Forum or any other review, improvement

[jacquesrober]

Whenever you click a subject in a forum or review or chat, when you go back to the back page, there is no indication of where you where except for your own memory of the title. I have been in some forum where there is highlight of where you where last, when you return to the page previous to the article you choose. This does not seem to be a complex feature to apply and can be very timesaving. Check Ebay, for example, or " Mercedesshop.com" where going back to the previous page is highlighting your last subject after you return to the page.
Is my comment clear or is it to literal a tranlastion from french?
The mechanics of what I am writing about are: click on a subject on a page, return (back) to the page, and the title of the subject I went to is highlighted so that you can go on browsing without  having to find out where you where before clicking on the subject.
That would make browsing any forum so much easier.
The forums here are : VERY INTERESTING.
This is a wish to make browsing easier for people like me that have little shorttime memory.
Regards,
jacquesrober

[nudone]

i have the same trouble so i agree.

[mouser]

what browsers do you guys use -
in IE6 when you go back you can see a focus rectangle around the item you last clicked.

ps.
you might also want to use the BOOKMARK button in the upper right of every thread to bookmark threads you might want to come back to.

[nudone]

well, yes, you are right.

there is a little focus rectangle.

i use the 'unread posts' page to navigate through the forum - so i pretty much read everything that is posted. what happens is that i click on the small 'last post' icon on the right of the 'unread posts' page as i go through the posts. if i click 'back' on my browser (maxthon) after i've read one of the posts i'm still presented with the full list of posts on the 'unread posts' page.

because the 'highlight' rectangle is focused around the little 'last post' icon, it's difficult to spot. i can, of course, just click the 'unread posts' page at the top or bottom of the thread - which removes everything i've read from the 'unread posts' page list.

i haven't really got a problem with any of this. it's 'normality' for me. it would just be nicer if when i click my 'back' button i automatically went back to the 'unread posts' page with the content refreshed, i.e. read posts removed. sometimes it does this - like once every couple of months, so that's like once in every thousand clicks on the 'back' button. is that i problem with my browser or my service provider or the way the forum works - i don't know.

the nicer solution for me, which i think relates to requests made before for the forum, is that i could view the 'unread posts' page and then select multiple threads at a time that i don't want to read - say, by clicking on a check box, then click a button to remove those threads from the list. other areas of the forum work like this already but i'm assuming there is a reason this can't be implemented at the 'unread posts' page.

(i'd love to see something like the above in place but, honestly, i really don't mind how things work at the moment - it's just an ideal world kind of dream i have.)

[mouser]

the nicer solution for me, which i think relates to requests made before for the forum, is that i could view the 'unread posts' page and then select multiple threads at a time that i don't want to read - say, by clicking on a check box, then click a button to remove those threads from the list. other areas of the forum work like this already but i'm assuming there is a reason this can't be implemented at the 'unread posts' page.

yes, others have requested this - i will look into it.

[nudone]

great. 

[mouser]

the "mark selected as read" mod has finally been added, for details see: http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=5774.0

[nudone]

fantastic. thanks for implementing it. 

[jacquesrober]

Seing the responses to my suggestion, I realized that there are many ways to work on a computer to achieve the same end.
My end is not the same as the answers. I am trying to suggest a no click way to come back to a page (Coming back does require a click) and know where you just where (Highlighting the subject would do the job), without removing any answers or quewry as being read on that page,  because you might need to see that subject again. I realize that one can always go back and find that subject again, but there are lots of clicks involved. I am suggesting a simple highlight of where you last clicked on that will show when you return to the page without any other work.
I might not have understood the answers that appeared on my first suggestion, but it seemed to me that one had to click on something to get the wanted result. Maybee I am lazy (totally not impossible) but I have seen this highlighting in other forums, and found it very handy. Seeing the responses to the suggestion I presented made me realize that I do think in another language and might not present my ideas exactly as I see or understand them.
So be it, I am to old to change.
Regards to all.

[mouser]

do you know about RIGHT-clicking a link and saying "open in new window"?
Many of us use a tabbed browser and open links like this most of the time, in order to preserve where we are on the current page.

[nudone]

if you use the maxthon browser (i've no idea what opera or firefox will do) you can left-click and drag a link and it will open a new tab with the linked page on it.

or you can just set maxthon to open links on a new tab - there's a button to turn the feature on and off.

i just suggest this as the old right-click select from menu open in new browser seems a bit of a long winded way of doing things to me (if two or three clicks of the mouse can be called long winded).

[JavaJones]

Using Opera I middle-click to open *all* forum links from the main list. Also shift-click (left-click) opens in new window in most browser.

Nudone, as far as the list not being refreshed when you come back, this is probably just cache settings. You could set your browser to "always check for new page versions" or something. If you can do this on a per-site basis that would be ideal as you really don't need it on most sites and it would be an unnecessary burden on both the servers and your system to have it always on.

Finally, jacquesrober can you provide an example of a forum that has this highlighting thing? I am wondering if it's just a function that can be applied in CSS or something, like colorizing the scroll bar. Because most browsers will highlight the last clicked link in some way.

- Oshyan