Forum upgrade - information and queries.

Pencarrow

Western Thunderer
If it doesn't currently then I can make it so. What file identifiers does the format use?

It also sounds like a potential candidate for a new feature I'm keen to try out so I might get back to you soon about them.
rps20220101_204906.jpg
Hi Adrian, it's a .any extension.
 

adrian

Flying Squad
Apologies for confusing people as I have been shuffling and changing the navigation a little - hopefully in an attempt to simply it.

Basically from the main forum tab there is a "What's New?"on left hand side and a "What's New?" button on the right. Both of these options should take you to the same page.

Where the What's new option was placed has now changed to "Latest". This is slightly different to What's New as it will list not just posts but profile updates and I'm leaving it in for a future development.

Screenshot 2022-01-02 at 10.04.23.png

Then when you get to the What's New? page - in theory it should list all your unread posts. However you'll notice the filter applied "Show only: Unread x". I've set this filter on so that you just get a list of the posts you haven't read. If you click on the little x at the end it removes the filter and the list of posts should then expand to include all the posts you have read as well. i.e. what "Latest Posts used to do"

I've double checked (although that doesn't guarantee anything!) and clicking on the thread title should take you to the first unread post in that thread.

Screenshot 2022-01-02 at 10.05.18.png

So a little change for people to deal with but I hope it makes sense and reduces the clicks to get the list of latest unread posts for people.
 

adrian

Flying Squad
and another little useful addition which I hope will aid navigation.

Now when you view a new post after the last post in the bottom right hand side there should now be a "What's New?" button.

For myself when I use the forum I always used to look at new posts by opening a thread in a new tab. So I'd open 4 or 5 threads in new tabs and then flick through them and dismiss once read.

I originally set up this option to help phone and tablet users to navigate where it's harder to open threads in new tabs. However having tried it the test area for a few days then it might become my default view method as it allows me to quickly flit from new post and back to the what's new list all in the one tab. I don't need to scroll back to the top to get the new post list anymore.

Screenshot from 2022-01-02 10-43-40.png
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
The only problem with all these 'what's new' pages is that you cannot book mark them, 'what's new' was my default WT bookmark page.

Every time it was clicked it would list all the messages in date order whether I'd seen them or not at that particular time, handy if you pop by every three days or so.

The new set up is not a generic URL for' what's new', it has a specific number placed on the end, the number of posts since the new site went live I suspect. This make it useless as a book mark as when you click later, it's out of date, so you have to refresh it by clicking one of the other options.

The 'Latest tab' is more like the old 'whats new', it's a generic URL but it only shows the first ten posts, which is rather pointless as latest posts often exceed that amount. One is then requited to click another button 'view more' to expand to show the rest, why can't the latest show everything like 'what's new'.

I know I'm in a majority of one, but the old 'what's new' page was perfect, a one shot generic URL button that showed me everything at that specific time with the added bonus of bold or greyed text for ones I'd read.

Just one button that did all, I get (I think) the variances but by common sense, if you click 'what's new' then the 'latest' posts are already at the top so why another button just to show me that?

Other than that it's all fine.
 

Simon

Flying Squad
Personally, my "view of choice" is generally latest posts which is handily available under members on the right hand side of the screen on the new set up. It may or may not replicate the view from somewhere else, there seem to be a lot of options and clearly others do things differently - being simple I find it all a bit confusing.

Can't remember where any of it was before, along with a lot of other things:rolleyes:

KISS!

Simon
 

simond

Western Thunderer
I just click the “recent posts” button, second left on the white line under “Forums”.

This seems to give a list of everything that’s “new” and highlights those I haven’t read, and provides a sub-heading of things that have not been updated since my last visit, which just about covers all the bases.

HNY
Simon
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
I just click the “recent posts” button, second left on the white line under “Forums”.

This seems to give a list of everything that’s “new” and highlights those I haven’t read, and provides a sub-heading of things that have not been updated since my last visit, which just about covers all the bases.

