Forum Navigation Suggestion - Latest Threads

[Colin Southern]

Sean,

Just wondering if you think (and if possible) it would be a good idea to add "Next Forum" and "Previous Forum" controls either side of the title of the current forum at the top of forum main pages.

I personally think it would make keeping a handle on what's happening a lot easier; at present I open the entire site in a single tab - so when I click into a forum - see that there are no highlighted posts indicating new activity - I then have to navigate back to the main page in order to be able to navigate to the next forum (and repeat for all forums) - would be a great time saver to be able to advance to the next forum from the current one.

Or ...

Plan B - would it work to create a single page - sectioned by forum - that simply listed all active threads. Save having to navigate around the site at all.

At present I use the Quick Links \ Today's Posts option a lot, but it doesn't appear to be quite in real time.

Just my thoughts of the day.

Cheers,

Colin - pbase.com/cjsouthern

[McQ]

A new "Recent Posts" feature has been added to the Quick Links top menu drop down. It shows the most recent posts in real time for the trailing 48 hour period, regardless of whether you have clicked/read them or not. They can be shown for either (i) all forums or (ii) only for subscribed forums. This replaces the "Today's Posts" link that was previously in the same place on the Quick Links menu. This is only available when you are logged in.

Also, a "New Posts" top menu item has been added for logged in users, which is based on the most recent unread threads. When you are not logged in, this reverts to a "Today's Posts" link.

[McQ]

The original "New Posts" top menu item has now been replaced by the earlier "Recent Posts" from the quick links menu. The quick links "recent posts" item was deemed too similar, but yet more powerful than the original "New Posts" link. All of the new features have been preserved. It's a real-time feed, so there's no need to refresh the page. One can leave it open in one browser tab/window while reading and posting in the other...

[iPhillip]

To be honest I liked the previous standard "New Posts" layout.

It just seems so much simpler and I its takes me a while to realize what thread I'm looking at because the first thing you see is a username rather than the title of the thread.

[McQ]

Fair enough. It seems like I could at least partially address this by just swapping the "By" and "Forum" columns...

In the meantime you can access the original version via this link:
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/for....php?do=getnew
Or, for "Today's Posts" that is viewable when not logged in:
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/for...hp?do=getdaily

[McQ]

The "By" and "Forum" columns have now been interchanged, and the date field has been added to the far left. The column ordering ought to now be a lot more logical...

I think the other reason for it seeming more complex might be that now a portion of the post text is included below each new post listing. I could shorten the amount of text listed if that would help.

The most important reason for introducing this was the ability for real-time post tracking across the site. This was sorely needed in light of the recent traffic increases.