OT?: do you like the way this forum does Topic threads

[Bill Dufour]

Off Topic? This may or may not be something the moderators can do anyway. I wish when I go to a old thread that I could just jump to the newest response. And I would prefer that the entire thread be done just as one consecutive set of links. not the current way where it branches off and unless you go back you do not realize that you ended up in a dead end and that there are other more recent responses.
I realize that people may prefer the decision tree format since it does make it more clear which response you are responding to.
Of course this may just be because I am using firefox as a browser and other browsers may show the screen in a different manner.
Any thoughts from others?
Bill D.

[Bob Bouis]

It's like those doors labeled "push" that have pull handles. Very counterintuitive.

[Stan Calow]

not sure this will help, but there are a couple of choices in how you see the threads. Click on the "Display" link at the upper right corner of this page and see if those help. I use Linear Mode, which I think gives you what you're looking for. If not, apologies for misunderstanding.

[Dan Friedrichs]

"Display" (upper right-hand corner of the screen, just above where it shows "#1"), then "Linear"

[Bill Dufour]

Well color me embarassed! Thanks for the help.
Bill

[Bob Bouis]

Not everybody knows about that, plus it isn't the default setting for other readers.

I've often seen posts here, including some directed to me, that I had no idea what they meant. I had to go back and look at the threaded mode to figure it out.

[Michael Dye]

Bill, thanks for starting this thread. I am as embarrassed as you are on this one. And thanks to the members for pointing out the fine print in the upper right hand corner. I need to start paying attention in class.

[John K Jordan]

Off Topic? This may or may not be something the moderators can do anyway. I wish when I go to a old thread that I could just jump to the newest response. And I would prefer that the entire thread be done just as one consecutive set of links. not the current way where it branches off and unless you go back you do not realize that you ended up in a dead end and that there are other more recent responses.
I realize that people may prefer the decision tree format since it does make it more clear which response you are responding to...

Maybe it does and I don't know of it, but I also wish this forum had a good way to show which messages in a thread are new since I read last AND show the thread tree. Another forum I frequent does this perfectly with a bright colored marker in front of on each new message in a thread tree. That makes it trivial to see which are new and far quick to scan to decide which I want to read.

Using the Hybrid mode, the way I read thread now is click on the little double arrow to show the most recent message posted, then scan the tree looking for the one in bold, then look at messages above that one to see if there are other recent messages since I read last. This doesn't help if new messages are effectively hidden on another branch - I know I've missed a lot of new posts. Seeing the threaded list is important to me to see which messages are responses to what comments - many don't use the quote function making it sometimes impossible to follow a conversation in the Linear mode.

Is there a better way without switching to and from the Linear display mode?

JKJ

[M Toupin]

Bill, if you look just to the right of the thread title there's a little round thingy with 2 down arrows. hover over it and it will say "go to first new post". Click it and voila, your at the last post you read. Is that what you're looking for?

Mike

Off Topic? This may or may not be something the moderators can do anyway. I wish when I go to a old thread that I could just jump to the newest response. .

[Lee Schierer]

Maybe it does and I don't know of it, but I also wish this forum had a good way to show which messages in a thread are new since I read last AND show the thread tree. Another forum I frequent does this perfectly with a bright colored marker in front of on each new message in a thread tree. That makes it trivial to see which are new and far quick to scan to decide which I want to read.

JKJ

The software used to do that, but with the last upgrade it quit. You can do it manually by clicking on the "Forum Actions" tab at the top of each page and select "Mark all Forums Read" option each time just before you exit SMC.

[John K Jordan]

The software used to do that, but with the last upgrade it quit. You can do it manually by clicking on the "Forum Actions" tab at the top of each page and select "Mark all Forums Read" option each time just before you exit SMC.

Lee, yes, I do that. However, unless things are not working for me or I don't understand, I think you are referring to something different.

After marking all forums read, the New Posts feature does bring up the threads containing new posts but doesn't help locate the new messages except for the last one.

I have a couple of examples from another forum. The image is cropped to keep from advertising the forum so no feelings are hurt (although I consider that forum complimentary rather than competitive - many "wood" people read both of these).

When I bring up their turning forum index today, I see this. The red markers instantly SHOW me exactly which messages and and which entire threads that have been posted since I last accessed the forum. In this case I can see there is one new message in the second thread that the SMC "Last post" would catch nicely. However, the first post has six new messages since I last visited. Unless I'm doing something wrong, SMC would only alert me to the one at the bottom, the most recent.

_screen3.jpg

On SMC, I would have to hunt for the other five new posts which can be a mess if any are buried deep in the thread tree. The worst case for me is two or more new messages deep at the end of different branches of a long thread tree. The "Last Post" function will show me only the most recent message, requiring paging through various branches and looking at the time/date stamps - way too time consuming and still too easy to miss something. Because of this I have even missed messages and questions in direct response to a message of my own.

An alternative is to temporarily switch to linear mode and scan the messages for the recent date stamps then switch back to hybrid mode to view the tree and try to determine the context. (Try finding the context of a reply like "You are absolutely right!" where the message is buried in a thread and the user doesn't use the quote feature.) Another but impractical alternative is to check the forum for new posts every 10 minutes...

Again, I may be missing something big time and if so, someone please elucidate.

Does SMC have a solution like the example above?

(Note1: I personally am not interested in the notification features which may help with this issue since I already have trouble keeping up with email.)
(Note2: For years I was the primary moderator and technical support person on a forum which had the best method I've ever used, a mode that displayed ONLY the latest messages with a click to view the context or the entire thread. This was a very busy forum with sometimes hundreds of messages a day. I could whip through the new messages quickly and as far as I know, never missed one.)

JKJ

[Keith Outten]

Possibly I'm confused about this problem but I don't have any issues using the New Posts feature here. I select the New Posts link and get one to several pages of threads that contain new posts. Each thread is highlighted in bold text and when I click on the blue circle to the left of the Thread title it takes me directly to the first new post.

Normally I right click on the blue circle and open it in a new tab, view the new posts and then close the tab and I'm back to the New Posts page.
.

[John K Jordan]

Possibly I'm confused about this problem but I don't have any issues using the New Posts feature here. I select the New Posts link and get one to several pages of threads that contain new posts. Each thread is highlighted in bold text and when I click on the blue circle to the left of the Thread title it takes me directly to the first new post.

Normally I right click on the blue circle and open it in a new tab, view the new posts and then close the tab and I'm back to the New Posts page.
.

Thanks, I'll try that again. In the past it didn't show me new posts that were on different branches on the thread tree and I had some other problem (can't recall at the moment) so I got away from using that method. I tried a few just now and got ambiguous results. One thread showed me just the most recent post but when I checked it was actually a reply to another post that was time stamped later than the last time I read the forums. Perhaps that was a fluke - I'll try to make some careful tests.

I'll try the right click method too - or the shortcut on this laptop anyway, the middle button on the pointer pad.

JKJ