Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Suggestion for the Discussion software

Author:Bruce Hoult
Posted:1/22/1999; 11:48:48 AM
Topic:Suggestion for the Discussion software
Msg #:2400 (In response to 2386)
Prev/Next:2399 / 2401

One thing that I find a little annoying about the DG is the way it automatically redirects me to the page for the current date. I always use the calendar to go back one day to see if I need to catch up with messages from the night owls.

Me too.

For the last message retrieved by a user, would it be possible to store either the message number or the date? I don't know if makes sense to update the cookie or keep it server side. Wouldn't this allow nirvana to place the user on a page where he/she can pick up where they left off?

I don't think this software has any concept of what you've read and what you haven't. The only thing that knows this information is your browser -- and it will forget it eventually.

It could be done by the discussion software, but doing it properly isn't trivial. A simple "highest message number you've ever read" would be easy, but that produces problems if you, for example, are way behind and you read the replies to a message before continuing in sequential order. Or if you follow a pointer from Scripting News and it's way ahead of what you've read up to.

On the other hand, keeping explicit track of the read/unread status of every message in the databse, for every person, is going to be expensive.

There are responses to this message:

This page was archived on 6/13/2001; 4:47:32 PM.

© Copyright 1998-2001 UserLand Software, Inc.