Active Topics.....where to find them.

[Neptune]

Decided to split it out of another thread.  For ease of location.

I never used Active Topics much, but I did see three cool little features that reminded me of Active Topics.

1)  Top Right corner of the page.  Should say Hello "your user ID", below that how many messages you have, and below that it should say "Show unread posts", and below that "Show unread replies".

2)  Recent Post section under the forum main pages.  Shows the last 5 posts.  Small, but could be cool if you really wanna fire away on something "hot."

3)  This one is really cool I think.  Look at the main forum page.  Look at any category name (like Start Here for example).  Look to the right of that name.  you should see an icon that looks like this:

or

Those are the "new post" buttons.  The white one, means there's no new posts in that category since the last time you looked.  Clicking the Blue one will show you all topics with a new posts since last time you looked, in that category.

Also notice, right below the last forum category, there's a description of both icons.  And directly to the right of those icons, is a "MARK ALL MESSAGES AS READ" button.  Clicking that will set all categories to the white icon.  To:



When a new message appears in that category, it'll turn to this:

[Red Arrow]

Decided to split it out of another thread.  For ease of location.

I never used Active Topics much, but I did see three cool little features that reminded me of Active Topics.

1)  Top Right corner of the page.  Should say Hello "your user ID", below that how many messages you have, and below that it should say "Show unread posts", and below that "Show unread replies".

2)  Recent Post section under the forum main pages.  Shows the last 5 posts.  Small, but could be cool if you really wanna fire away on something "hot."

3)  This one is really cool I think.  Look at the main forum page.  Look at any category name (like Start Here for example).  Look to the right of that name.  you should see an icon that looks like this:

or

Those are the "new post" buttons.  The white one, means there's no new posts in that category since the last time you looked.  Clicking the Blue one will show you all topics with a new posts since last time you looked, in that category.

Also notice, right below the last forum category, there's a description of both icons.  And directly to the right of those icons, is a "MARK ALL MESSAGES AS READ" button.  Clicking that will set all categories to the white icon.  To:



When a new message appears in that category, it'll turn to this:

These features are nice but (so far I think) not quite as convenient.  I had a shortcut on my desktop to "Active Topics". It  gave me the choice of a timeframe and then kept them grouped (such as political, development, etc).   If there was no activity within the timeframe I chose, it did not show those topics.  If there was no activity within a group, the whole group was not shown.  I consider it to have been a real time saver; especially useful during my lunch break.  At the bottom of the new index page there is a recent topics button but it doesn't keep the topics grouped.

[Neptune]

I don't know.  I really never used Active Topics much.  Probably had not even opened that link in over a years.  It just wasn't for me I guess, I know a lot of people used Active Topics.

I probably will use the "MARK ALL MESSAGES AS READ" button; in conjunction with the and

That's seems like probably one more step over Active Topics, but I guess that depends on how you typically would use Active Topics.

[sgrizzle]

You can hide categories you don't want on the homepage with the +/- buttons.

[Red Arrow]

I don't know.  I really never used Active Topics much.  Probably had not even opened that link in over a years.  It just wasn't for me I guess, I know a lot of people used Active Topics.

I probably will use the "MARK ALL MESSAGES AS READ" button; in conjunction with the and

That's seems like probably one more step over Active Topics, but I guess that depends on how you typically would use Active Topics.

I liked being able to see the subjects with replies or new subjects (within the chosen time frame) without being required to open the board name first.  It helped at work/lunch when traffic somewhere slowed down the system. At home my procrastination has left me with a 56K dial-up still.  Not having to navigate around too much was nice. 

We all probably organize ourselves differently.  Active Topics worked for me.

[Neptune]

At home my procrastination has left me with a 56K dial-up still.

Ah yeah, I got ya.  Active Topics would be at least one less step.

Kind of curious, are the pages loading about as fast as they were for you before the change?

[Red Arrow]

You can hide categories you don't want on the homepage with the +/- buttons.

I don't really want to hide an entire category.  I look at most of them.  Some subjects within a category are more interesting to me than others.  I may be following a subject in one category (say development) and two others in the political discussions.  The Active Topics options displayed any subject with recent (time frame I chose) activity while still grouping them in a category.  If I wanted to check a subject in a political category, I just scrolled down to the political discussions, and then looked to see if the subject I was interested in was displayed. If it was I could then open that subject. If not, I could move on to the next category and subject just by scrolling up or down.

It worked well for me.

[Red Arrow]

Ah yeah, I got ya.  Active Topics would be at least one less step.

Kind of curious, are the pages loading about as fast as they were for you before the change?

I can't tell much difference tonight.

[sgrizzle]

Here's another view of recent topics I found interesting:
http://www.tulsanow.org/forum/index.php?action=recent