I think there might be a bug with the 'Unread Posts' button (located just under the Inkscape icon at the top left). I hope it isn't just me?! 😱

When I first log in, I can click Unread Posts and get a bunch of (supposedly) unread threads. I click on a few threads, then, if I click Unread Posts again, these topics will have disappeared from the list shown, so all seems to be working correctly.

However, if I then log out, close my browser, and log in again, all threads are back when I click 'Unread Posts'. I'm logging out, then logging in again a few seconds later, so it's not that new posts have been added since I last checked.

My browser clears cookies every time I close it, so I don't know if that's got anything to do with it, though I would have thought the forum software itself would track what was read/unread, not the browser (but thought I'd mention it, just in case).

I really like the Unread Posts feature as a way of keeping up with what's happening, so I hope someone can look at this.

Hi z3z,

Thanks for reporting this.   @doctormo  will need to look into it.

This is as intended. The forum server doesn't track the user's read posts, instead the browser does. It gets saved in "localStorage", which isn't cookies, it's something else. But it may also be cleared.

The advantage to this is that as well as not tracking users activities, reducing the load on the server, but it also allows you to never log in as a user and maintain unread/read counts.

Since this kind of setup is unique for forum software, I can understand why it would be confusing though. I'm mulling over ways to tweak the design to make it easier, especially on users like yourself that clear cookies/data.

Hi Martin, thanks for the reply.

I understand now. I was under the impression that the forum was tracking unread posts, but I'll look into whitelisting Inkscape in my browser which should solve the problem. I knew that I cleared cookies, but was unaware I was also deleting local storage, so I'll have a poke around and see what I can find out about that.

Thanks.

EDIT: Yup, I've whitelisted the site, and it's all working as expected now.

@doctormo I've just been hit by this 'issue' in another context: when logging in from another browser entirely (in this case on my machine at work), the forum software has no idea of what I've read, and what I haven't, so the 'unread posts' button becomes useless as it lists a whole load of historical things that I have previously read.

I can understand not wanting to store this state on the server, but how about a setting in the user's profile to set a maximum time limite for unread posts? That way, even when logging on from a new machine, you would only be presented with unread posts from the past X hours. Ideally the unread posts view would also have an 'Older posts' button, or full-on paging, to allow the user to view even older unread posts in blocks of X hours.

(Whilst I'm on the subject, it would be good if the unread posts button was visible once you're viewing a post. As it stands it's not so easy to jump from 'replying to an unread post' back to the list of unread posts)

I have a habit of middle-clicking on links always, but I agree that Xav's suggestions sound useful.

Moini

I have a habit of middle-clicking on links always, but I agree that Xav's suggestions sound useful.

I have the forum in a pinned tab, so it's always at the left of my tab bar, in the same place. Middle-clicking opens new tabs 'somewhere else' - but I have a huge number of tabs open across multiple containers (a Firefox thing for segregating tabs into groups, such that only a subset are visible at a time). This means that middle-clicking will usually open the new tab somewhere off-screen, either because it's at the end of a long scrolling tab bar, or it's in a different container entirely.

I know that this is a side-effect of my particular set-up. I could unpin the main tab, so that the behaviour of middle-clicking becomes more predictable (tabs open next to the parent) - but then I'd have to spend time hunting for the main tab instead of having it in a known location. Either way there's searching across containers to do, whereas a persistent 'Unread posts' button would let me trivially deal with everything in a single pinned tab.

(offtopic: @Xav Which extension/add-on are you using for the 'containers'? I once had one, but that stopped working with the update of their add-on API...  - ah, nevermind, I found it, needs to be enabled in about:config. Thanks!)