What are Best Practices for Reading the Parallax Forums?

eldonb46 · 2012-09-16 11:33

I am still new (22) to the forum , and have not found the tricks of properly reading Parallax Forums yet.

Currently, the best way that I have found is to try to remember the last time I read a section and compare the date stamp of each Forum Topics (it is good, they are sorted in date changed order), then open each within another browser tab and jump to the bottom and read backwards though the forum topic until I recognize something that I have read before. Some longer topic I have to remember to click on the included last "page" symbol first. For example "Propeller II update - BLOG, page 66".

This seems silly, but that is the best that I have found. Maybe there are other forum tools, methods, readers, or e-mail subscription, that I am not taking advantage, but I do not know of them.

Note: The left edge icon on the Forum view, does not seem to work for me, again maybe I do not read the forum as intended. I read many other forums on the internet, but so far, I have not figured this one out.

So . . .

What is the best way to read the Parallax Forums?
Is there an easy way to just see unread Forum entries in the correct order?
What works for you?

Thanks
Eldon - WA0UWH

Mike Green · 2012-09-16 11:47

There is no "best way". I read the forums that I'm interested in reverse post # order. Usually I look at the list of threads for each forum and pick which ones I'm interested in to scan. That's it. If I notice that there have been a lot of threads on a forum since I've read it, I'll scan previous thread pages for topics until I get to the date I last looked at.

Ron Czapala · 2012-09-16 11:47

eldonb46 wrote: »

What is the best way to read the Parallax Forums?
Is there an easy way to just see unread Forum entries in the correct order?
What works for you?

Thanks
Eldon - WA0UWH

If you click the "New Posts" under the "Home" tab, you will see only the threads with new posts (ones you haven't viewed).

Clicking "Mark Forums read" from that search results page will flag all the threads as having been viewed.

Leon · 2012-09-16 11:53

I visit the various forums I'm subscribed to (including this one) several times a day and look at the new posts, opening any that interest me.

potatohead · 2012-09-16 11:56

That's basically my use too. I find I can follow the threads of interest easily by bookmarking them.

One best practice is to not read too much!! Happens sometimes. When it does, I check out for a bit, then return and life is good.

Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) · 2012-09-16 12:02

I use the New Posts link almost exclusively, and don't really care which forum something is in, so long as the thread title grabs my interest. In fact, I've bookmarked the New Posts link so I don't have to scroll back to the top of the page to use it. Once the new posts have exhausted my curiosity, I'll mark everything as "read" and start over. As a consequence, I never see the forum's home page and miss anything that Parallax might post there. (Note to Parallax: If you want me to see that stuff, post a link in the Announcements forum with a catchy thread title.

)

-Phil

ElectricAye · 2012-09-16 12:18

eldonb46 wrote: »

....

What is the best way to read the Parallax Forums?...

There's the What's New? button at the top of the forum page.
And for finding things, I think it's best to Google site:parallax.com type your interest here .
I think the forum's search feature might still leave much to be desired, so I would probably avoid using that.

Heater. · 2012-09-16 12:24

Best thing is never to leave your computer for more than a day, less if possible. Reload every at every opportunity. It's too easy to miss the action here otherwise:)

Tor · 2012-09-16 12:27

I read every forum the same way:

- Log in, if I'm not logged in already
- Click 'New Posts' with the middle mouse button (or any other method to get it opened in a new tab)
- If there is more than one page of new posts ("page 1 of" ..), then tab-open every one of them
- Select the tab with the oldest search (e.g. 'page 4' if the search says pages 1 through 4)
- Then, in that search page, tab-open (middle mouse button) every thread I wish to read. It's important to click the little icon to the left of the subject, the one which says 'Go to first new post' when you hover your mouse over it
- Then I read each of those threads, close the tabs as I go along.
- At some point I will find myself at a page with the next (or previous, as it were) search page (if there were more than one)
- Repeat the procedure here (opening tabs for interesting threads and so on)
- After the final post of the first search page is read I'll find myself at the forum overview page again. If the above took some time I'll click 'New Posts' again at this point, and repeat the above until there are no more new interesting posts.
- Now I click 'Mark Forums Read'

Then I leave the forum alone for some time, until the next hour or the next day, then I hit 'New Posts' again and read more new posts. This is the only way I've found which makes it possible to keep track of interesting threads (and skip the rest), and not miss out anything, and it works whether it's been a day since the previous time or if it's been a couple of weeks. On every forum I visit.

-Tor

Ron Czapala · 2012-09-16 12:37

ElectricAye wrote: »

There's the What's New? button at the top of the forum page.

Looks like the "What's New" tab and the "New Posts" tab point to the same link:
http://forums.parallax.com/search.php?do=getnew&contenttype=vBForum_Post

EDIT: If you right-click the

symbol under the "Last Post" heading, you can open the last post for that thread in another tab or window.

SRLM · 2012-09-16 13:08

Ron Czapala wrote: »

EDIT: If you right-click the symbol under the "Last Post" heading, you can open the last post for that thread in another tab or window.

Even faster is to MMB it.

xanadu · 2012-09-16 14:02

I usually just put on a pair of these - http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lancaster-Eye-Speculum-Ophthalmic-Surgical-/310440328406?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4847af7cd6

ElectricAye · 2012-09-16 14:26

xanadu wrote: »

I usually just put on a pair of these - http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lancaster-Eye-Speculum-Ophthalmic-Surgical-/310440328406?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4847af7cd6

Works for me!

Ron Czapala · 2012-09-16 14:27

SRLM wrote: »

Even faster is to MMB it.

WTF is MMB?

SRLM · 2012-09-16 14:50

Middle mouse button. MMB on a web browser tab, and it closes the tab. MMB on a link, and it background opens the link in a new tab.

Ron Czapala · 2012-09-16 14:57

SRLM wrote: »

Middle mouse button. MMB on a web browser tab, and it closes the tab. MMB on a link, and it background opens the link in a new tab.

Ahhh! My mouse has five buttons and none are configured as a default "Middle"

SRLM · 2012-09-16 18:04

Ron Czapala wrote: »

Ahhh! My mouse has five buttons and none are configured as a default "Middle"

What do you have it do when you click the scroll wheel? My mouse has 11 buttons: LMB, MMB, RMB, left/right scroll, copy, cut, paste, mute toggle, workspace left/right, forward/back...

I quite like trying to optimize my environment. It's fun.

What are Best Practices for Reading the Parallax Forums?

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