HNY
Simon
That's one option, but you have to start from somewhere else to do that, aka the front page or any other page, what you can't do is book mark that page and then come back in an hours time, well you can, but it won't automatically update because the URL you bookmarked has snap shot and locked in that specific moment in time.

My point is there are several ways to get to the what's new page (do we need all these doors to get to the same room) but all require you to start from another page somewhere else, which means more clicking of buttons (time wasted), more than we had to before.

In your case I suspect your book mark page to access WT is the main page or any other page where you then select what's new, in my case my target page is the what's new, I know my way around WT I want to go there first.
Personally, my "view of choice" is generally latest posts which is handily available under members on the right hand side of the screen on the new set up. It may or may not replicate the view from somewhere else, there seem to be a lot of options and clearly others do things differently - being simple I find it all a bit confusing.

Can't remember where any of it was before, along with a lot of other things:rolleyes:

KISS!

Simon
Simon, again you're book marking a generic page, in this case the main forum front page and then clicking 'latest posts' which takes you to 'what's new' that page is not generic it's a specific page at that moment in time, check the URL and it'll have a unique number on the end.

As far as I can tell, the 'what's new' page is the only one that generates a unique URL every time you access it, therefore it cannot be book marked.

The interesting thing about your link 'latest posts' is that the URL has a /?=skip1 on the end. If you click the header 'latest' tab you don't get that additional data in the URL and hence it only shows the ten most recent posts, the skip command must bypass that which is interesting.

Image1.jpg

It kind of all looks like this, if you want to access 'what's new' and for it to actually be ""what's new"" then you have to start from somewhere else, on the old forum and many others that constantly update with use, you could book mark the green oval and not waste time starting at the blue oval to get where you wanted.

More importantly, once you're locked into the 'what's new' room you cannot update it by refreshing the page either by the refresh page button of F5 or CTRL+F5, you're stuck in that snap shot of time, the only way to refresh the page is to click the 'what's new' button at the top where it will generate the latest unique URL code.

This is the 'what's new' URL when I started this post www.westernthunder.co.uk/whats-new/posts/3679 this is the URL 30 minutes later www.westernthunder.co.uk/whats-new/posts/3685 it changes all the time making it impossible to book mark.
 
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mickoo

Western Thunderer
One other thing I've just noticed writing the lengthy repose above, or one of my photo updates, all the text functions and smileys are at the top of the editing window, which is a real pain if you have to keep scrolling up and down to add italics or underscore.

Is there a user option to move that function pane to the bottom of the editing window and closer to where you're actually writing? If not, no problems :cool:
 

simond

Western Thunderer
Ah, yes, when I’ve read a post or several in a thread, I hit the top, then “Recent Posts”, then choose the next one of interest.

so I refresh the “what’s new“ page each time by doing that.
 
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mickoo

Western Thunderer
Why not use the URL without the timestamp - ".....me.uk.whats-new/posts/"? Seems to work for me
Well that's one way around it :thumbs:

I've manually edited my browser book mark to remove the /xxxx time stamp, rather than just adding the current stamped URL to the book mark menu. For the record it now looks like this www.westernthunder.co.uk/whats-new/posts/

If you do that then WT auto updates when you click the bookmark and adds the stamp, it still won't refresh on the browser refresh button or F5 functions, but clicking the book mark does refresh.

That'll do for me :cool:
 
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JimG

Western Thunderer
I use the following URL :-

www.westernthunder.co.uk/index.php?find-new/threads

...which gets me all new thread traffic since I last logged in to the forum and the entries in the list generated point to the first unread post. I got this from the old version and I think it could even have been as far back as Cynric's days. It still seems to work with the new upgrade.

Jim.
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
I use the following URL :-

www.westernthunder.co.uk/index.php?find-new/threads

...which gets me all new thread traffic since I last logged in to the forum and the entries in the list generated point to the first unread post. I got this from the old version and I think it could even have been as far back as Cynric's days. It still seems to work with the new upgrade.

Jim.
Now you mention it, I do recall something from way back then and I suspect I too had that as my old book mark for WT, I must have forgotten about it, my old forum bookmark is deleted and gone so I can't cross check.

