Editing marks posts "unread"

[Arantor]

I'm not looking for anything about drafts or any notifications of "in progress" editing/posting.

That's what we thought you were talking about.

In any case, you're still incorrect. The 'notify on new posts' still relies on the message id, the message id of the last post in the topic is carried through the reply forms and if the last reply is higher when it comes to the topic itself, then it will flag it (if the option is on)

Otherwise, you'd potentially have to expose something to work with to be able to check (and there's no efficient way to check in any case) and even that is still likely to be prone to something going awry.

[djr33]

Ah, thanks for the clarification. Sorry about the confusion.

The 'notify on new posts' still relies on the message id, the message id of the last post in the topic is carried through the reply forms and if the last reply is higher when it comes to the topic itself, then it will flag it (if the option is on)

I see. that is a shortcut.
(Is it assumed in the architecture that the ID corresponds to the order? Is poster_time not the main point of reference? It's imaginable, though possibly unlikely, that they could become different.)

Otherwise, you'd potentially have to expose something to work with to be able to check (and there's no efficient way to check in any case) and even that is still likely to be prone to something going awry.

It's just a database query: find the latest edit_time in thread N and compare it to the time when the new reply was started. Is that a major problem?

[Arantor]

(Is it assumed in the architecture that the ID corresponds to the order? Is poster_time not the main point of reference? It's imaginable, though possibly unlikely, that they could become different.)

It's not assumed. It's explicitly taken at all times. There are performance considerations at work. The last message in a topic is also explicitly stored in the topics table as a foreign key, while the post time is not.

It's just a database query: find the latest edit_time in thread N and compare it to the time when the new reply was started. Is that a major problem?

Given that the messages table will in almost every forum's case be the largest table, with huge variable widths (so it cannot be traversed efficiently), and that you need to pull multiple rows from it (since you need to allow for not just the last post being edited) where you can only use a secondary index, as opposed to pulling one row from a fixed width table that is always compact, where the row can be pulled from the primary index on that table... it's potentially an issue.

For a forum with a few thousand posts, the difference is negligible. Once you hit a sizeable number of posts - ballpark from experience, probably 35k-40k posts - it's going to start to hurt more and more.

On top of that, actually, there is a user experience factor at work; I'm hoping to actually change how the 'new posts have been written' thing a little bit from a UX perspective to make it flow better than it currently does.

[djr33]

It's not assumed. It's explicitly taken at all times. There are performance considerations at work. The last message in a topic is also explicitly stored in the topics table as a foreign key, while the post time is not.

Ok, thanks. I meant "relied upon", assumed to be accurate and used as such.

Given that the messages table will in almost every forum's case be the largest table, with huge variable widths (so it cannot be traversed efficiently), and that you need to pull multiple rows from it (since you need to allow for not just the last post being edited) where you can only use a secondary index, as opposed to pulling one row from a fixed width table that is always compact, where the row can be pulled from the primary index on that table... it's potentially an issue.

Ok. And it certainly varies by forum size. In my personal experience, MySQL is very efficient, amazingly fact at retrieving a specific row. It can be quite slow if you're search through it for a match of another kind, of course.

For a forum with a few thousand posts, the difference is negligible. Once you hit a sizeable number of posts - ballpark from experience, probably 35k-40k posts - it's going to start to hurt more and more.

Ok.
So one option would be to do exactly the same thing with a last edited time as with the last message id, if that's the concern. It would be more work to deal with that, though.

On top of that, actually, there is a user experience factor at work; I'm hoping to actually change how the 'new posts have been written' thing a little bit from a UX perspective to make it flow better than it currently does.

In efficiency or user interface? Personally I think having a last activity time (posting or editing) for each through would be very helpful and, if fully integrated, not that inefficient.

[Arantor]

*shrug* It isn't going to change in 2.1.

[margarett]

But we think that is what he was referring to

[djr33]

Hm?

I'm not specifically interested in 2.1. I'm interested in the feature in general-- as a custom modification on just my forum, as a mod for everyone, as a default option, whatever works.

[Arantor]

Well, I'm saying that your recommendations will not be added as a default option.

[djr33]

Ok. I understand.

Any suggestions for implementing this as a mod or personal customization?

[Arantor]

Nope, because I'm convinced you're overengineering the situation.

[djr33]

Overengineering? You mean that it's bad to want a feature that is hard to implement? Sorry, but I just don't accept that.
I don't claim everyone wants this, but I think it would be useful. If there's a simpler way to implement it, great. If not, at the very least I want to figure out what it would entail.

[Arantor]

No, I mean it's bad to go to all these lengths when you could just limit the editing time to, say, 30 minutes and then people can't edit their posts. Then you don't actually need to worry nearly as much about people having content that others need to go back and re-read. Hence, overengineering the solution.

[djr33]

I explained on the first page why setting a limit on edit time is not a solution. It's fine if some people are happy with that. I'm not. I don't see why you need to be actively dismissive about it.

Thank you for your answers so far though. It's good to know what the general opinions and what difficulties would be encountered.

[Arantor]

I don't see why you need to be actively dismissive of the tools already in SMF for the specific purpose that you're trying to deal with. But hey, very best of luck to you.

[djr33]

I'm not. I like the tools for what they do. But they do not do what I want. After all, this is a feature request/discussion.

Again, I'm not asking you to do anything for me. But it's rude and unfair of you to dismiss what I want, for any reason really. That's not support; that's the opposite of support.

I do appreciate everything you have said, except where you suggest that I'm doing something wrong. We could go back and forth about whether I'm wrong or you're wrong or SMF is wrong, but that's just stupid-- these are differences of opinion, and I'm well aware of that.

I'm not asking for anything more than discussion of a feature I'd like. I won't hold it against you or SMF if you don't like it or if it isn't included in the next version. That would be silly. Can't I ask the same of you?

Whether or not this is incorporated, I'd still plan to use SMF. But if asking for support is so unsupportive (really, this is needless; I'm not being rude or too demanding-- I'm not demanding anything, feel free to ignore this thread if you don't care about it) then I'll be very discouraged from doing so. I'll either consider new software or, more likely, just begin rewriting parts of the system as I wish without concern for what the core SMF development is-- disappointing because things like security patches are useful. But also a good lesson not to rely on SMF, if your attitude really represents SMF.


I'm not asking for anything more than discussion of a feature I'd like. I'd like it. Please respect that. It's just that simple. Even if someone replied "no one else has this interest" that would be fine (if it's factual) and I wouldn't be upset. But it's very frustrating to have my idea dismissed as misplaced, especially when I'm well aware of the existing options and they don't do what I want. I'm also aware that this isn't any option on any existing forum software, so I'm not at all surprised (or upset) that SMF doesn't have it. I'm just trying to figure out what it would look like!

[margarett]

But we think that is what he was referring to

I'm sorry, for some reason I didn't receive the warning about new replies being made and, as such, this was completely out of place...

[djr33]

Ok, thanks anyway margarett