Help Us Beta Test Our New Posts Feature

[Jason Dunn]

When we moved Smartphone Thoughts to the merged forum, a very legitimate complaint was that people interested in Smartphones were not necessarily interested in Zunes, and when they clicked New Posts to see what's new in the forums, they didn't want to see Zune-related posts. This problem obviously gets worse the more sites and forums are added into the mix. vBulletin has absolutely no solution for this problem, so we created our own.

Click here to try it. I asked Fabrizio Fiandanese, our developer, to create a system better than anything else out there, and in my opinion, he succeeded masterfully. What happens is that the new posts feature shows you only the posts from the Smartphone Thoughts forums, and it only shows you posts you haven't read before (based on the cookie we drop on your machine...I think). When you click on a new post, it opens up the post in a new tab/window, and while that's loading it also refreshes the new posts list and removes that from the list. Is that slick or what?

About the only thing I can think of that we're missing is some sort of "mark all as read" function if the remaining new posts are ones that you know you don't want to read. I'd encourage everyone to try out the new feature and let me know what you think.

UPDATE: I should mention that we don't yet have a solution in place for our mobile site, this new posts feature is only for the desktop site at the moment.

[Jason Dunn]

When we moved Smartphone Thoughts to the merged forum, a very legitimate complaint was that people interested in Smartphones were not necessarily interested in Zunes, and when they clicked New Posts to see what's new in the forums, they didn't want to see Zune-related posts. This problem obviously gets worse the more sites and forums are added into the mix. vBulletin has absolutely no solution for this problem, so we created our own.

Click here to try it. I asked Fabrizio Fiandanese, our developer, to create a system better than anything else out there, and in my opinion, he succeeded masterfully. What happens is that the new posts feature shows you only the posts from the Smartphone Thoughts forums, and it only shows you posts you haven't read before (based on the cookie we drop on your machine...I think). When you click on a new post, it opens up the post in a new tab/window, and while that's loading it also refreshes the new posts list and removes that from the list. Is that slick or what?

About the only thing I can think of that we're missing is some sort of "mark all as read" function if the remaining new posts are ones that you know you don't want to read. I'd encourage everyone to try out the new feature and let me know what you think.

UPDATE: I should mention that we don't yet have a solution in place for our mobile site, this new posts feature is only for the desktop site at the moment.

[onlydarksets]

Works for me! Looking forward to the Zune "New Posts"!

(see - you give an inch...)

[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by onlydarksets

Works for me! Looking forward to the Zune "New Posts"!

Correct, once we figure out if everything's working with this on Smartphone Thoughts, we'll roll it out to the other two sites...

[Twain]

One thing I noticed about the Smartphone Thoughts website (the same goes for Digital Media Thoughts and the Personal Blog of Jason Dunn) that is different from Pocket PC Thoughts is that the content is wastefully restricted to the center "third" of my screen. I'm running Windows Vista on a fairly large screen that has 1920 x 1200 pixels. I like that Pocket PC Thoughts expands to fill the screen. Is there anyway that the other Thoughts sites can do the same? Is there a user profile setting that I can set to enable this?

Thanks,
Twain

[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by Twain

I'm running Windows Vista on a fairly large screen that has 1920 x 1200 pixels. I like that Pocket PC Thoughts expands to fill the screen. Is there anyway that the other Thoughts sites can do the same? Is there a user profile setting that I can set to enable this?

The short answer is no, there's no way to change this.

The long answer is that we made a decision years ago to move toward a fixed-width design because it's extremely difficult to create attractive, functional layouts that will scale to any browser width. If you take a look at some of the most heavily-trafficked sites out there (Microsoft, CNN, Facebook, MySpace, MSN, Engadget) you'll notice they're all fixed-width as well. So smarter people than I have tackled this issue. Our Web site statistics also back up the back that most people view our site in browser windows 1200 pixels and under.

My suggestion to you? Try browsing in a narrower window and see if you like it. I have a 1920 x 1200 monitor as well (three of them) and I've found that using the entire monitor for one application is a waste - I can be far more effective if I have multiple applications open and can see my desktop as well. It took a change in my mindset as I moved from lower to higher resolution monitors.

[Mike Temporale]

Seems to work well. It didn't mark my posts as read after I looked at them. It also didn't grab anything in the off-topic forums - stuff like the holiday wishes post and the what'da get posts.

Also, it would be easier to read if it each post wasn't wrapped around as much. But that's no biggie. It's great just having this feature!

[Sven]

Yea! I'd given up waiting for this. Not sure if it is working right yet. Need to visit a couple of times to see if it really keeps track of 'new' for me.

[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by Sven

Yea! I'd given up waiting for this.

Good things take time you know.

[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by Mike Temporale

Seems to work well. It didn't mark my posts as read after I looked at them.

Hmm. That part worked for me with IE and Firefox...earlier. Now, you're right, I'm seeing things I clicked on come back. I'll click on item #1, it will load in a new window, and vanish on the new posts page. I'll click on item #2, it will load in a new page, and vanish on the new posts page...but item #1 will show up. I'll ask Fabrizio to look into this when he returns from his vacation...

Originally Posted by Mike Temporale

It also didn't grab anything in the off-topic forums - stuff like the holiday wishes post and the what'da get posts.

Good catch - that's easy enough to fix.

[Sven]

Well this thread has had new posts since my last visit, but didn't show up when using the 'try it here' link in the first post.

The New Posts, also show threads that have last posts significantly older than than the last time I logged in. I expected to see only threads whose last post was after my last visit.

There is no place on the new New Posts page that shows who I am and when i last visited, which makes me wonder if it knows who I am (essential of course to determine new posts for me)