Basically yes, TWO options shown top left, but.
When clicking the top option of the two (Show unread posts since last visit) gives me a third option -
No unread topics found since your last visit. Click here to try all unread topics.

So a third option.

 
Whilst I see little need for the options referred to, they do no harm and are easy to ignore. Attempted alterations may increase the risk of unwanted consequences.
If it works, leave well alone.

 
I suspect that the extra option is offered only to those who have specifically told their broswer to return pages in English and don't accept default site languages (which for the Coffee Shop is English).  However, it's well tied up in the code so that is an educated guess.   As well as logging in as an admin (which gives me more and more dangerous controls!) I have logged in as an ordinary users and still see just the two options.

Changing this area of the code, with lots of "if" "then" "else" stuff, would mean there would need to be a lot of testing to ensure that there were not unintended consequences.  And whilst it might suit "you", other users may not like the change / facility loss.  I am going to leave it - but that is not to say "no change ever".  Suggestions appreciated.   For example, given a month of Sundays a dynamic page to cope with phones better.

 
Leave it as it is,its like trying to change the theme tune to match of the day,

and I think most senior members of society DON'T LIKE CHANGE.

 
Neither do I.

Nor do I use either of the other 2, so it doesn't bother me as I don't look there.

 
Nor do I. Having the first two options is fair enough, though I nearly always opt for the second. (I have much the same choice in another forum that has more traffic than the Coffee Shop  and I like to glance at everything that's new, though much of it doesn't interest me. Now and then I check replies to my posts and occasionally find I've missed one.)

 
I don't see option 3 on my screen.

 
1) Show new replies to your posts.
2) Show unread posts since last visit.
3) Click here to try all unread topics.

For me, just one option to show all unread posts and topics please.

Unless that is a major programming exercise

 
Thanks to Oxonhutch for asking this to save me doing so. I also could not for the life of me find the "new" button after reading this 

I've found it now after your further reply Grahame.

 

When you are seeing a list of subjects on a board, a white word "new" on a blue background appears to the right of the subject.   Here's the example from my earlier post.   At the time I took this screen capture, I had not read all the posts on E-scooter trails, nor all the posts on "Death on the Downs Link" so these blue and white buttons appeared just to the right of the subject.



Full navigation example:

1. Ensure you are logged in.  "Unread" facilities cannot be available to guests if we don't know who you are.

2. Go to forum home page - http://www.firstgreatwestern.info

3. Select the board that you are interested in, such as "Intro and chat", "Who's Who on Western Railways", "Smoke and Mirrors" ...

4. Sticky threads, then the most recent updated thread on the board, will be displayed as per the example above, with the new button alongside any you have not fully read (or at least called up to read)

5. Click on the word "new" to take you to the older unread message in that thread


In this case, your operating system and browser should make no difference ... though stranger things have happened.  If, for example, you're logged in on Firefox but visit as a guest on Chrome, then you will not get the buttons on Chrome.

 
Graham, I would ask you to a little less obtuse to some of us who don't quite get your message. Please highlight where and in what form this 'new' button is. I cannot for the life of me find it! I am browsing on Chrome in a Windows 10 environment.

 
Just what I wanted, and so simple. Thanks for investigating this.

 
A question asked ... 'If I come to read a long thread such as "Problems with IET trains since April 2021", how can I jump to start reading from where I got to last time?'

Answer - from this of threads on a board, click on the 'new' button and you'll be taken where you want. 


Blindingly obvious once it's pointed out - but until you realise it's clickable, it's not.

Note that posts read via "Recent Posts" and "See the latest post of this member" may not be marked as having been read, so may come up again when you click on "new"



Edit note: Correcting another of grahame's occasional typos. Chris.
Edit note: Put 'new' in quotes to clarify that the new button is the 'new' button - Red Squirrel

 
I was puzzled by that, as it's not what I see. But then I'm flagged as permanently logged in, so presumably my last visit started 261 days ago and hasn't ended. So, first question, do you need to log out? Note that it's the account that stays logged in - I don't think it matters how may devices you use, though there may be technical issues involved that affect some people. 

 

Long and useful post.   Short answer.   Noted and that may come with major software upgrade (note - "may").  Benefit as you describe; disadvantage that posts will "stack up" rather than being cleared at each visit so facility might get jammed and become less useful for some members with other metrics.

