New Post Tracking?

[shortbus1662]

Okay, so I was told that the major setback of VB is that it doesn't have "new post tracking" meaning if you view a thread in the forums it shows that all threads have been marked as read after that...or something to that effect.

Can someone explain this to me?

[Colin F]

Well kind of...

vBulletin doesn't currently have an exact new post tracking system.
That means, if you go into a forum, read only one post and then leave the board again, it marks the whole forum as read.
But if you go into a forum, read one thread, and leave that thread, only the one you have read will be marked as read. The others will still be marked as unread until you either read them or leave the board.

This is done, because tracking every thread would be much to resource intensive. Tracking 500 threads for 50 members would require about 25'000 database rows. Imagine a bigger board.

I once heard that the developers are working on a method that will be better than the system currently implemented, but I have to say that most members don't have any problems at all with this system...

[Natch]

I don't necessarily agree with you there Colin man, in that I have gotten used to this behaviour, but I always feel manipulated by vB... in that if I load a vb.org page, I then have to (if I wanna keep current) spend x minutes/hours browsing the forum so I don't lose track of what I have read/not read...

I'd love to hear that vB's designers had managed to work out a simpler way of tracking viewed threads without the db overhead...

[Colin F]

I don't necessarily agree with you there Colin man, in that I have gotten used to this behaviour, but I always feel manipulated by vB... in that if I load a vb.org page, I then have to (if I wanna keep current) spend x minutes/hours browsing the forum so I don't lose track of what I have read/not read...

I'd love to hear that vB's designers had managed to work out a simpler way of tracking viewed threads without the db overhead...
Like I said, I remember reading some rumours about a system that would have that overhead, but would reduce it by limiting the number of threads affected.
Of course this would be a solution that couldn't really be used by big boards...

Let's wait and see :)

[shortbus1662]

how does it work with ubbt then? I was told by a guy who switched to vb from ubbt that his members are all up in arms about not having the new post tracking. I have no idea about either of these programs in terms of how they work, but it seems if one can do it the other should be able to...?

Anyway, I'm buying a license today :)

[Zachery]

how does it work with ubbt then? I was told by a guy who switched to vb from ubbt that his members are all up in arms about not having the new post tracking. I have no idea about either of these programs in terms of how they work, but it seems if one can do it the other should be able to...?

Anyway, I'm buying a license today :)
The Mark Read system is differnt than uBB's which checks every post youve ever read, and if you go away, and come back a few days later all thoughs threads will still be marked unread, however this is a very server intensive process.

[ericgtr]

how does it work with ubbt then? I was told by a guy who switched to vb from ubbt that his members are all up in arms about not having the new post tracking.

I am about to make the same move over to VB from UBBT. This is the only feature that I will miss about UBBT, that being said it's still not totally accurate however it's nice for reference. Their developers will also tell you that it's not exact and that they have no timeline on when it will be.