What does "Mark Forums Read" actually clear?

Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)

I'm in the habit of clicking "What's New?" right before clicking "Mark Forums Read" in case the latter clears all posts, not just the ones that are visible under "What's New?" But is this necessary? Or does "Mark Forums Read" only clear the ones I've had a chance to view?

Thanks,
-Phil

Bump

'What's New?' shows all the posts/new events in the thread view, but never enters the postview and so it never triggers that you've read something. So you can look in the 'What's New?' and never "read" the forums.
'Mark Forums Read' triggers the crumbly-tasty-cookie and makes it seem as if your account has entered the postview for each forum, and as such it clears all the forums you have view-access to without actually adding +1 to the views for a specific thread.

So you don't need to view the threads before clearing them, the 'Mark Forums Read' is an automatic double-click on every thread icon.

Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)

Thanks, Bump. I probably phrased my question poorly. What I meant was, if I'm looking at the "What's New?" page and click "Mark Forums Read" does it clear only the threads in the current "What's New?" line-up or all of them, including threads that became new after I last clicked "What's New?" and that I haven't had the opportunity to view yet? IOW, if I click "What's New?", wait 30 minutes, then click "Mark Forums Read", will threads that got new posts in the meantime appear the next time I click "What's New?" Or did they get marked as read, too, even though they never appeared under "What's New?"

What this boils down to is this: I've gotten into the habit of clicking "What's New?" again right before clicking "Mark Forums Read" to see if anything brand new has occurred. But I don't know if that extra step is really necessary.

-Phil

Bump

Ah, yeah I see what you mean now. The response is similar to what I posted above but now modified to fit the question more accurately.
The js action for 'Mark Forums Read' doesn't take into account what you're able to view on the 'What's New?' tab, so it clears all forums regardless of their visibilty to the server-driven 'What's New?' page.

So in an example: You're viewing the 'What's New?' and the server hadn't indexed a post I sent up about "Awesome Cool Stuff just for PhiPi", but you just clicked the 'Mark Forums Read' link and it cleared all of the new posts; as a result you never see my "Awesome Stuff" post and I become terribly sad, and then maybe I give the awesome stuff to someone else

I'm also using this post to test if the 'Recent Posts' function acts similarly, because we're looking into changing some of the features for a better automatic response on new posts... so checking...

... and yeah it relies on the index too, hmmm; wait no, it works correctly. This has filled me with happiness!

Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)

Thanks, Bump. I'll be sure to continue doing what I'm doing then. 'Don't want to miss any Awesome Cool Stuff!

-Phil