How do you read the forums?

[JoeD1]

Similar to Sunjamr Steve’s post “How do you listen to ‘Showcase Your Playing'” I thought I would ask how do you read the forums?

I’ve found sorting them by “Posts Freshness” works pretty well for me. It gives me all the messages new to me since my last login. I generally check at least once per day and sometimes twice or more (I gotta get a life, I know). 🤪

This works pretty well except on Challenge weekends. Even then I’ll just read the ones in other forums and then I enter the Challenge forum without sorting and read those.

Seems to work for me but I was wondering if anybody had a better way!

Joe

The sight of a touch, or the scent of a sound,
Or the strength of an Oak with roots deep in the ground.
--Graeme Edge

[San Luis Rey]

Hey Joe,
I just go to Latest posts. I didn’t know the difference between Latest posts and Post freshness so I never used the freshness link. Still not sure I understand it. I used to check Posts with my reply but that shows nothing there for months now. Now I go to account and check notifications if looking for a response.

Mike

[Andy N]

Latest Posts for me as well for the majority of the time.
Sometimes I’ll look at Post Freshness.

[Richard G]

Always ‘Posts Freshness’ because that link will pick up any new posts as well as all the latest comments to existing posts.

Richard

[JoeD1]

Thanks for the explanation Richard…I always wondered what the difference was in “Lates” and “Freshness”.

Something I recently noticed was the new posts are labeled which I find very helpful. Maybe it’s always been there and I just noticed. My wife frequently tells me I am not the most observant of people.

Joe

The sight of a touch, or the scent of a sound,
Or the strength of an Oak with roots deep in the ground.
--Graeme Edge

[Andy N]

Hi Joe,
Those little labels are new and part of an update Brian did to the forum software a few months back.
Previously there was a little symbol there, a bit like a speech bubble, that showed if you had replied to a post.
I like these new labels but miss that old symbol as I used it to keep track of where I’d got to on challenge responses.

[Tremelow]

I use it like you do Joe, but also the My active posts when I quickly want to get to my most recent challenge submission (to check for new comments).

[sunjamr]

I go for Latest Posts most of the time, but during the Monthly Challenge weekend, I go to Forum > Monthly Challenge Submissions. That way I can just start watching them sequentially in the order they were submitted. Maybe it would be possible under Quick Links to put a link for Monthly Challenge Submissions. If necessary, delete the Posts With Most Replies, which I’ve never heard of anyone using.

Sunjamr Steve

[JoLa]

Since I had subscribed to all the forum sections, I read the new threads daily in my email app. If I want to reply to one, I just click the link provided and it takes me directly to the post on the website. When I have some more free time I go to the site and click on the Latest Posts link to read the new posts. If I have nothing worthy to say but like the subject or curious what others have to say, I subscribe to the thread and thus I receive email notification whenever someone replies to it.

For the challenges, I go directly to the website and watch all the submissions in order as they come in. The new feature that marks a thread NEW to me is very helpful to know where I need to go next although my memory is still pretty good to know whom I watched last 😉

However, I do not open each thread one by one. In order to streamline the challenge submissions viewing, I Command-Click (Mac) on a bunch of them (15 per page) which opens each thread in a separate browser tab. That way, I have 15 submissions already opened and once I comment on one I am immediately ready to view the next one by going to the next tab. It just makes the process faster for me as it eliminates pages load wait time. Once I’m done with the whole page, I refresh it in case a new thread was added in the meantime and then go to the next page and repeat.

Out of all Quick Links, I only find the Latest Posts useful to me.

🎸JoLa

[JoeD1]

JoLa wrote:

I Command-Click (Mac) on a bunch of them (15 per page) which opens each thread in a separate browser tab.

I do that as well…it seems very efficient to me that way.

Joe

The sight of a touch, or the scent of a sound,
Or the strength of an Oak with roots deep in the ground.
--Graeme Edge

[Andy N]

Whoa! You can subscribe to forum sections!
I never knew that!
And thanks too for the tip on opening multiple posts on a Mac that will be a big time saver for me.
🤩

[Author]

Posts