Don Schlesinger: About "NEW"s

[Don Schlesinger]

When I read a NEW post and then check in again sometime later, often, the "NEW" is still up on the board, next to the now-gray title of the post.

Does this happen to you guys, as well? It's as if the "NEW"s have a certain life of their own and don't disappear immediately, simply because an item has been read, which, of course, is kind of silly.

Any comments would be appreciated. I have written to Viktor about this, as well.

Don

[bond trader]

I've noticed this on other message board websites as well. It appears to be a certain length of time, and not whether or not you exited the site that determines when the "NEW" cookie disappears.

When it happens to me (sometimes a fair amount) I take it as a sign to get back to work and quit reading BJ posts. :-D

BT

[Parker]

> When I read a NEW post and then check in
> again sometime later, often, the
> "NEW" is still up on the board,
> next to the now-gray title of the post.

> Does this happen to you guys, as well? It's
> as if the "NEW"s have a certain
> life of their own and don't disappear
> immediately, simply because an item has been
> read, which, of course, is kind of silly.

> Any comments would be appreciated. I have
> written to Viktor about this, as well.

The "New" tags disappear a set time after the page (not the individual post) is viewed. In other words, if you look at this page and there are four posts tagged "New" and you go to another page without reading any of them, and come back an hour later, they will not be greyed out, but the "New" tags will be gone.

I believe the time limit is about 30 minutes, although Viktor probably knows exactly.

[Don Schlesinger]

> I believe the time limit is about 30
> minutes, although Viktor probably knows
> exactly.
Two comments: 1) I believe the time limit is MUCH longer than 30 minutes, and 2) Why should it work this way? To me, a post is "NEW" if you haven't seen it since your last visit to the page. If I went back to bj21, after over six months away, I'd expect thousands upon thousands of NEWs to great me!

Don

[Parker]

> Two comments: 1) I believe the time limit is
> MUCH longer than 30 minutes, and 2) Why
> should it work this way? To me, a post is
> "NEW" if you haven't seen it since
> your last visit to the page. If I went back
> to bj21, after over six months away, I'd
> expect thousands upon thousands of NEWs to
> great me!

Just watching the last few posts, I'd say it's an hour. Your post that I'm responding to no longer has a tag.

As for why it works the way it does, only the software developer can answer that.

I've come to the conclusion that the thought processes of programmers may be somewhat different than those of we mere mortals. :-)

[Loco]

When you visit this web site it places something called a cookie on your hard drive. The cookie has a built in expiration date. It can expire after a certain number of minutes or days, or it can be without an expiration date. Whenever your browser accesses this site, the server checks for cookies. It knows the date and time of your last visit. A simple program, probably a CGI script, examines the cookie and determines what type of message to display for you.

Clear?

[Don Schlesinger]

> Clear?

The explanation is clear, but the logic behind leaving a NEW message up, after the post has been read escapes me. So, if that means you have to set the NEW cookie for "instantly," then that's what should be done, no?

Don

[Loco]

> The explanation is clear, but the logic
> behind leaving a NEW message up, after the
> post has been read escapes me. So, if that
> means you have to set the NEW cookie for
> "instantly," then that's what
> should be done, no?

> Don

Actually, I think what's happening is that there's a bug in the script that processes the information from the cookie. When you visit this site, the script will compare the date & time stamps in the cookie to the current date and time. That information is used to determine which information is new. When you open a message, the script that is responsible for updating the page should remove the NEW tag. Rather than doing that, it appears that their just letting it expire on its own, which causes the confusion. I hope this helps.

[Don Schlesinger]

> Actually, I think what's happening is that
> there's a bug in the script that processes
> the information from the cookie. When you
> visit this site, the script will compare the
> date & time stamps in the cookie to the
> current date and time. That information is
> used to determine which information is new.
> When you open a message, the script that is
> responsible for updating the page should
> remove the NEW tag. Rather than doing that,
> it appears that their just letting it expire
> on its own, which causes the confusion. I
> hope this helps.

Well, it helps me to understand, but it doesn't fix the problem! Viktor, are you listening? "NEW" needs to mean: "Since the last time you visited this site, the following messages have been posted."

Or, am I missing something?

Don

Don