That old running thread on the Preview forum had quite a few posts in agreement with what I (and others) wrote, and my first post in that thread was quite upvoted. I would hazard a guess that the majority of people that regularly use the "View New Posts" function on 2.3.6 see the new "View New Content" results as a downgrade.
Some.
Yes, please do make the results tabular. Overall you guys have done a great job with 3.0, I'm quite confident that you are up to the challenge of properly remedying this issue. This is really the only major sticking point I have with 3.0 and it's a big one (the other being new topic markers, which is somewhat related).
It wasn't broken to begin with and did not need fixing at all.
1) Bring back the columnar format. It's easy to parse, and your eyes know right where to go for each bit of information once you're familiar with the format. The new format uses two "rows" of information for each "new" result and there is plenty of wasted white space. In this particular instance, adding white space for the sake of making the results appear "cleaner" simply doesn't work in my opinion. This goes against the grain "form follows function".
2) The topic title links to the first new post in the thread. Previously, the topic title linked to the first post in the thread and you used the "New Post" icon to go to the first new post. Now there is no way to go to the first post, which is useful if you want to catch up on a thread you haven't viewed in a while (among other reasons). This is completely inconsistent with how the title link works when viewing the topic list in a forum (which itself isn't consistent when viewing the forum index!!)
3) Number of "Views" was removed. Useful to see threads that are particularly active.
4) "Topic Starter" was removed. This is nice information to have, as you may be more interested in threads started by particular users than others. As a forum admin, this is also useful when you want to keep an eye on threads started by particular users (for instance, someone who may be a trouble starter).
5) You can no longer click on the number of "Replies" to get a popup showing the replies in a thread.
6) No attachments icon so you can see threads with attachments in them. This also includes the accompanying link that would give you a popup showing all the attachments (which I have used many times).
7) No means to get to the "Last Post". Currently in 2.3.6, the "Last post by" text links to the last post in the thread. Useful if you want to jump right to the end of a thread.
8) Page links were removed for threads spanning multiple pages. This includes the "Jump to page" link shown before the page links.
9) The "Get active topics for:" dropdown at the bottom of the "View New Post" results is gone. Functionality removed.
As you can see, even with the improvements you've made, there's still quite a bit missing from the original "View New Posts" results. Much of this functionality exists when viewing the topics in a forum. Link to first post in thread, topic starter, attachment link, replies link, link to last post, and number of views are all present, in a nice, columnar format. But the "View New Posts" results as it exists in 2.3, which is nearly identical in appearance, contains too much information? What?
Please bring back the functionality and appearance of the 2.3.6 "View New Posts" results.
SystemShock reacted to AtariAge in View New Content