 
I have found this a very useful tool in the forum toolbox.

However, is there any chance that this can be modified very slightly to simply 'Show unread posts' please?

For a number of reasons, I was unable to look at the forum for a few days. So, as I fully expected, the 'Show unread posts since last visit' produced more than a page full of thread titles to look through.  I spent an hour or so reading some of the threads before having to log out - knowing that there were unread posts in nearly 20 threads.  I take another look the following morning and the 'Show unread posts since last visit' function now only has three entries!

I then resort to just looking at the forum as a whole - and only a dozen oards are highlighted as having unread posts as it would appear that there had been (from my visit a couple of days back) multiple unread threads from the same board, but I had read the latest post, rendering the others not immediately obvious unless I clicked on the board title.

(Apologies - rather verbose, but I hope you get the drift!)

 
I have email notifcations set up to notify me on new threads on boards that I have clicked the 'notify' button on (that's allboards!) and again on threads that I subscribe to. (click notify or post into)

I sometimes don't get an email notifcation of new threads being started.....

(fwiw - another reason not to ban those whose ghet bounces from emails - these email notifications may be bouncing too, not my afult in the slightest - or possibly a fault in the software & not being issued at all)

 

When I saw that message earlier today, I wondered if the thread in question had been started while you were 'live' on the forum, but perhaps in a different board.   I'm posting here in "News, Help and Assistance" and if I simply post then walk away (to get a coffee - been a tough day) it's all too easy to overlook things posted / started in parallel, as they won't come up as "posted since you were last here".

 

Yes, you're still counted as being here ... one of the conundrums of analysing web server logs is that they contain data about when a page was displayed on your browser, but not when you took it down.  So if I analyse a log file showing 5 different pages visited ... with intervals of (say) 30 seconds, 25 seconds, 60 seconds and 5 seconds between them, I know your visit lasted at least two minutes - but whether you move straight away from the 5th page when you realised it won't what you wanted, or stopped there for half an hour carefully reading it comes mostly down to guesswork.

As a re-assurance, I very very rarely look closely at visits unless something really strange gets flagged up.  I think I mentioned the 6000 page requests in an hour a couple of months back.

 
I mean I closed that tab and went elsewhere webwise without logging out. I've got it set to automatically log me in or never log me out or whatever (saves remembering the password  ). Does that count me as being still logged in even when the forum isn't open? I'd never thought of it! Anyway, if so, that would explain it. Thanks.

PS. I like cucumber but not pineapple.

 

There wouldn't be ... people take time to read and respond.


Does "went away" mean simply click to elsewhere online or logged out of the forum?   If you simply click elsewhere, the forum has no way of knowing you've gone away and has to guess whether or not you're reading, writing, or have gone away and are looking for something different for lunch.  I suspect reply #1 was made during that "guess he may still be here" period.

 

Do you mean the icon with the tooltip "Last post"?

 
I started a thread http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=21169.0 then went away. Came back to the forum a little later, clicked on the new posts icon next to that topic and the first I saw was reply #2. I wouldn't have seen reply #1 at all if it hadn't been quoted in #2 (or unless I'd looked at the reply numbers, but I wouldn't). What's going on? There were no replies when I left the forum immediately after starting the thread.

 
Bookmark this:
http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?action=unread

 
I've just had an idea and edited my post so you may want to try plan B!

 
Yep - thats where it USED to be - its not there now - at least not for me
 

 
Hiya Mookie,

I'm not aware of any changes having been made for some while now to the actual way the forum is arranged and presented, only a few background tweaks to make it more secure from prowlers.

The only thing I can think of is, at the top right-hand side of the screen, underneath the photo which currently shows some overgrown track and a bridge, can you see where it shows the date and time? Immediately to the right of that there's a little box containing either a + or a - sign.

Press that, and it either switches on (+) the web part beneath it which includes the "Show unread posts" link, or hides it from view (-). It could be that you have accidentally pressed that, maybe?

 
You know the one where you could see posts since your last visit?

Having only found this a couple of months ago and now gotten very used to it

Its annoying that its not there anymore - or maybe it is and I just dont see it!