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.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.smartphonethoughts.com/posts/" target="_blank">Click here to try it</a>. 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?<br /><br />About the only thing I can think of that we're missing is some sort of &quot;mark all as read&quot; function if the remaining new posts are ones that you know you don't want to read. I'd encourage everyone to <a href="http://www.smartphonethoughts.com/posts/" target="_blank">try out the new feature</a> and let me know what you think.<br /><br /><strong>UPDATE:</strong> 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]

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]

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 Johannsen]

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]

Yea! I'd given up waiting for this.

Good things take time you know. :cool:

[Jason Dunn]

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. :confused: I'll ask Fabrizio to look into this when he returns from his vacation...

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 Johannsen]

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)

[Jason Dunn]

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.

I think what we're missing is a "Mark all as read". There's certainly no passive way to detect you leaving the page and marking them all read at that point...

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)

I think we're doing that via cookie, so logged in or not, it doesn't matter. The only other way would be to tie it directly into the user database and keep track of every post that way...which would be pretty heavy on the server I think.

[Sven Johannsen]

Again, this thread didn't show up in the new posts list, and your response should have triggered it to.

Understand the issue of not having a 'read all' option, but that would seem essential, unless you believe everyone reads every post. Based on titles there are many I skip, and they will just continue on forever in my new posts list.

I only mention the name and last login, info, as it is shown on darn near every page, except the new files beta. I don't care if you get it from a cookie you left, but I know you can get it.

[Jason Dunn]

Understand the issue of not having a 'read all' option, but that would seem essential, unless you believe everyone reads every post.

Oh, no, I agree completely that we need it - we need a button somewhere on the page that says "Mark all as read".

[Sven Johannsen]

Wouldn't it be just as effective to only display posts that happened after the last visit? Seems that is what PPCT does. It doesn't show threads with posts older than my last visit just because I haven't read them. Chances are if I didn't read them last time, it is because I didn't want to.

[Sven Johannsen]

Did this feature ever get implemented? I don't see it off-hand. I still get 'new posts' from now four distinct Thoughts Media sites when I click New Posts in any one of the respective forums.

It is even more important now that all four forums are represented to be able to at least sort or filter by Site to help triage new posts when trying to help those with issues.

[Jason Dunn]

Did this feature ever get implemented? I don't see it off-hand. I still get 'new posts' from now four distinct Thoughts Media sites when I click New Posts in any one of the respective forums.

We're going back to a simpler approach - our attempt to make something slick didn't work properly unfortunately, and it's basically un-fixable.

What Fabrizio is going to implement, and it should be this week, is linking the NEW POSTS link to basically the same type of view you get now with vBulletin. You'll have the ability to mark the posts as read, and otherwise it will be basically the same as how vBulletin works now...but it will be filtered by the sites.

[Sven Johannsen]

So, new posts will be distinct to the site you called them from? But I will have to mark them as read? No cookie to save my last visit time and show posts since then?

Can we get a 'mark all as read' if that is the case?

[Jason Dunn]

So, new posts will be distinct to the site you called them from? But I will have to mark them as read? No cookie to save my last visit time and show posts since then?

It's going to work exactly as it does now with vBulletin. We're not changing their system.

Can we get a 'mark all as read' if that is the case?

Yes, we're going to duplicate the vBulletin "Mark Forums Read" function (or try to).