How can I view all unread posts?

I'm looking to display all unread posts at the top of my Home Page similar to how it was previously where the thread title is in bold if unread. I like the activity stream, but it doesn't indicate to me whether or not I have read the posts or not.  I have been messing around with adding forum thread lists to my homepage, but it seems I can only get it setup to display unread posts for one sub forum per widget. I don't really want to have to have 4+ thread lists on my homepage to see the unread in each sub forum, I would like to see all unread posts in one. Thanks

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  • The default thread list in the right column is set to show only unread threads site wide. To recreate that thread list, leave the specified forum blank and check the box to include sub-groups/forums. This will pull everything from every forum that you have access to read. You can then filter that list to only unread posts.

    If you wanted to narrow the list to only the forums that you "care" about, you will need to configure specific widgets for each break point (i.e: one list for specifically Eos Family, one list for Beta Sites that includes sub-groups/forums, etc...)

  • Kirk,

    The default list does not show every new unread post. Here is what I see in the default thread list:

    And here are the first few posts in the Activity Stream, two of which I have not read.

  • And here is what I see when I add a widget and filter to see only unread. I should be seeing almost all of today's posts since I haven't looked at many of them, yet the first unread I see is from November 2013.

  • One thing I've noticed with forum thread list set to unread: if I read a post by clicking on an entry in the notification overlay, it doesn't disappear from the forum thread list for unread posts. Have to open it from there again
  • ueliriegg said:
    One thing I've noticed with forum thread list set to unread: if I read a post by clicking on an entry in the notification overlay, it doesn't disappear from the forum thread list for unread posts. Have to open it from there again

    Ueli, what are you referring to when you say the notification overlay?

  • Watch out, the widget sorts sticky posts first, just like they are listed first in the subforums. You can recognize them by a slightly grey background. Very slightly. Almost... I first had to go to all forums and Mark all read, before it started to make sense
  • Didn't know what to call it... At the top right I get a red number showing how many new notifications I have, a bit like Facebook. When I click on it I get a list, that's what I meant
  • Ah ha, maybe that is the issue. Let me go mark all unread and see if that fixes my situation.
  • ueliriegg said:
    Watch out, the widget sorts sticky posts first, just like they are listed first in the subforums. You can recognize them by a slightly grey background. Very slightly. Almost... I first had to go to all forums and Mark all read, before it started to make sense

     
    When we deploy the fix for the size of the posts, we'll also be changing that sticky post to be a more distinguishable light blue(ish) color to make it easier to know that threads are sticky. Also, we'll be changing the font color of unread posts to help identify them from the non-bold read posts.
     
    Because of the migration, every thread was technically unread in the new site. New items have a time out of about 7 days or so, so in the next few days, those threads should be marking themselves as read automatically.
  • Well, I won't be sure if doing the "mark all read" thing worked until someone posts a new post, but now I have another issue.

    After marking all forums read, setting up a new Forum Thread List Widget and setting that show only unread, I can't see any posts in any forum. When I click a sub forum I get this message "There are no posts to show. This could be because there are no posts in this forum or due to a filter. " I've tried changing the filter in the sub forum I'm in, I deleted the widget and reverted back to default on my home page, and I've signed off and signed back in, yet I still can't see posts when I click on a sub forum. It seems I globally set every forum to only show unread. I hope it's just me being dense.

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  • Well, I won't be sure if doing the "mark all read" thing worked until someone posts a new post, but now I have another issue.

    After marking all forums read, setting up a new Forum Thread List Widget and setting that show only unread, I can't see any posts in any forum. When I click a sub forum I get this message "There are no posts to show. This could be because there are no posts in this forum or due to a filter. " I've tried changing the filter in the sub forum I'm in, I deleted the widget and reverted back to default on my home page, and I've signed off and signed back in, yet I still can't see posts when I click on a sub forum. It seems I globally set every forum to only show unread. I hope it's just me being dense.

Children
  • If you marked all as read, you then would have no unread posts in any forums so the message you are seeing would be correct.

    At the top of each forum thread list, you should have the filter dropdown to be able to change what you want to see. It would default to unread, but should allow you to change it to any other filter type.

    Does that dropdown appear/work?

  • Yeah I saw that I could change the filter and I tried to. It seems to be working now, but it definitely wasn't working when I tried. Maybe my work network was being wacky and the page wasn't refreshing.  Thanks for the assistance.

  • After reading unread posts I am again not able to view "All recent questions and discussions" by adjusting the filter. I read all the unread posts. Then I tried to view all recent discussions by selecting it from the filter drop down menu in the forum thread list and a few other sub forums (eos family, eos beta, and element). No posts were listed, so I tried manually refreshing the page, and again no posts were shown. I'm on my home network now and all other websites I visit are working. Here is a screen shot showing that the filter "All recent questions and discussions" is selected, yet no posts are shown.

  • Hmm... interesting. If you visit another forum with unread posts and change your filter to all recent questions, does it restore your view of the Eos Family Forum? I have a theory on what is happening, but not sure if I'm right.
  • starksk said:
    Hmm... interesting. If you visit another forum with unread posts and change your filter to all recent questions, does it restore your view of the Eos Family Forum? I have a theory on what is happening, but not sure if I'm right.

    A few things. First I did a some more testing. I left a few unread posts in my "New Posts" Thread list that I added to my homepage. I then went into a few forums that did not have new posts, and changed the filter from Unread to All recent posts. No posts showed up. I then went back to my custom thread list and changed that filter to All recent posts. I then went back to the forums I tried earlier, and all posts showed up. So the thread list filter was controlling what I saw across the site.

    Second, I also did a test setting the Eos sub forum to show unread, any other forum I visit after is set to show unread. I don't understand why setting one filter globally sets that filter for the rest of the site. It's annoying having to always switch the filter depending on what forum I'm in. What I want is my "New Posts" thread list to always show unread posts and then to still be able to browse other sub forums without having to change filters.

    Third, I viewed the remaining unread posts. I went back to my home page and it shows no unread posts. I then changed the filter on my custom thread list  to view all posts. Nothing show up. I also went into multiple sub forums and tried to change the filter to show all posts, but I couldn't get any posts to show. So it seems that once all unread posts are read, the filter gets stuck on unread posts and I'm unable to view all.

  • Yes, it appears that the filter is going page/site wide when it isn't supposed to be. I am looking into this, but it will likely be a bit of time before this is addressed. Sorry for the hassles.
  • Thanks Kirk! Hopefully it gets figured out.
  • Hi ,

    I wanted to follow up on this post. I have found the misbehaving bit of code that is locking you into the view when there are no posts that match the criteria. This will be corrected in the next maintenance update.


    As for the preferences going site wide, this is actually a design "feature" of the forum controls. We are exploring options, but I think with the ability to change the filter when no posts appear, this will be less of an issue.

  • Hi ,

    This should be better now. Give it a shot!

  • Kirk,

    Yes, I can read posts and set filters as needed and it seems to be working well.

    Thanks!