Simple Unread List Plugin (discourse-simple-unread)

[david (David Taylor)]

DEPRECATED: the ‘unseen’ view can now be added to the top_menu setting in discourse core without this plugin. See the release notes for more information

Repository: https://github.com/davidtaylorhq/discourse-simple-unread

This plugin adds another way of listing topics: the “Unseen” tab. It combines what you’d see under New and Unread, or to put it another way, it’s the same as Latest except it hides the topics you have fully read.

It has the same live-update functionality as the built-in pages:

How is this different from the existing new/unread tabs?

The existing “New” tab displays:

• Topics in any category created in the time frame you specify in your Consider topics new when setting, that you have not yet opened

The existing “Unread” tab displays:

• New replies, to topics you have already viewed at least once, and are tracking. Even if you are tracking a category, the topic will not show up in “Unread” unless you have opened it at least once.

If an old topic in a category you are tracking has new replies, but you have never opened it, it will not display in either list. For us, that means that the “Latest” tab is the only reliable option. For more discussion on this limitation, check out Spooky tracking happenings 👻 - #8 by david

This plugin’s “Unseen” tab displays topics matching BOTH criteria:

• Has replies since you first logged into the forum
• You have not read the last post

“Unseen” is not a great title, but it needed to be something different to “Unread”. On my forum, we have renamed the existing “Unread” page to “Tracked”, and then renamed “Unseen” to “Unread”.

Installation

First install this plugin as any other: add one line to your app.yml:

hooks:
  after_code:
    - exec:
        cd: $home/plugins
        cmd:
          - git clone https://github.com/discourse/docker_manager.git
          - git clone https://github.com/davidtaylorhq/discourse-simple-unread.git

Then rebuild the container:

cd /var/discourse
sudo ./launcher rebuild app

The plugin is enabled using the simple_unread_enabled site setting.

[Dannii]

Since migrating from phpBB, some of our users have complained that the Unread tab’s behaviour is very different from what it used to be. This looks like it could make it do what they expect. Thank you for making it!

“Unseen” is not a great title, but it needed to be something different to “Unread”. On my forum, we have renamed the existing “Unread” page to “Tracked”, and then renamed “Unseen” to “Unread”.

How did you go about this? Can you just do it through the admin text content interface?

[david (David Taylor)]

Can you just do it through the admin text content interface?

Yes, admin/customize/text-content

[davidkingham]

This looks really useful David, but after installing it is not showing up in top menu, I do see it’s installed under plugins, any ideas?

[Dannii]

I can confirm “unseen” is not an option in the top menu setting.

I think this became impossible here: Invalid items can be added to the top_menu setting

I’d guess the plugin needs to add itself to the choices list.

It would also be good if it could add itself to the user’s Preferences→Interface→Default Home Page (and in a way which can be renamed through text content).

[david (David Taylor)]

I haven’t used this plugin for a long time, and I don’t know of any sites using it successfully. I’ll move it to #plugin:broken-plugin for now, but will happily accept a pull request to fix the issues.

[Dannii]

Well the core of the plugin seems to work to me. Using the Nav Links Component I added a link to it, and from what I can tell it’s working properly.

So maybe all that’s needed is better instructions here. I was thinking of making some edits anyway to explain what text content keys to change. (Though I’m not sure what extent that’s still even needed with the Nav Links Component now.)

I guess the real sore point is the menu management. The Nav Links Component is great if you just want to add a link to the end, but I’d ideally add this after latest, before the original Unread tab (which I’d rename to Tracked), before Top and New and Bookmarks etc. But I expect using the component will stop the menu items from showing a number. The component also has some poor quirks, such that if you start typing and change tabs, you’ll lose everything you entered. Even the original navigation plugin didn’t look like it made it easy to rearrange the menu items.

So this does work. It’s just depends on a very sub-optimal part of the Discourse ecosystem.

[Dannii]

After updating to the latest beta, this now seems to be erroring with TypeError: this.isFilterPage is not a function errors. I wasn’t even using it, but it completely took down my site.

[Jagster (Jakke Lehtonen)]

This isn’t relevant plugin anymore and setting unseen does same thing, right?

[ToddZ]

I had to dig around to learn that “unseen” is a thing you can add to the Top Menu list. Cool!
Yeah, it does seem to render this plugin obsolete.

[david (David Taylor)]

Yep, absolutely right. I’ve added a note to the OP, and to the GitHub README. Thanks for the prompts @Jagster and @ToddZ