Reply To: Tweaks and Refinements to the Forums Home Page

[peter]

On Release said

If it causes any issues or conflicts, please don’t worry about it, really.

Here’s an example of what I was thinking:  If I load up the new “Latest Topics” link, I was hoping it would filter out the topics I’ve already read since….technically…..  it’s not new to me anymore.  But now I’m thinking that’s probably more of a personalized filter setting on some super expensive plugin than a global aggregator for everyone on the site.  I guess I was looking for more of a “new since your last visit” kinda thing.  But this addition as it is now is fantastic so please don’t worry about it.

As it is now, Latest Topics pulls up…. the Latest Topics….as it should.  So thank you.

Ah. so what you would like to see is simply the threads you’ve already read removed from view, right? Which I agree would be ideal. However, I’m not aware of a plugin for this platform — or any other — that does that.  There’s definitely no plugin that does that. I’m certain it could be programmed, it’s really just personalization,  but I’ve yet to see it done on any forum platform, and it definitely doesn’t exist for bbPress (made by Automattic, the developer of WordPress, which is what we’re using on this site).

Okay, so understanding that is what you were hoping for, I’m going to remove the plugin that lets people check “mark as read” — as it only duplicates what is automatically done on the site already (shown by the U and R graphics). Self hosted and SaaS forums really haven’t advanced all that much in the last two decades, largely because their use has been steadily, then dramatically declining largely due to platforms like Reddit and Discord. The most useful functions you might check out are the ways the platform sorts views, like the Latest Topics View you mentioned. Some other sorts you might appreciate:

Topics Freshness
https://linkedmusicians.com/forums/view/topics-freshness/

Most Popular Topics
https://linkedmusicians.com/forums/view/popular

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