IS there any way of changing the forum layout - Question for site master.

[peterm1]

Sorry if this sounds critical. I do not mean it to be - just making a suggestion to improve an otherwise good site. I have noticed that this forum allows you to select a few different layout styles when you are logged in. But one thing that bugs me is that none of these appear to allow you to have a default that takes you to the first post of a thread. As this is the post I want to start with on perhaps 95 - 99 percent of visits to a thread it means fiddling around almost every time - for no good reason. It annoys me that the layout takes you to the last - or somewhere near the last post and you almost inevitably have to then navigate back to the beginning of the thread to see what the thread is about to decide whether you want to follow it more closely. OK, I admit that if you have already viewed the thread (or the thread is a long one that has been around for a while) you may prefer to go to the end rather than the beginning on that occasion, but for me that is perhaps a couple of percent of the times I visit. Any ideas? Or site web master can you develop a new optional viewing style that allows people like me to select this page style as a preference when logged in.

There is one more small annoyance too, that should be easily fixable. When you visit the overview list (ie that shows all active threads from all sub categories in the forum and which is where I suppose most people start viewing) and get to the bottom of it, there is a link which says "more" Naturally you might assume that this will take you to page 2 of the list of threads. But it does not. It takes you to a slightly longer version of the same page. You then have to scroll to the link that takes you to page 2. Can never figure out what this is all about. Again its a minor annoyance but I cannot for the life of me see why it should work in this odd manner. (Sorry to sound critical but if no one says anything you will not know.)

PS I am using Firefox not IE if this makes a difference - not sure if you have tested the site for firefox

 

[rover]

Go to your user CP. On the left you will find a button to Edit Options. In the center of that page is the thread display options. I think that may get you to where you want as a default. I do believe there is a way to assign this default yourself as a user, it just has to be found.

 

[Kim Coxon]

As I understand it, the software takes you to what it thinks is the first unread post in any thread. The program knows what time that your last activity was and so will take you to the first post after that time in any thread with a degree of leeway. (I hope that makes sense!)

To do what you want, ie take you to the first unread post regardless of the time of your visit would mean that there would have to be a record for every single member and for every single thread. It might be possible to do it but it would take a lot of power, bandwidth and time to do it as it would have to log every members movements continuously.

Kim

 

[Kim Coxon]

Rover beat me to an answer but from the help the options are:

When viewing a thread, you will be able to view the thread from a choice of four modes.


Linear Mode (Oldest First) - In this mode, posts are displayed chronologically from oldest to newest. Posts are shown in a flat mode so that many posts can be viewed simultaneously.
Linear Mode (Newest First) - This is the same as the above mode, except that posts are ordered in an opposite way (newest first).
Threaded Mode - In this mode, a tree is shown along with every post. This tree allows you to see the relationship each post has to others, in terms of who responded to whom. Only one post is shown at a time.
Hybrid Mode - This mode is a mixture of the linear and threaded modes. The post tree is displayed like in the threaded mode, but multiple posts are displayed simultaneously like in the linear modes.

If you go to oldest first, it orders the thread the other way up but still takes you to what it thinks is your last unread post.

Kim

 

[photogdave]

Just change your display mode to Threaded. When you select the thread you want to read from the main page, it gives you a window at the top listing all the posts in the order they were made. Click on the very first one.

 

[back alley]

top of this page...'display modes'

joe

 

[peterm1]

OK I had not found the options page under the command post. Maybe that will do it. I will give it a try. I hate having to go hunting for the originating post every time I log on or acess a thread. Its just a PIA!

 

[peterm1]

It looks as if the "linear mode - newest first" style is the closest I am going to get. Contrary to the name of this option it actually takes you to the oldest post in the thread first. Jebus I wish I.T. guys would learn to speak freakin English!

 

[peterm1]

I think Wobbly is right.

It is no drama these days to change the layout of a web site. It is all done using CSS - cascading style sheets, which if I am right are already in use on this site / forum to provide different display options for users.

Here is a wikipedia explanation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascading_Style_Sheets

The entire point of CSS is that it allows you to easily personalise the presentation of a web site to meet the needs and preferences of specific users. This site already does that to some extent. It just does not fully do what I and Wobbly have asked for. It should be a very very simple matter to correct that issue.

 

[mich8261]

I'm gonna jump on the bandwagon. There is already a link (icon) to take one to the last post, so why not have the main link take one to the first post? I checked my settings and they are exactly as Kim suggests above, but I still end up toward the end of the list when clicking on a post I have never visited.

That said, I still love this site!

 

[peterm1]

Never let it be said I do not appreciate this site. It is highly active and there is a lot of interesting posts. I guess I am just raising something that has been bugging me for a while that if fixed could make it better than it already is.Looks as if a few others have the same gripe too.

 

[bcostin]

Yeah, I've noticed that too. I usually just hit the HOME key to jump to the top of the page, or the first-page link if it's a multi-page posting. It's not a big deal to me, but a first-post link might be a nice extra feature.

If you hover over one of the recently updated threads on the forum home page you'll see that each link contains the parameter "goto=newpost". This instructs the forum to show the thread and immediately jump you to what it thinks is the most recent post.

If you copy the link directly from the home page and remove the "goto=newpost&" part, the forum will show the thread starting at the very first post instead. So it can be done, I think, it's just not configured to do it right now. Some forums have an alternative link (sometimes it's the little envelope icon next to the thread name) that jumps to the very first post instead of the most recent one.

Easy for me to say, but I've never administered a vBulletin-based forum, so I have no idea how much work that would be.

Again, no criticism implied. This is one of the friendliest and most informative photography forums anywhere, and this is a tiny thing to me.

 

[peterm1]

I agree Wobbly. I cannot think of any other site that takes you to the last post of a thread (or more disconcertingly to the most recent unread post somewhere in the middle of a thread of posts) instead of taking you to the first post. I am not just saying this is what I prefer simply because I am used to it. I am saying it because I honestly think its better and more functional (or at least should be an option for those like me who have bee in thier bonnet.)

This site is very busy. Which means lots of new posts including lots of new originating posts. When I see a new thread listed in the overview page of the forum, I like to go to the first post of that thread to work out what a thread is about. Then based on that I decide if I am interested or not. Having the site take me elsewhere (where I do not want to be) everytime and thereby forcing me to navigate back to where I want to be, is a really cockeyed way of doing it in my view.

 

[peterm1]

HMMMM. To make it worse I have just discovered that this site behaves one way under Internet Explorer and another way under Firefox. I use the latter as a matter of course (unless I am at work where IE rules the day.) No options work properly with Firefox- it always takes you to the latest post no matter which option you choose.:bang: