Best way to read the site

[SanDiegoShiner]

Hello,

I was hoping someone could help me. I have read the majority of the great long threads on this site, Sweet Feed, Uncle Jesse, Magic Flute, Birdwatchers, etc, etc.

Now I would like to just read the new posts each day. Does anyone have an efficient suggestion for how to log on and see the most recent posts and start reading them. Having them disappear on the list as you read them so you can go to the next thread. I found this to be easy on other forums but am having trouble figuring it out on this site.

So ... any suggestions or an easy way to read the site for new information each day.

Thanks

[Richard7]

Just view active topics and to the left you will see Icons that are colored yellow or white. Yellow ones have new post, white ones you have read.

[sweeps]

Log in and go to the main index page. Just under today's date there are options for:

View unanswered posts • View unread posts • View new posts • View active topics

Click "View new posts" and it brings up all the posts that have appeared since your last visit.

[Prairiepiss]

The view new posts link is available on most all pages. Depending on what view preference you have set.
But also remember those links use up a lot of the website resources. Like the search function does. So you don't want to keep using it over and over and over in a short period of time. If you do it to fast. It will actually tell you you can't do this at this time.

[drinkingdog]

I always go to o view active topics first then go to what I'm studying on next

[ga flatwoods]

Alone, quiet, drink in hand!
GA Flatwoods

[drinkingdog]

Alone, quiet, drink in hand!
GA Flatwoods

I think your way sounds the best

[Husker]

The 'View Active Topics' Is a good link. But as has been mentioned it DOES use search resources. If you hit every hour, no big deal. It does NOT show you new posts since your last visit. It shows posts that are a week old or less. The ones you have not clicked on, will have a 'new post' icon (yellow on subsilver, and red I think, on pro-silver).

other very useful links, are:

'View unread posts'. This shows just the posts you have not read.
'View new posts'. I think this shows only threads started in last week (the active topics that are older, but have replies recently).
'Mark all forums read'. This will clear all unread values, and is VERY good to do every once in a while.

For the mark all forums read, every time you click on a topic, there is a DB entry made. If people never click that link, to mark all forums as being read, these DB records live forever. NOTE, I have a script that I run every once in a while, that will remove all of these 'read' links for all users, if they are more than a couple month old. At one time before found this 'issue', and wrote my script, there were 2.8 million records in this DB table, and it was over 250mb in size. But a user can do this for himself from time to time, and keep that DB working better, and much smaller.

I use the 'View active topics' a lot myself, reading what needs to be dealt with (I do not read all posts any more, I simply do not have that much time). I then make sure I have read all of them that I am going to read, and then click the 'Mark all forums read'. This will make that 'View Active Topics' click show that there are no posts that are 'new'. Then later in the day, I click on View Active Topic link, which removes all my 'have read' DB records, and simply sets a single field in my user record listing the date/time when I said all posts were read. Later, I will click the 'View active topic' link again, and all new activity is right there, highlighted, to be looked at again. Doing this (for me), is the easiest way to keep up on the forum, and to know what is going on.

H.

[SanDiegoShiner]

Thank you all so much for your advice. I hope this will make me a bit more efficient. There is a lot to read.

Tom

[rad14701]

I use View Active Topics in combination with my browsers Back button... That way I don't have to query the database as often, saving a bit of server overhead... I also have a link to the View Active Topics in my browsers Bookmarks/Favorites bar...

[Husker]

I pull up view active, then use the right click, 'open in new tab' for each topic, so I end up with numerous open windows. Then I read and close each one. I refresh the view active topics one more time, read anything else, and then go to the main board index, and click mark forums read. Like rad said, it works very slick, and does not continually hit the 'view active topics' over and over. Only 1 or 2 clicks of that search, and I get caught up.

H.

[wv_cooker]

Great thread. This needs to be stickied up with the how to use this forum topic. Just reading the one post of Huskers and i was able to clean all the garbage away that I didn't want and maybe help keep the forum a little more efficient for you guy's. Thanks.

[Husker]

This topic (or modifications to it), will be moved to the reading lounge. The RL is read only, so the topic will stay here a while allowing more input.

There will be a section in the RL, explicitly for site navigation, best usage type help.

H.

[SanDiegoShiner]

Huskers post is fantastic, thanks. This makes my time spent much more efficient. Thanks.

[SanDiegoShiner]

Is it possible to search for just todays new posts. Post within the last 24 hours or since my last visit. I tried to do it using the google search function but couldnt get it to work right.

Thanks,
San Diego

[Jasonhoehn]

I use the app tapatalk on my iPhone and it makes it easy to read the newest forums under the timeline option

[Prairiepiss]

Click one of the links above. View active topics, view unread posts, or view new posts.

[SanDiegoShiner]

Click one of the links above. View active topics, view unread posts, or view new posts.

Thanks Mr Piss, I normally do that, but it really doesnt give you just the last 24 hours. On a few other boards I like the way you can set it so just the last posts since you logged on are visible. I guess if each time I left I marked everything as read it would be the same.

Thanks,
San Diego

[SanDiegoShiner]

I use the app tapatalk on my iPhone and it makes it easy to read the newest forums under the timeline option

Jason,

Thanks, I do use tapatalk when on the ipad. I love that program, it is awesome.

San Diego

[Richard7]

SanDiegoShiner, If you look at the little icon to the far left it shows if any new post have been made. the colored ones have new post and the white ones you have read. Is that what you are talking about?