• punett
  • Junior Member
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  • Registered: 2008-01-28
  • Posts: 7

Topic: "Mark as read ONLY manually" and "Mark read/unread"

Hi, PunBB smile

I'm using this forum for providing online support, and as an administrator and on behalf of moderators I want to ask about a new feature, which would be incredibly useful for tasks like mine.

It few words, I propose to add these options: "Mark as read ONLY manually" and "Mark read/unread".

Reasons are simple: Imagine a support/ticket system, where each topic has to be answered/accepted. This can easily be done by having "Mark as read ONLY manually" option. So moderators can easily track unanswered topics, even tho they have read them.

"Mark as read ONLY manually" should be a profile-wide option, because it most useful only for moderators.

"Mark read/unread" should be just an extra action for each topic, so it is easy to close/re-open the support ticket/topic when needed.


I read carefully the goals of PunBB, and I completely agree with your arguments, i.e. fast, light, simple and well organized forum. With that in mind, I am asking you to give this feature a fair consideration.

Please, tell me what you think about it? If you think that it could or could not be implemented?

If it can't be implemented, I will totally understand, and will try to implement it my-self.

Thanks for this great forum! smile

  • From: France
  • Registered: 2004-11-06
  • Posts: 695

Re: "Mark as read ONLY manually" and "Mark read/unread"

Wouldn't that be more of the scope of an extenstion?

Jeu de rôle en ligne sur table virtuelle ⁂ Shadowrun France ⁂ Chez Blacky

Jérémie's Website

  • punett
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Re: "Mark as read ONLY manually" and "Mark read/unread"

Jérémie wrote:

Wouldn't that be more of the scope of an extension?

Do you mean it is in the scope of the extension system of future v1.3?

Maybe it is, and that is what I am trying to find out...

Does this functionality deserve to be a part of PunBB, or should and could be written as a plugin for v1.3, or should I just modify the PunBB code (as I normally do) to add this feature. The last one becomes a nightmare for later updates, and it seems that this feature will also require database modifications.

What are your thoughts or suggestions, developers?

  • Smartys
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Re: "Mark as read ONLY manually" and "Mark read/unread"

I agree with Jérémie. The use you describe for it is for a support ticket system, not a forum, which means that it's probably not a good feature for the core. However, as an extension it would work fine.

  • punett
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Re: "Mark as read ONLY manually" and "Mark read/unread"

I see your point, Smartys.

I just thought that "Mark as read ONLY manually" option will only require 1 tiny flag in the code, to not mark the post as "READ" when it is viewed, and add a simple link/button to manually mark/unmark the topic as being read/unread. That's all this feature is about, apart from adding this option to the profile.

I thought that adding this flag in the core is fairly easy, but adding this flag each time I update PunBB is very cumbersome.

Anyway, if majority of you recommend it as an extension - I will try to go that way.

6 Reply by MattF

  • MattF
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  • From: South Yorkshire, England
  • Registered: 2007-03-15
  • Posts: 1,956

Re: "Mark as read ONLY manually" and "Mark read/unread"

If I remember correctly, as 1.2* stands, a topic/post is never marked as read anyhow. smile 1.3* has a different system, however. 1.2 just compares last login time to any new posts/topics since then for the read/unread marker, I believe.

MattF's Website

  • Smartys
  • Former PunBB Developer
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  • Posts: 7,844

Re: "Mark as read ONLY manually" and "Mark read/unread"

punett wrote:

I see your point, Smartys.

I just thought that "Mark as read ONLY manually" option will only require 1 tiny flag in the code, to not mark the post as "READ" when it is viewed, and add a simple link/button to manually mark/unmark the topic as being read/unread. That's all this feature is about, apart from adding this option to the profile.

Except the uses as you described it don't fit the typical forum. In fact, it doesn't even fit the use case you described: a topic is not marked as read globally, but only on a per-user basis. That means my having read a topic is not equivalent to assigning a support ticket to myself.

In any case, how would you store an infinite number of topics as read? That's a very important issue here, since without the last visit time you're storing far more data.

  • punett
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Re: "Mark as read ONLY manually" and "Mark read/unread"

Ohhh.. I wasn't aware that PunBB didn't already store read/unread state of the topics. Thanks for clearing this up for me!

Do you know the most common way of handling this feature, for example as other forums do? Do they store a list of read topics for each user, or there is some other smart way of doing this?

Hence the question: Would extension system allow me to create/use extra database tables, say for storing read topics for each user?

  • Smartys
  • Former PunBB Developer
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Re: "Mark as read ONLY manually" and "Mark read/unread"

punett wrote:

Do you know the most common way of handling this feature, for example as other forums do? Do they store a list of read topics for each user, or there is some other smart way of doing this?

There's a reason I asked you how you would do it (so no) wink

punett wrote:

Hence the question: Would extension system allow me to create/use extra database tables, say for storing read topics for each user?

Yes

10 Reply by punett

  • punett
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Re: "Mark as read ONLY manually" and "Mark read/unread"

Great! Then I will wait until final 1.3 release and might develop this feature as an extension.

Thanks everyone! big_smile