keep track of last read post on reading/network pages

[ct]

Title:
keep track of last read post on reading/network pages

Area:
reading list

Summary:
When I reload my reading list, there should be a way to keep track of what used to be the most recent entries. This would make it easier to keep up to date without missing entries by not reading far enough down.

Description:
For people who load their reading list infrequently and/or have reading lists with a lot of traffic, it's easy to lose track of which entries are new and which are old and miss new entries as a result.

I'd like to see a flag of some sort that tells me which entry used to be at the top of the first page when I last viewed it. In other words,

1. When you're logged in and you go to your reading page (the first page, with no entries skipped), the site should make a note of which entry is currently the most recent.

2. Whichever entry was previously the most recent would be displayed in some special way, regardless of whether that entry is on the front page or somewhere further back. The best way to do this would probably be to add a CSS class to the appropriate entry so that each person can style it as they'd like or can choose not to style it at all if they don't want to keep track.

The main drawback in implementing this for the site would be extra load on the database (loading the first page of the reading list would cause a database write). The main sticking point I foresee for users would be that if you reload your reading list before catching up, the marker would be in the wrong place.

This could also be added to the network page.

Poll #1026 keep track of last read post on reading/network pages

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 37

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
9 (24.3%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
13 (35.1%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
3 (8.1%)

(I have no opinion)
10 (27.0%)

(Other: please comment)
2 (5.4%)

Comments

[magycmyste]

I remember a discussion about something like this on the dw-discuss lists before Dreamwidth hit open beta. I'm not sure what option this would fall under, so I voted for "other" - but the version I remember liking best was a flag whereby the user could mark an entry as "read" (or "most recently read," if that makes sense) - such as including a link along the bottom of the entry as "mark read." I'm not entirely sure whether the suggestion you're making is the same, or a bit different from this.

I'm have no idea what the viability or technical coding difficulty of something like that would be, though.

[softestbullet]

Same here.

[kyrielle]

This, yes.

[ancientsavvy]

+1

[instantramen]

+1

[archane]

+1

[hammond]

I like this, but I feel that if it automatically marks the most recent entry on your reading page, it might not happen to be where you were up to reading last time. However, I see it could be a pain to remember to mark the entry you get up to (because you might be called away unexpectedly or something).

[susanreads]

I'd rather it was under user control, because of not catching up every time. It would be even more useful if I could mark entries read like in the Inbox, but that would be more database-heavy.

[(Anonymous)]

This would only be of use to me if it was user-set - if I could mark the last entry I had read on my reading page in some way. Just marking the last "most recent entry" in some way wouldn't be of any help at all, as I may not have read everything up til then the last time I was looking at the page.

[ninetydegrees]

+1

[kyrielle]

If it does it when I load the page, tho, and my previous last-read is back a page, it'll be reset before it can display. Plus I often can't read all new posts in one sitting, so it'd be wrong about what I'd read.

[ratcreature]

Yes, this is true for me as well. Or even if I have more time, I sometimes reload the page to get the newer entries before I caught up with everything. I would like it if I had some sort of "sticky bookmark" that I could put on an entry on my flist myself, and then it would stays there until I put it on another one.

[triadruid]

Also, some browsers are overzealous about reloading pages from the server, which could mean a stray click would reset your counter.

The only way I'd support this would be a positively-selected 'I read to here' flag/box/radiobutton. For the servers' sakes, a field in the user's account that just pointed at that entry would probably be best, rather than run the risk of stray 'I last read here' boolean fields all over the place. It would also enable a 'Go to the last entry I was reading' navigation option, though I'm not sure how useful that would be.

[kyrielle]

Hmm. Your phrasing caused me to realize another issue, though. If I flag an entry as "last read to here" and the poster deletes it / changes the privacy / whatever, I've lost my marker. Maybe it should store both the entry id and the system time it was posted at, so it can properly display even if the entry itself goes out of view. Or maybe just the system-time-of-post.

[triadruid]

Oooh, systemtime sounds like a really elegant fallback, since all posts are in systemtime order (unless DW has changed more than I think they have)