Web Site "frames"

[American Patriot]

Ryan.

I want a way to remove the buttons at the top.

I was playing around with my wife's kindle the other day and tried to get to the site, just out of curiousity.

Guess what? You can not. I can get to other sites, Google, and even my own mostly-text-based blogs. THIS site won't come up at all because of the frames.

Another thing I note is that no matter where I am in the site, I ONLY see the main URL (http://www.transasianaxis.com/) and I can't select a specific forum link or anything.

The Kindle (and other e-readers) that can browse (specifically the Kindle DX, Kindle 2 and the Illiad) are mostly (obviously) text based. I want to be able to browse the site from an e-reader (eventually).

So - SINCE the site is 90% text anyway..... my suggestion is we make it "simpler" to (for the time being) help to allow efficient reading....

Thoughts everyone?

[Malsua]

There are different ways to skin this CMS. I can tell you that I'm a REAL big fan of "view active topics" on other sites. That isn't here.

[Ryan Ruck]

Rick,
Probably the easiest way around your problem would be to navigate straight to the board since that is where most of the activity here takes place.

Just browse to http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/

Mal,
If you click on "New Posts" up in the center of the NavBar it will show you all the threads with new posts made to them since your last visit.

[American Patriot]

Ok. I'll test that when I can get the kindle out of her hands for more than two minutes. LOL Works here on the desktop though.

[American Patriot]

Rick,
Probably the easiest way around your problem would be to navigate straight to the board since that is where most of the activity here takes place.

Just browse to http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/

Mal,
If you click on "New Posts" up in the center of the NavBar it will show you all the threads with new posts made to them since your last visit.

Unfortunately, that doesn't work right either and it's one of the other things I've been complaining about for the last couple of years.

If I log out of the browser it doesn't show stuff I haven't read any more.

If I leave the browser on for a period of time but walk away from the computer for more than 30-40 minutes, again, the system (not sure if it is the web site, or here - but it happens at home as well) I am treated as if I have already looked at all the threads (when I havent).

I JUST got up about 45 minutes ago, walked away and come back and all the stuff I haven't read is GONE off the listing now.

I don't want the system to update the listing like that. I want to be able to see ALL the messages/threads I have NOT yet viewed. Period.

[Ryan Ruck]

Unfortunately, that doesn't work right either and it's one of the other things I've been complaining about for the last couple of years.

If I log out of the browser it doesn't show stuff I haven't read any more.

If I leave the browser on for a period of time but walk away from the computer for more than 30-40 minutes, again, the system (not sure if it is the web site, or here - but it happens at home as well) I am treated as if I have already looked at all the threads (when I havent).

I JUST got up about 45 minutes ago, walked away and come back and all the stuff I haven't read is GONE off the listing now.

I don't want the system to update the listing like that. I want to be able to see ALL the messages/threads I have NOT yet viewed. Period.

I remember looking into trying to get that fixed.

Don't know if you recall or not but what I had found out was that both the timer for new posts and Currently Active Users at the bottom of the main page are tied together.

If you leave the site and then come back, the board assumes that the topics you didn't read before you left weren't of interest and it then gets the new ones since then. Conversely if you get up and leave yourself idle on the board for x amount of time it drops you from the Currently Active Users list and, since that is tied to the new posts indicator, times that out as well.

If I adjust the timer upwards, which I can do, then it looks like people that have been offline for 2 hours (for example) are still logged on and that box gets filled with people who aren't here but, it would keep new posts indicated as new longer.

It isn't perhaps the best design but, that is what we have to work with. I can tell you that ARFCOM's new post indicator system is even less forgiving where if you simply read a topic in a specific forum, all new posts can be sometimes treated as read in that subforum.

[Malsua]

I can tell you that this:
http://www.njgunforums.com/forums/se...=active_topics

works perfectly but that's phpbb

[American Patriot]

I go to other sites, using the same software and don't have these issues.

[Ryan Ruck]

It could be they have their Session Timeout settings set really high. That would also mean it would show people in their "Currently Active Users" box for quite a while. No way to know without asking an admin there.

I checked what the Session Timeout was set for here and it was set to 90 minutes. I upped it to 120.

I recall that when I had previously set the Session Timeout to a much higher value, a couple people had mentioned that they didn't like how it was making them think some users were online when they hadn't been for some time.

[Ryan Ruck]

In fact, here is a thread on vBulletin's community forum dealing with this very topic with customers complaining about how the "Currently Active Users" and "New Posts" features are tied together and how it needs changed.

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?p=839558

That thread is from 2004.

[Ryan Ruck]

Also when you click on the New Posts search link and it comes back with no results, you should be prompted to use this link - http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/search.php?do=getdaily

That will do a search for all threads with posts within a 24 hour period. It will not show those individual new posts but you should be able to go to the end of the thread listed and track back.

[Ryan Ruck]

Did a little more digging and found an option was added in vB 3.5 to change the way these are handled. It is my fault for having missed this. It didn't help it was buried in the "General Options" section rather than in its own area in options panel.

In v3.5 they added the option to have read post indicators tracked based on one of 3 things:

1) Inactivity/Cookie Based - once a user has been inactive for a certain amount of time (the value of the session timeout option) all threads and forums are considered read. Individual threads are marked as read within a session via cookies.

This option is how all versions of vBulletin before 3.5 functioned.

2) Database (no automatic forum marking) - this option uses the database to store thread and forum read times. This allows accurate read markers to be kept indefinitely. However, in order for a forum to be marked read when all threads are read, the user must view the list of threads for that forum.

This option is more space and processor intensive than inactivity-based marking.

3) Database (automatic forum marking) - this option is the same as a previous option, but forums are automatically marked as read when the last new thread is read.

This is the most usable option for end users, but most processor intensive.

We were originally set to Inactivity/Cookie Based. We are now set to Database (automatic).

You may have to click on the "Mark All Forums Read" link at the bottom of the main forum page to properly get started from scratch.

Let me know if this makes a difference.

[American Patriot]

It is working. I sent you a screen shot!

WOOT

Ryan, you're now officially one of my heroes. This has bugged me since we started using this software. But, it works like it SHOULD work, now.

Thanks man... .you're awesome!

(I should have taken the time to fix it myself, but I sincerely haven't had a LOT of extra time. I'm in the middle of a navigation course... compass deviation, variation and stuff... too much math and I hate doing math. Also, for the last few weekends I've had guests on the boat, taking family members and friends sailing so I'm prepping each week and not spending as much time as I used to here. Finally... well, I am preparing for a big trip next year. Got a crew, almost have the boat chosen and the location, now I have to put some of my new skills to use and start charting courses.... wow.)

[Ryan Ruck]

Great! As for that screenshot, you may have to click the "Mark All Forums Read" link at the bottom of the main forum page to start over with a clean slate on read posts.

[American Patriot]

No, that isn't a problem.

Thanks