Another thing from “old forum” that I miss is the ability to see using the bold title to indicate unread posts. By “unread” I mean same as phpBB. i.e. if I opened the thread since the most recent comment, it’s read. If someone subsequently adds post to thread, it goes back to unread.
I really depended on this since I just used the “Active Topics” and “Your Posts” view to track forum stuff. For example, (using <strong> cheat code for demo since I hate CSS):
This is done by “Tracking” feature. You can configure Discourse to consider all topics you have visited to be tracked, or you can track them manually, by specific category they belong to or tags they have or whenever you reply in given topic.
I really see no reason why you are so hung on it being bold. If you configure tracking to be immediate after viewing then all topics you have visited before that have new replies will have a blue indicator with number of new replies since last visit near them. I consider such indicator to be as good as bold.
While I can live with the blue dots - they weren’t there initially. And I like it shows the count - that is a nice additional.
More that since dawn of VT100, “un/read messages” in a list have been styled differently. So decades long muscle memory perhaps is answer to your “why”…
If it’s option to move the blue dot in front of the topic title that be go a long way. It a bit too subtle to scan for unread topics, IMO.
I agree it was a very convenient feature, and I used the same workflow as @Amm0. In fact, this is how it works when you are not logged in. Except that it’s probably really a browser remembering which links you clicked and making them grey.
So you LIKE the unread mark on the right after the post?
While, I can deal with a lot of things… but just curious if you think that’s actually a good design or not.
Or, perhaps other way: would bold/not-bold titles reflecting the unread/read state be annoying?
And well the categories are confusing! If the left purple dot is just a bullet point and unread is after just a smidge bigger and left… not is pretty weird choice…
I only comment since MikroTik does seem down to fix some of these things…
Or, perhaps other way: would bold/not-bold titles reflecting the unread/read state be annoying?
I think @anserk idea would look better if you need to get rid of blue dots.
So you LIKE the unread mark on the right after the post?
While, I can deal with a lot of things… but just curious if you think that’s actually a good design or not.
Don’t particularly care either way honestly. I have no issues with dots though and find them plenty readable.
Precisely my thinking too. Of course, we can deal with a lot of things. But isn’t the purpose of technology to make our lives easier?
I personally find bold/not bold approach very efficient and easy on the eyes. It is also the de-facto standard approach anywhere you look—email clients, messengers, proper forums. It’s almost as if Discourse was designed to be different from everything else for the sake of being different…
Another problem with the blue dots or rather, how the forum treats read/unread, is that it shows as read a lot of topics I never visited. When you hover mouse cursor over the blue dot, it says “new topic”. And the number of blue dots is different from the “unread” bookmark at the top.
Also, blue dots are inconsistent throughout the interface. If you go to “new”, there are no blue dots there. Presumably because they all are new (which is what blue dot means, I guess). But “new” doesn’t equal “unread”.
I cannot yet find any logic in how Discourse marks topics read and how it determines what’s “hot” (no, it’s not by the number of replies or views). Maybe I need to read a user manual to understand it (which by itself shows how un-intuitive the software is).
At the moment the only category that I find clear is the “latest” category.
Yeah, whoever designed it that way (the blue dot at the end of the title) could not have more than two braincells…
That’s the problem with modern UI’s. No thought goes into them whatsoever.
Having the “new posts” indicator in the same place for all posts, you can scan immediately with your eyes vertically, without having to search for the random place the blue dot is on the post title.
But, that’s the plague of “modern” (cough cough puke) UIs. They are decimated by “designers” without proper experience for the platform they are meant to be used on.
Damn smartphone destroyed everything…
Overall, there are some nice new features like drafts always saving and markdown. But the lack of theme/plugins/whatever to “just act normal” is just really odd choice by Discourse.
I’m on another Discourse server quite often and, while that one does not use bold for unread, in dark mode it does use a brighter white for unread and a slightly duller greyish color for read which works pretty well. It does have the blue dots but they don’t really bother me.
In light mode I imagine it is a dark black for unread and a slightly lighter grey for read.
Thanks for sharing, this looks good. It would be awesome if this was the default look. I’m personally not interested in custom client-side CSS but as you finalize the tweaks, maybe someone can take your customizations and turn it into a theme. And maybe we can even persuade MikroTik to make that theme default.
Yeah I like @telsasystems work, I’m too not a fan of custom CSS just reasonably view a web page.
But the new green marks • are even more subtle. And there still no marks in the “My Posts” view. This is way more important, to me, than dark mode, whitespace, etc., etc. So at least that part of @telsasystems’s work should be in default CSS.
I still find it hard to believe with all the complex backend… it’s not possible to have some webview that mimic the old “Active Topics” and “My Posts” in query logic (at least as close as possible).
If you’re someone who post a problem & looking for solution… Discourse’s logic on what get shown in new “My Post” make sense. And the old forum, actually, didn’t let you easily find posts where you were only OP.
But if you’re someone who sometimes provides answers… the logic just sucks. It’s the “Posts I either commented or OP, and I have not viewed it since a new post.” — which is what “old” “My Post”. The current logic is if I “looked at” or “posted in” for the most part of merged together in “New” — but now I look at a 10x more posts… And double-whammy its not only seeing too many posts, but also looking for a subtle •
Anyway, I still struggle with this one, daily. The current scheme still too much work to manage the “inbox”.
I just need some “My Posts” view that mimic’s old forum logic… that’s built-in.
This is exactly what “Unread” section does. The only downside is it doesn’t track pre-migration topics if you haven’t posted there on the new system.
I configured my view to get me directly to unread when I click on “Topics”. When I click on the forum logo, it gets me to the “Latest”. The combination of the two works well for me. Sometimes I also check “New”.
