heya,
I'm an extensive user of the "view posts since last visit" feature of those forums. it provides links to all posts (by topic) of what is new since last time ; basically, you can read everything without having to look for it.
Unfortunately, due to technical problems, I keep losing this page (my PC reboots before I finish reading all the topics) every day, and I have to go hunting forum by forum for new topics/posts.
I would like to know if it would be possible to enhance the Search function of the forums, to add a date criteria (like : every topic updated since 24h, 2 days, 1 week, or more precise like min/max). also, would it be possible to make it look like the "since last visit" page, that is, a list of topics with links to both last post ever, and first post since that date/time.
I have no knowlegde of phpBB so I don't know if plugin doing such a feature already exists and could be added.
thanks in advance.
I never sleep, 'cause sleep is the cousin of death - NAS
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
Actually... why don't you just visit one subforum at a time? Maybe you could scratch down a list of updated threads with pencil and paper before you start reading? What on earth would make your PC reboot that fast/frequently?
I'm an extensive user of the "view posts since last visit" feature of those forums. it provides links to all posts (by topic) of what is new since last time ; basically, you can read everything without having to look for it.
Unfortunately, due to technical problems, I keep losing this page (my PC reboots before I finish reading all the topics) every day, and I have to go hunting forum by forum for new topics/posts.
I would like to know if it would be possible to enhance the Search function of the forums, to add a date criteria (like : every topic updated since 24h, 2 days, 1 week, or more precise like min/max). also, would it be possible to make it look like the "since last visit" page, that is, a list of topics with links to both last post ever, and first post since that date/time.
I have no knowlegde of phpBB so I don't know if plugin doing such a feature already exists and could be added.
thanks in advance.
...though upon further looking, just enter a space into the normal search form and select "All posts from last "whenever"".
Alternatively save a copy of the page.
Actually, I think it auto-resets the view status if you stop visiting (go away for 15 minutes, basically).
PHPBB is very touchy about these things. I've had threads mark themselves unread randomly and such, it's odd.
Either get Opera. Or Firefox with the Tab Mix Plus extension. Both has crash prevention, so that when you start the browser again, it loads up everything you were at.
But seriously, do something about the technical issue.
>Actually, I think it auto-resets the view status if you stop visiting (go away for 15 minutes, basically).
Yeah. I hate that feature. When I had been away for a week recently and was going to start going trough all the new posts, when I got sidetracked by something else for ten minutes, and *poof* goes the unread status.
I think they could just stay unread until I read them.
You (SXL) should do something about your PC though. That kind of mental stress can't be healthy.
...though upon further looking, just enter a space into the normal search form and select "All posts from last "whenever"".
Alternatively save a copy of the page.
both don't work.
the first one just gives no answer. you cannot submit a blank keyword. I suppose it's to prevent the search engine to give back the list of every topic. my request could be fulfilled just by removing this condition.
the second one is not possible, because it often hangs before I can save. alternatively, IE (yeah, no comment U_U) refuses to save it. Firefox too...
when I have enough time to save, once I rebooted, the links don't work anymore (since they're just the number of the topic + "newest" keyword. clicking on those just produces a "no post found")
but I might program a script to quickly download and parse the page.
the typical scenario is the following : I last connected at moment t1 (usually day before). at moment t2 I connect to the forums : "last visit" is now at t1, and "now" is at t2. I go to the "search posts since last visit", and the page gives me every topic updated between t1 and t2. on each topic, there's a small orange icon that points me to the first new post. I just open those pages and proceed to read them.
the main problem is that the list is always very long (30+ topics over the night) and that my computer hangs before I can finish the reading.
once I came back, "last visit" is now at t2, "now" is at t3 which is very close to t2 so there is no new post to be found. manual search is very tedious (especially when it's every day, sometimes several times within my session here).
the automatic reset is indeed annoying.
aziere wrote:
Either get Opera. Or Firefox with the Tab Mix Plus extension. Both has crash prevention, so that when you start the browser again, it loads up everything you were at.
thanks, I did not know it existed. I will try that.
aziere wrote:
But seriously, do something about the technical issue.
Truncated wrote:
You (SXL) should do something about your PC though. That kind of mental stress can't be healthy.
let me describe you the technical issue : my PC hangs zero to several times (up to 5, usually never less than once) during the following hours after it gets booted (mainly during mornings...). I could not find any pattern ; just that it mostly happens during the connection to thoses forums, since it is where I spend the most time when I do my daily messages harvest.
so IE seems to be at fault, but not always.
so basically it just "freezes randomly". searching such a cause gives of course no (exploitable) answers on Google.
I gave up since I believe I have found the cause. I have one of the oldest PC here. most pieces are from december 2000. maybe they're just dying. the "get a new comp dude !" usual answer isn't funny. unless you folks help me gathering the money.
I never sleep, 'cause sleep is the cousin of death - NAS
Hardware related: Bad RAM, overheating, moisture.
Software related: Viruses (and Worms), Spyware (and Malware), (faulty) Drivers, (faulty) Applications.
That's what I know can cause freezes. And if I'm right, not much else can cause it.
So my advice is: Run memtest86 to check the RAM. After a freeze, check the temperature in the case. (Not entirely feasible to do in most cases, but if you can, it's worth a shot.) Scan your computer for viruses and spyware. Reinstall newest of all drivers. Check if some application may be linked to the whole thing.
Or, you can do what I do. Backup everything, and do a fresh reinstall of windows (by formatting the hdds). Then for a day or so, just use windows as is, and if it freezes again... then it's most certainly: Hardware related, a virus or similar (in case you went online), or bad drivers. (Windows's standard drivers may be at fault as well, who knows)
Forgot one.
Hardware related: Harddrive.
Was unzipping about a million files, and the hdd just shut itself off (heard it do it), which caused the whole system to freeze. Has happened only once... but that kind of proves it that extremely high hdd load can cause it to malfunction :P
There's actually a phpbb extension (plugin?) which Bisqwit could install that has a better management for unread threads. What it does is create a new table in the database and stores all the unread threads per user in the database directly, so that the next time they visit it's still unread. (Something like that)
I had installed it on a forum a few years ago and it seemed to be pretty useful. However it takes a whole bunch of database space and also slows down the process of loading a page.
Sorry that I don't have links, but it shouldn't be too hard to find, if you want to install it.
>There's actually a phpbb extension (plugin?) which Bisqwit could install that has a better management for unread threads. What it does is create a new table in the database and stores all the unread threads per user in the database directly, so that the next time they visit it's still unread. (Something like that)
So how does it work usually? I can't think of any way to do it other than that.
So how does it work usually? I can't think of any way to do it other than that.
Usually phpbb clears the "unread threads" table for the user once he disconnects. Disconnection is either when you log out or when you log in the next time without having logged out in the first place.
The plugin changes that and makes it so that it doesn't clear the table on logout. I'll try and find the link to it.
EDIT: Here's the link: http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=158578&highlight=unread
seems great !
I actually found a link in this topic to a more recent version (released) of the mod : http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=309059
Bisqwit, would it be possible to add it to the forums ?
I never sleep, 'cause sleep is the cousin of death - NAS
