On my forum, we have categories in which everyone is required to read every topic. I’ve been exploring the NEW and “Consider topics new when you haven’t viewed them yet” setting which seems to meet this requirement.
However, the process of reading through the list of new topics is cumbersome, especially when there are alot of them to go through. You have to go to NEW, click on a topic and read through it, go back to NEW and click on the next topic, and so on. To speed this up, I suggest adding a keyboard shortcut and link at the bottom of posts to go directly to the next new topic.
Perhaps the “There are 5 unread and 492 new topics remaining, or browse other topics in extensibility.” blurbage at bottom could be adjusted to read “There are 5 unread and 492 new topics remaining. Read next new topic or browse other topics in extensibility.”
(whoa: an aside. right after spending some time crafting this post, I dragged in a screenshot and it wiped out everything I had written except the first line! and meanwhile it is not displaying the preview on the right properly.)
Meanwhile, it seems to me also that this message, displayed when there are no matching topics, should actually reflect the current settings for the user instead of the default setting. Can this be changed?
Doesn’t this partially exist? As there are j/k keyboard shortcuts for going through the posts/topics and if you have the Suggested Topics (which prefer unread/new to other topics that are already read) turned on, the j/k will go to them when you reach the last post, and you can then press Enter to go to that topic.
Also, you can accomplish it using the following without Suggested Topics:
Thanks for the thought but yeah, we’ve explored that but the suggested topics do not actually seem to be showing the same topics as on NEW. It’s been a source of frustration.
Errrr, no, this is what Suggested Topics is for. Your new topics will be there under the unread topics. With a “next unread” we would be picking the “correct” next topic, but you should pick what you want to read from Suggested which prioritizes unread and new (in that order, now, as of a recent change @sam made), you’re in charge.
I was thinking that recently changed, it now promotes new and unread over everything else. But I could be wrong or not remembering it correctly. Jeff beat me to it
The g, n, j, Enter will work regardless though.
I’ve been using these keyboard shortcuts for a long time on our instance and here on Meta. I’d say I’m probably a 50% keyboard user and 50% mouse user on a typical day, but some days I’m 75% keyboard user and 25% mouse user.
OK - here’s a post I am about to put up on my forum to explain to folks how to read forum topics and make sure they are reading everything. Can you confirm this is accurate? Is there a better way to explain this? Also, I’m not clear on what happens to suggested topics when there are no unread or new topics available.
Here’s how best to catch up on all posts on discourse. I did some exploring on the site-wide and personal settings, and also learned about a recent software update that affects this.
###How NEW and UNREAD work
Look for NEW in the top menu to see new topics. You can specify in your preferences what NEW means to you personally. If you want to really be sure to catch everything that is being discussed, set this to “Consider topics new when you haven’t viewed them yet” and also specify categories that you want to watch for new topics.
Look for UNREAD in the top menu to see unread posts in topics you are watching. Again, you can specify in your preferences which categories are watched for unread posts. But as you read and participate in topics you will automatically start watching them.
###Suggested Topics
As you read and get to the bottom of topic discussions, discourse will provide you with topics you may want to read next, under the label Suggested Topics. This list will contain topics with unread posts first (with unread counts indicated) then new topics (clearly labelled as new).
and meanwhile it is not displaying the preview on the right properly.)
Thanks much!
