[HTL] & [Normal] Persistant Mark Forum Read
 

Here's the core of a Persistant Mark Forum Read routine.

What it does and How it works:
Clicking the Mark Forum Read link in a forum now adds a record to the database and marks that forum read as of the moment you click the link. New messages posted after you mark a forum read will remain "new" until you click Mark Forum Read again in that forum.

To view ONLY new messages, click on the lightbulb instead of on the forum name. You'll only see threads that have been active since you marked the forum read.

The mod requires 2 new tables. Displaying new messages simply hijacks the $ daysprune function by plugging in the time that the forum was last marked read.

The standard Active Topics (View New Posts) function is unaffected, except that the lightbulb is no longer connected to that routine(optional). The lightbulb now indicates if the forum has been marked read with this routine.

There's also a QuickScan feature which shows the unread topics in all forums (similar to the regular View New Posts routine, but the threads remain on display until you mark each forum (or all forums) read.

Quickscan can be turned on and off for each forum separately.

Don't install this in a production environment, try it on a test system first.

Feedback and help appreciated.

Ed

July 14, 2004: Updated package to v0.3. This version includes a new file that will Mark ALL Forums Read.

July 22, 2004: Updated package to v0.4. This version includes QuickScan.

July 25, 2004: The basic package is now complete with the addition of individual forum on/off control in the quickscan.

Aug 7, 2004: Added text to make navigation easier. Added additional support for subforums

Aug 9, 2004: Added HTL installer

Is there a demo somewhere?

pm me for the info

lol is there a problem with making it a public demo? haha

No, I just didn't think it was necessary to advertise my boards.

You can see this mod operating on these forums:

www.yestalk.org and www.afterhoursbbs.com

Ed

I've updated the package to include "Mark ALL Forums Read"

Very nice thanks for sharing shall install tomorrow :)

I assume that posts won't automatically be marked read after you enter them under this system, right? It'd be nice if posts you entered/posted in were to be marked read like usual but the rest would stay unread until you either went into them or marked forum read (sort of like a combo of how it works now and the persistant mark forum read).

You can kinda use the 2 features together. When you click into a forum via the lightbulb in order to view your unread threads, the little "read first unread" icons appear.

However, if you come back later and view the same threads and there's been no activity, the icons are gone. In order to completely tie those icons in to the new system, I'd have to get rid of the mark read cookie entirely, which would break the old system.

I understand that the vBulletin team might impletement a "mark thread read" feature at some point, but that's beyond the scope of this hack.

Ed

This is AWESOME! :D Just what I've been looking for since coming to VB! Thank you! I shall try it, and hope it works. If not, we can work out the bugs. :)


EDIT: Initial testing reveals no problems! :D

(other than an issue with my database table prefixes, solved by adding 'prefix_' before 'lastreads' in your mysql query. that's not something you can fix though, it's an induvidual case) :tired: