View Posts Since Last Visit 'Expires'

[E Wall]

Navigational Aide Needed

Hi Marc...What I thought would be real simple...isn't, and I need your help. Last week I was only able to 'pop' in and not able to read all new messages, yet the unread messages changed to read. So, I hoped that by going to search, I could select time period (1 week ago to now) and see ALL posts during that period. But received this error message:
System Software Message:
Please specify some words or valid user names to search on. There were no matches for those that you specified.

When I tried again with wildcards (hoping that all messages contained an 'a' I received a fatal error because of size limits.

Is there a simpler way to do this that I'm missing without going into all open forums and reading through all the threads? I'm at a loss.

 

[Marc]

I'll see if I can find a work around. As it is, I think it's set to 15 or 20 minutes for the lightbulb 'timeout' (no activity so the user must have left). The 'View Posts since Last Visit' link looks at your last visit time and date and 'now' and does it's computation. I did find it is part of the search.php file, but I'll have to check with the software folks and see what they advise.

I'll get back to you on this one. You can view progress in the following thread: http://www.vBulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=23195

 

[Marc]

I don't know if this will help or not, but for now it's the best I can do. If you are logged in (I hope everyone by now knows how to set things up in their user options so you're logged in automagically by using cookies....
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I HATE to have to log in each time I visit the site).

Anyway, you should now see the following near the top of the main entry page.

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I added a 'function' I didn't know existed. It will give you a listing of all new posts within the last 24 hours. Weekends will screw it up for anyone who - well, let's say logs in every 3 days or something. They will have to depend upon the View New Posts Since Your Last Visit to see everything.

Anyway, this new 'function' will give you a listing part of which looks like this:
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Look at the envelopes. The legend for them is at the bottom of the forum pages (unfortunately not at the bottom of the search listing). From these you can tell whether there are new posts in any individual thread or not - since your last visit (I think that's what it's based upon).

One thing I have not seen explained anywhere is - If you see a Dot in the center of an envelope, you have a post in that thread. If there is no Dot you have not personally posted in that thread (yet?).

I am working on getting the software company to add something along the lines of "...Show me all posts which I have not read which were posted in the last X days..." I haven't seen a 'hack' yet for that, either. I should think it's doable. I personally would love it. This has been an issue since I had the WWWBoard back in 1996-7. It was an issue in UltimateBB as well.

 

[Marc]

Also see http://Elsmar.com/Forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3545

 

[Marc]

One last comment on this topic... (Ah, hemmmm....)

I'm a moderator of most of the forums. In part because some no one else wanted (any takers out there???) and some because I want to follow. And, of course, because I'm an expert in so many fields ...... But the point is as a moderator I get an e-mail every time someone posts or starts a new thread giving a link to the thread and the contents of the post.

There is a function here which allows you to 'subscribe' to forums just like you can in a thread. When you subscribe to a forum whenever someone posts you (unfortunately) do not get an e-mail just like a moderator does. In fact, I know this can get kinda complex, but if you go to your User CP it can do a lot. One of the things is a listing of forums you subscribe to which you can click and go to.
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I'm not so sure it's a big feature except from th aspect of being able to narrow down the forums you're interested in to a 'short list' in your 'UserCP' - that list of all the forums at the starting ('main') pge is a long one.

 

[Randy]

Cool!!!

 

[Marc]

I've 'put in a request' to the 'hackers' (see http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=31003 ). Now it's a waiting game.

 

[Marc]

I don't know how much this will help, but I also changed the 'link' (blue), 'hover over link' (red) and 'visited links' (green) colours. See if that helps.

Please vote on This Poll after you run around the board a bit and see what you think. I'm OK with it but throws the colour scheme to he** in a few places.

 

[Marc]

Note that if you click on the View Posts from the Last 24 Hours link, you will get a listing of all threads which have new posts. Each thread listed has at least 1, but many have more than 1, new post within it.
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And when it says 24 Hours - it means just that - 24 hours from when you logged on is the cutoff.

 

[E Wall]

You're the BEST Marc!

Marc, Thanks so much for all your efforts! I went home midmorning Tuesday and am just getting back to work.
Take care, Eileen