats a real nifty feature......did I just use "nifty" in a sentence?

**NoManner** · 09-20-2005

I'm not really sure how much work it would take to make a user interface like that but we do have a "mark all read" button somewhere...

Yvraine, I think puddlejumper brought the timestamp issue up at one point too and we couldn't find a good solution.

Sorry for not being much help :-/

**Marm** · 09-20-2005

Kid said it was a programming issue with the original forum code. The original designers didnt think to log each thread with a read/unread tag. They just marked anything older than x hours since you started your current session as read. kinda dumb, but we lengthed that tag a while ago as a stop-gap measure... now sometimes I can't get threads to be read by looking at them.

**Girevik** · 09-20-2005

Originally Posted by ChieF

Just CLick " New Posts"

Why do you even have to do that? Any forum with new posts shows the cards on the left in color. Any thread with new posts is bold.

**Antneye** · 09-20-2005

Originally Posted by Girevik

Why do you even have to do that? Any forum with new posts shows the cards on the left in color. Any thread with new posts is bold.

because it groups them all on one page....no reason to jump around.

**ChieF** · 09-20-2005

Plus I have dial up and its alot easier to open allthe pages at once.

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