Problem finding new replies in a post

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[JC Zorkoff]

I regularly use the “New Posts: Last Day” link to find new information.

When I find s post marked “New Reply” I click on the little box with the popup saying “First new reply”, however, frequently the oldest “new reply” is close to the end and there are newer “new replies” closer to the top of the post which are not found and are easy to miss.

I would like the “New Reply” box to find the first new reply closest to the start of the post as opposed to the current method based on the time of the reply.

This is a side effect of allowing replies to appear under the post they are reffering to.

If all replies were chronological (i.e. at the end) this would not be an issue.

 

• This topic was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by JC Zorkoff.

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wavy

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Replies

Replies are meant to be threaded, next to the post they are referring to. So it’s intentional that replies are posted like that.

On the right hand side, if you click on the column “last post” will that work for you?

Susan Bradley Patch Lady

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I assume you mean in the list of posts, the column header “Last Post” is not clickable and the time and author info next to the post with a new reply will either give the profile of the last author or start a reply to the post. So, no that will not work for me.

The small box that takes you to the “First new reply” should find the first reply closest to the start of the thread, not the one with the earliest date/time.

I understand that the replies are meant to be threaded, but that is why this problem occurs.

 

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wavy

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Click on the “X minutes ago” part.  We want threaded replies, not chronological because people often respond to different parts

Susan Bradley Patch Lady

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Hover your mouse over the “X minutes ago part” and see what the pop-up help says.

I would have to try it on a long thread with many replies to see if it finds the “First new reply” or the reply of the last person posting.

But in either case, it could miss a post closer to the top of the thread.

 

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That gets the most recent reply, sorry if I’m not understanding.

The first new reply is going to get you to exactly that, the first new reply.  Too many people want threaded views, not chronological.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady

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JC Zorkoff wrote:

I would like the “New Reply” box to find the first new reply closest to the start of the post as opposed to the current method based on the time of the reply.

I probably should have said, I would like to see the “Show first new reply” function locate the first “Unread” reply which is closest to the top of the thread, so I could scroll down and find other “Unread” posts.

Currently, the term “First” refers to the earliest date/time of an “Unread” post and has little to do with reading them from top to bottom of the thread.

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First new reply may not be anywhere near the other new replies. With nested replies you can’t guarantee anything.

I use a regex search browser plug-in and search for “new$” (new at the end of the line) once I open the thread.
Works every time.

cheers, Paul

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JC Zorkoff

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Paul,

Thank you for the info on how to find the First new Reply chronologically.

However, the very fact that you do this proves my point that the forum software is not very good at finding new replies, because of the threading design.

Susan’s suggestion of using the “X minutes ago” link only finds the reply of the member listed below it, NOT the “First new Reply”.  I verified that this morning in a different topic.

It would be nice if there was a “Next new Reply” button (or key stroke) when reading the posts for a given topic.

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JC
This an old pet peeve of several (at least) of us. There used to be a search term (“rt n” maybe) that would scroll thru the posts with the ‘New’ box. This no longer works. It is thus easy to miss replies. Possibly why sometimes a string of very old replies that have no been looked at get re initiated as new when a reply (maybe a year later) comes up as new and unread. I would like to be able to use a search term to find the new boxes but i have no Regex function in Pale Moon at present. Subscribing to EVERYTHING that I might want to see becomes too tedious and uses forum band with for the emails.

We must just work with what we have for now

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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SueW

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Paul,

What Firefox extension do you use?

I found one called Regex Search, but it does not position the screen to what it finds.

Thanks for the help, JC

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I use Chrome (Brave) and Chrome Regex Search.

cheers, Paul

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[Bob99]

For me, finding the first new post in a thread works like a champ. When I click the icon with the ellipsis in it (the icon with the three little dots inside a “square balloon”), I’m brought right to the first new post in a thread since the last time I viewed the thread. However, in order to get the icon to show up, I have to refresh the “Recent Replies” page in my browser, or log out for a bit and then log back in.

That’s what it’s supposed to do…take one to the first new post in that given thread since the last time you viewed that particular thread. Or so I believe.

By the way (BTW), that icon I described in the first paragraph is found at the end of a topic’s title in the “Recent Replies” list. Clicking the green box labeled “new reply” won’t do anything at all, it’s not a hyperlink. To get to the first new reply, you must click the icon I described above.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by Bob99.

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WCHS

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While looking for an answer to my question, I came across this thread and I’m hoping it won’t be considered too far off-topic:

On the “New posts: Last day” page on AskWoody, suppose that there is a thread that you checked out once but realized that you have no interest in it. Or a thread that you might even have posted on but lost interest in following it. When I open or refresh the “New posts: Last day” page, the page displays the tag “new reply” in a green box to the left of the topic title. Note that these are not topics that I have subscribed to (such that I would get email notices about them when a new post were submitted).

Is there a way on my end to make it so that, for these threads that I have no further interest in, the “New posts: Last day” page doesn’t flag them for me as having new replies? I guess what I’m aiming for, in effect, is for these threads to get treated once again as if they were unread (had never been read).

Thank you.

 

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We can’t tailor the display very much so this isn’t possible.

cheers, Paul

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Cybertooth

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JC Zorkoff, in comment #2442952 , wrote: “If all replies were chronological (i.e. at the end) this would not be an issue.”

See what I just did there? If the replies were strictly chronological, people could reply to an earlier comment that is not the one just before theirs, by pasting that comment’s number, that is actually a link to this comment they are responding to, as well as quoting something there for others to see what this is all about, as usual.

But this would be entirely up to the person responding, who would have to do it by hand, as it were, because I suspect that there is no reasonable way to implement this so it can be done at the push of a button.

I suspect there is no good way to make things really better than what they are right now. It’s up to anyone who wants to make a contribution to a thread to scan what is already there, or at least do a word search to see where comments on what this person is interested in might be found, and then read them.

If the thread is long, the job takes longer. I can and do live with that.

 

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

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