There are those rare moments when I read a thread and realize, no, I really don't have time today to properly respond in the depth and breadth required.  In those (admittedly rare) moments I yearn the capacity to mark a thread (or at least the last post) Unread.

This way it pops up in my my view when I log in and I can go check when I have time later.  Otherwise I have a terrible habit of forgetting to go back the next day (or a few days later) when I next log in and give the response that (now forgotten) post needs.


So, to whit, any chance we can get a "Mark as unread" button for threads?

I would love this, too. I like to read threads as they’re posted and then reply later, but I sometimes forget to after I’ve read the thread.

If this could somehow get added whilst Jase is on his current development tear, I'd not be mad about it.

Another vote here. I've just been writing down which ones I need to respond to, but a mark-unread button would be easier. :) Thank you for thinking of it!

It's been on the list for a few years now, have always avoided it due to the complexity.  I think I'll leave it on there for a little bit longer but it is near the top!

Awwww....


YAY!

As I recall, when we discussed this before, the difficulty is that the last read date/time is stored per game, not per thread, to reduce the overhead.  To mark an individual thread as unread would require adding a true/false read flag for every individual thread in every game for every player, rather than just one flag per game per player.

As a compromise, would it be a lot easier to code/acceptable to users to just reset the last read date/time for the game only ... so when a user marked a thread as unread it updated the last read date/time to the date/time of the last post in the current thread minus one second, one minute (whatever unit is necessary).  This would then mark that message and any other threads with later date/time stamps as unread.

Of course it would also be immediately invalidated if the user did read a later message as that would automatically reset the date/time stamp for the game ... but it would provide at least a partial solution.

Or is unread thread tracking much more complicated than I'm remembering/imagining and/or my partial solution would just confuse everyone ?? <grins>

Uhhh... how to explain it without it getting overly complicated...

When you read a thread it'll do two main things the the read information.  Once per game and also once for public threads and another for private.

If it's newer than the most recent thread you've read then it'll update your server-side information (saved in the database) with the timestamp for this latest message.  This information is used whenever you log onto a different machine/browser, relog or clear your cookies.

Your browser cookies are also updated to include the timestamp for the post.  Read a thread and it'll add the timestamp for the thread to your "I've read this" cookie.

If you've got three threads posted at 7, 8 and 9am and you read the 7am post then your read cookie for the game will add (the timestamp for) "7" to your cookies.  Read the one at 9am and your cookies will now have 7 and 9 in it.  Read the 8am post and you'll now have 7, 8 and 9.

But here's the rub... cookies have a size limit and we just can't keep on adding timestamps forever.  So, what the system does is if there's no earlier posts (the game only has those 7, 8 and 9am threads) then it'll go "pah, I don't need to keep track of 7 and 8am" and it'll in fact say "the oldest thread I've read with nothing older is 9am" (note; not the newest/newer) and it knows anything older than 9am has been read.

If someone posts at 10am then it knows that anything earlier than 9am is read (which 10am is not) and it also doesn't have a separate cookie to say it's been read.  So the 10am thread appears as unread.

That, in a (basic and overlooking a lot of stuff) nutshell is how we track threads.

The rationalisation and compacting of cookies is the issues.  If I didn't do it then I could just remove that thread date from the tracking cookies, however we remove holes and I'll have to re-add holes in to mark a thread as unread.  I'd also have to check if it's the newest thread you've read (that's tracked in the database) and go back to the next earlier thread and save that if it is.

It's all possible (I could also use another "mark unread" cookie) but will just take a little messing around to figure how to do it best.  At this stage I'd rather get the responsive site done otherwise I'll never finish it with all the feature creep.

/thumbsup.gif

So it's more complicated than I suspected, no worries I'll wait an hour a year before asking for it again.

Aha !  :>

a) I've got my browser set to clear cookies every time I close it down, which means RPoL is getting the server-side information when I log back in ... which explains why it tracks threads as unread during a session, but only threads newer than my latest read one when I come in next time.

b) I'm gonna save a link to jase's explanation for next time I need to 'remember' it - thanks for that (I don't mind at all that you simplified it !)

c) Agree absolutely - responsive is the priority.

d) And I'll stop suggesting 'simple solutions' to this complex problem !  <grrrins>