Forum Improvements

I repeat the request to enhance the contrast between read and unread posts and threads.

Lance, you spammer!

I still can't activate my avatar to show up next to my username in my posts. The avatar shows up in the profile but not here.

Gnomes are known to be a bit, um, how do you say, "different". I wouldn't even have flinched (as long as I avoid imagining eating it myself) if you had said, chocolate and anchovies.


Pepperoni is good but I need frequent variety. I vote for margarita nella tradizione italiana. (for those who don't know, this would mozzarella, basil and fresh tomato done in traditional Italian style.)

Thanks ma' Lord.

Us, poor regular users, can't change our avatar options.

Yeah. I've mentioned this before. I'd like to add to this, that us regular users don't even have avatar options in our control panel. After the high and mighties move our profile pictures into the avatar we can't even see them in our profile.

Why this would be a restricted option is beyond me. This forum doesn't seem to be populated by the problem causing types.

New Posts button changes

As of January 5
Now we are getting somewhere good!

Clicking on the New Posts will now show me new posts each time I click it, subtracting from the list the posts I have just viewed. It will not show a new post mad by myself as a New Post if I click New Posts directly after posting. But, and I consider this a bug, I've found that if I post a reply and then navigate to a different forum via the current location map, for lack of a better name for the list of links that show where in the forum/thread hierarchy one is currently, then at some later point clicking New Posts, my own post will appear as a new post. In my opinion, a new post by me doesn't count, I know I made it and I (hopefully) read it as I wrote it and even after to check to see if I erred. I don't want the New Posts button to ever, under any conditions, tell me there is a new post if I'm the one who made it.

Note: I have not been able to consistently reproduce this. So, I'm not really sure what it is I sometimes do that makes my posts show up as New Posts. I'll update this when I get it figured out.

The additional functionality regarding the threads that have not been updated but still contain unread posts is nice. But is sorely broken. It tells me I have 15 such threads and I know for a fact that the vast majority I have read. I'm going to go back and check each one and count how many exist that actually have unread posts.

Previous posts about this New Posts button are here: http://forum.context.cx/showthread.php?t=1701

Any idea why this doesn't work consistently? I am not personally familiar with vBulletin. But I have been checking these threads and so far out of the original fifteen (and I'm not done yet) five I have visited and read in the last several days and as of checking today contain no new threads or edits.

Done checking, now twelve out of the fifteen I have visited in the last week (since the new forum) a couple more than once, and none of the twelve contained new posts or edits. But on the bright side, there were three that did contain edits or new posts that I had missed somehow, maybe on the day the New Post button wasn't working at all, except the first time I clicked it.

Auto updating to forum mainpage / always logged in

How about that for a convoluted title?

I have several computers and screens on my desk(s) and often have a forum open in a browser tab and almost as often, it has has focus on a screen. I will periodically, click refresh to see if new posts to old threads or new threads have appeared.

What I envision, that would suit me ideally, is if I could remain logged in indefinitely and the main page of the ConTEXT forums was periodically updated without me having to do anything. Maybe a little snippet of javascript that did a get at some reasonable interval. All I would need to do is glance from time to time at it.

Well that would work too. That page doesn't look as attractive though when there are no new posts, it just displays the message about no new posts. The forums main page though shows who is logged in so I also see if people are coming around and just not posting. Plus it is visually more attractive.

To add to my original improvement request, how about a small countdown somewhere near the top of the page. If, for example, it refreshes every minute then it resets to 60 seconds on refresh and counts down to the next refresh. So a glance at my screen will also tell me if it is just about to refresh and I should watch it for two seconds longer.

Only if its death would cause the sudden birth of a new and better server that made ConTEXT available as open source.....

It's already refreshing as oftern[sic] as the clock ticks: <script type="text/javascript">loadBanners();window.setInterval("loadBanners()",60000);</script>
I wish the frequency was reduced from once per minute to once per five minutes or so; it's a bit distracting to see browser tabs refreshing.