Your link does the same as my edited one above, both go to the same target room and avoid extra doors to pass through :thumbs:
 

adrian

Flying Squad
I use the following URL :-

www.westernthunder.co.uk/index.php?find-new/threads

...which gets me all new thread traffic since I last logged in to the forum and the entries in the list generated point to the first unread post. I got this from the old version and I think it could even have been as far back as Cynric's days. It still seems to work with the new upgrade.

Jim.

I'm perfectly happy designing an automatic approach autopilot flight control system for an aerodynamically unstable aircraft but the view options in this forum software is as confusing as hell to me. :mad:

Anyway I've tried to put together a little "info-graphic" to explain the different views available, what the features are of each one and how they are linked together.


It's not possible to get a view to bookmark from the webpage as the software automatically calculates a reference number to the latest thread so you will never end up at a universal bookmark. As far as I'm aware this was the case with the older version of the software.

So as such I have included the relevant url's required to get the different views in the thread. select the text and use that for your bookmark and it should take you directly to the post view of interest.

One final p.s. whilst your url should still work we now have "friendly urls" so the "index.php?" text part in your link is no longer required. Your link using "find-new/threads" url is an alternative route to the "What's New view". If you wouldn't mind please could you test the "what's-new/posts/" version. If it works okay then please use it. Under the hood it seems a little more efficient in returning the results.

Please let me know if there are any queries on this - but I won't pretend to understand it fully yet.
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
Adrian, don't sweat it :)), it is just I who wanted a direct short cut :thumbs:

I suspect you're right about the old software as well, I was probably using something like Jim to circumnavigate the preferred route and end up directly at the destination page.

I've been using my manually edited bookmark "....../whats-new/posts/" (note no apostrophe) all day and it works fine.

I also made a new one removing the "index.php?" syntax from Jim's link

"......./find-new/threads" it also works fine and takes you to the full 'what's new' page.

If you change it thus,

"......./find-new/threads/"

it takes you to the 'What's new' - 'Latest posts' page which shows only the newest ten posts. Neither are necessary as the initial one works just fine for me.

I suspect most members are quite happy to come in via the front door/lobby and then go to the what's new venue, personally I prefer to skydive right into that room. If I have to manually edit my book mark to do so, then I am more than happy to do just that.
 

adrian

Flying Squad
I have now updated the software to include Threadmarks, this should have imported all the existing threadmarks from the previous version of the software.

The new version has a few new options which look very interesting and useful. So you can continue to use them as they were before but I think I will put together a little user guide to explain their potential.

So the best way to see them in operation is to have a look at @Heather Kay thread where she has made excellent use of them.


Screenshot 2022-01-03 at 21.44.59.png

As you can see there are a few extra buttons at the start
-> a Threadmarks button with options and list of threadmarks
-> a Reader mode - explained below just for the minute note the 13 pages of posts
-> a banner across the post with the thread mark label on the lefthand side and an index on the right.

The thread mark button pops up a list of thread marked posts to select from initially the most recent but if you view all then they are chronological.

The "Index ->" is a link to the next thread marked post. Once you get into the thread the index includes the links to the previous "<-" and next "->" thread marked post. If you hover over the link it will also give you a little preview over the next post.

Screenshot 2022-01-03 at 21.55.07.png

Now this is where it gets interesting the "Reader mode" basically hides all the non-thread marked posts and presents you with a thread of just the thread marked posts. As you can see below in reader mode instead of 13 pages to read through and pick out the details. Here the thread marked posts total just 3 pages.

Screenshot 2022-01-03 at 22.02.49.png

I've still to experiment but I believe the threadmarks can then be nested and indexes created. So the reader mode could effectively create a book with chapters and sections etc. Something to have a think about. It will also be useful for mobile and tablets users with limited screen size, far reducing the number of posts to wade through.

Feel free to experiment - if you want a little more info on the different options then the official add-on page is here.

Once I've had time to experiment then I'll produce a little guide.
 
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