[CalumJR]

I have a suggestion for an extremely helpful feature which is included in a large website I help moderate (I will not post a link to the website here, as I'm not here to advertise it, but if the development staff would like an example of what I mean, I could send them a link via personal message )

Basically, at the top of the forum index, there is a box, the same width as the list of forums, entitled "Latest Forum Activity". In here, it houses links to something like the top ten latest posts. It has the thread title, the author of the thread, the person who last posted and a small arrow button which takes you to the last post.

This list gets updated whenever a new post has been made and the box caters for just about every board (on the example I am thinking of, it is automatically updated using AJAX, but it used to be updated every time the user refreshed their page)

This doesn't take up much room and it is extremely useful as you can easily see a new thread when it has been made or you can see the activity of a certain thread which you are not subscribed to etc.

I thought it'd be especially handy for users to see programming threads of people asking for help. Not only could experts, contributors, authors, moderators etc see new threads created by users in need of help straight away, if they are not subscribed to that forum, but they could also see an unsolved thread which has a few replies pop up in there and go in to help.

It just puts information of all of the latest posts in one place which is seen by everyone who refreshes the page, no matter what programming language the thread is about, instead of helpers looking through the different forums for titles which interest them and seeing them mixed around with similar topics - they could still do this aswell.

If there is a similar feature here already which I have not yet noticed, please excuse this suggestion, but I think a feature similar to the one I have suggested would be very useful and it has worked very well on the other large website I mentioned earlier

This post has been edited by CalumJR: 04 May 2009 - 01:17 PM

[KYA]

The "New Posts" button up top does that, but it does recent posts in all forums. The little orange box to the left of a thread name will take you to the last unread post.

[CalumJR]

Thank you for the features you suggested, but would it be more convenient to display it in a box at the top, like I described? That way everyone sees it as soon as they refresh the page and can just glance at it to see if there is anything which interests them, before scrolling down to click on the forum they wish to view. It could easily be minimised by people who don't wish to view it.

The example I am referring to was used on an Invision Power Board forum aswell.

This post has been edited by CalumJR: 04 May 2009 - 01:56 PM

[KYA]

Maybe, I'm not disagreeing on any particular point though.

[firebolt]

Its on the Home page. Two boxes in the center bottom of screen saying what has happened recently.

[Tom9729]

I think that it would be more useful if it was on every page, I never check the home page.

[bweb4sale]

Businesswebsiteforsale is a London based online business and marketing company. Our focus is on providing the best and most up to date tips, techniques, strategies and training to help you buy, sell or build a business online.

[firebolt]

Do Not Advertise here.

[CalumJR]

Tom9729, on 10 May, 2009 - 07:40 PM, said:

I think that it would be more useful if it was on every page, I never check the home page.

Exactly. That's why I suggested it, because I don't visit the homepage either. It would be so useful to have on the forums.