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Unread topics in topic feeds.


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10 minutes ago, FZ said:

The default feed that IPS has is not consolidated and to my mind isn't useful at all. 

True, but that’s not what you need to link from the menu! You can create a custom consolidated feed and make that your “default” by making it easily accessible as a main menu link. That’s what I do on my site where the Discovery page isn’t the homepage. My members quickly learn to use that link and power users bookmark it to access the site this way. They certainly don’t need to visit a page like the forum index. And why would they? Most of that page is covered by the forum listing, which hardly ever changes. It’s not a good entry page. And if people would use it because of a “recent discussions block with read/unread markers”, I’d rather remove that block completely to force them to use a better method. 😉 

Maybe this change is also a chance to reconsider and find better ways to direct your users to new content. 

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2 hours ago, opentype said:

How were you using these widgets? On what pages?

I'll answer this, and hopefully it'll get the other question answered as well, at least to some degree.

The Discover feed, in my (and a big chunk of our users) opinion, is too overwhelming and throws too much information at you. Posts or threads alone are ok, both - that's a bit too much, and then adding in reactions just makes it a bit, well, much. Moreover, if one thread has a few posts posted in it in close proximity - it takes over the feed and if you're not interested in this particular topic, you may find yourself feeling like "I've got nothing to read".

For that reason, we've set up two more pages in addition to the discover feed - one that shows new posts, and another that shows new threads - that way you see every thread only once, and you don't get flooded with multiple instances of the same thread. This is where the "Thread feed" widget lived, basically alone (together with the hot topics widget and another unrelated one) and acting as pretty much it's one page. seeing which threads were updated since your last visit is obviously useful if you visit that page often.  

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8 hours ago, Pavel Chernitsky said:

I'll answer this, and hopefully it'll get the other question answered as well, at least to some degree.

The Discover feed, in my (and a big chunk of our users) opinion, is too overwhelming and throws too much information at you. Posts or threads alone are ok, both - that's a bit too much, and then adding in reactions just makes it a bit, well, much. Moreover, if one thread has a few posts posted in it in close proximity - it takes over the feed and if you're not interested in this particular topic, you may find yourself feeling like "I've got nothing to read".

For that reason, we've set up two more pages in addition to the discover feed - one that shows new posts, and another that shows new threads - that way you see every thread only once, and you don't get flooded with multiple instances of the same thread. This is where the "Thread feed" widget lived, basically alone (together with the hot topics widget and another unrelated one) and acting as pretty much it's one page. seeing which threads were updated since your last visit is obviously useful if you visit that page often.  

Couldn’t agree more about the nature of the feed. It’s confusing and in my opinion it’s not conducive to good community flow. 

I’ve been involved with forums since I first discovered them on usenet in 1997. Maybe I’m old and cranky, but the simpler they are the better they become for their users. I moved to IPS from Simple Machines about 10 years ago and it was great at first, but honestly I don’t think it’s so wonderful anymore, mainly because of things like this. IPS needs to leave good enough alone. 

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  • 1 year later...
On 8/11/2021 at 8:46 AM, Daniel F said:

It didn't because of the cache.
Let's say the first visitor after the widget cache was truncated has all topics shown as unread.Since he's the first visitor his output will be cached and returned to literally any visitor having the same theme, language and groups and even if these members have no unread topics, the widget would show them as unread!

 

Just adding my two cents with a bit of context:

The cache was an issue. It was annoying. BUT, it was still very nice that I could use the Topic Feed widget to get a glimpse of the latest topic posts and actually link to the post rather than the OP. They didn't reflect 'read' status for a few minutes, but I can remember what I have clicked only seconds ago. The point is that it's helpful for them to reflect and link to unread posts with cache update time if my point check times are > my cache update times ... which they are. I check my forums once an hour or two on weekdays and a couple times a day on weekends.

The 'buggy' issue --which wasn't a bug at all (just n/a implementation)-- was only a small one. Linking to the topic OP ('upgrade' behavior)  obviates all convenience of the Topic Feed widget. It's redundant and useless real-estate wasted.

I will stop enabling this widget if IPS doesn't appreciate its value and refuses to implement a solution that re-applies this functionality. Using a third-party plugin to handle expected behavior is detrimental to potentially all customers at update time.

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12 minutes ago, z929669 said:

Just adding my two cents with a bit of context:

The cache was an issue. It was annoying. BUT, it was still very nice that I could use the Topic Feed widget to get a glimpse of the latest topic posts and actually link to the post rather than the OP. They didn't reflect 'read' status for a few minutes, but I can remember what I have clicked only seconds ago. The point is that it's helpful for them to reflect and link to unread posts with cache update time if my point check times are > my cache update times ... which they are. I check my forums once an hour or two on weekdays and a couple times a day on weekends.

The 'buggy' issue --which wasn't a bug at all (just n/a implementation)-- was only a small one. Linking to the topic OP ('upgrade' behavior)  obviates all convenience of the Topic Feed widget. It's redundant and useless real-estate wasted.

I will stop enabling this widget if IPS doesn't appreciate its value and refuses to implement a solution that re-applies this functionality. Using a third-party plugin to handle expected behavior is detrimental to potentially all customers at update time.

EDIT: I should also note that this functionality is just as nice for the user as it is for an administrator. It has less value to those that compulsively use and re-use the Topic Feed info, but it still has value to all.

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  • 3 months later...
On 6/29/2021 at 10:00 PM, Guest said:

my members are missing the feature of emphasized topic titles for unread topics / posts in topic feeds. Support told me they removed this feature due to performance reasons.

I have mod for that - (DP45) Unread Items in Topic Feed. Works fine with IPS 4.7. Anyone interested please send me PM. I'll send  that for free.

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