(answered) How to check new posts in threads I've posted in? Also how to turn on mobile view?

Swimmingdancer

Swimmingdancer

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Sorry if this is a dumb question, I couldn't find the answer anywhere. When I check Bluelight from my iPhone in mobile view there is a button at the top of every page which gives me a list of all the threads I have posted in that have any new posts, in order from newest to oldest. I can't for the life of me figure out how to do this with the regular computer browser view. Is there a similar feature aside from subscribing to threads? I already found the Subscriptions FAQ so am now subscribed to threads I post in in the future, but that doesn't help me for previous threads.

Second problem, I accidentally selected "full site" on my cell phone and now I can't figure out how to turn mobile view back on.

Thanks :)
 
The 'subscribed threads' system is our preferred way of people being able to keep track of their posts. This system uses the User CP.

Unfortunately, that functionality hasn't been provided by vBulletin for the mobile style that you'll get as default on your iPhone. To rectify this oversight, we added in a custom url into the header that simply performs a search for posts made by your username. This returns all threads you've posted in, irrespective of your subscription status with the thread.

That URL is: http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/search.p..._YOUR_USERNAME_HERE&starteronly=0&exactname=1
http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/search.p...user=tambourine-man&starteronly=0&exactname=1

(edit the username accordingly)

Regarding your accidental move to full site, you can select which style you want from the dropdown menu in the bottom-left of the site's footer.
 
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Another option would be to either click on your username above your avatar in a post, or where it appears on the top of the page, or you can click 'My Profile' which is also top right by your username (I'm not sure where is appears using the mobile version, but it should be by the 'Log Out' link.

Once you click on your username or profile, you can click on 'find latest posts' or 'view forum posts' and that will do the same thing as if you clicked the link in tambourine-mans post.
 
Thanks guys :)

"Find latest posts" does not do the same thing, it puts the threads in order of when I last posted in them as opposed to putting them in the order of when the most recent post in the thread was made.

The URL tambourine-man posted is not showing the same thing as the link in mobile view, for some reason it is only showing the threads I started, in order of when I started them. I do have the option next to keyword set to "search entire posts" (but nothing in the keyword field). Not sure why it's doing this?
 
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A search URL with "...searchuser={username}&starteronly=0" will find all threads in which the username has posted in.

A search URL with "...searchuser={username}&starteronly=1" or "...searchuser={username}" will find all threads which the username started.

If you're not experiencing that, then please confirm in this thread. I may tweak the search to be consistent with the method (find recent posts) Tommyboy stated.

Thanks for raising these issues.
 
When I am in mobile view and click the "Check threads you've posted in" link it just shows me a URL like: http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/search.php?searchid=671168 (not sure how helpful that is to you?)
which - in Mobile view - comes up with a list of all threads I have posted in, in the order that they have been most recently posted in by anyone. Interestingly, the order of the list is not updated unless I log out and log back in, (even if i click on the link again, it will say "Generated 27 mins ago" if I logged into BL 27 mins earlier).

And if I go to my profile and click "Find latest posts" it also gives me a list of all the threads I posted in, in order of when I last posted in them, so it does not serve the same function and is not as helpful.

For the URLs you posted:
I tried http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/search.php?searchuser=Swimmingdancer&starteronly=0 and it gives me the regular search screen with my name pre-filled-in in the username field. When I click "Search now" it gives me a list of all threads I have started, in the order in which I started them. For example, http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/search.php?searchid=671244 (again, I don't know if you see the same thing I do when you go to that URL, but I figured I'd include it).
The same URL with a 1 at the end gives me the same results.

But are you saying those links should just give me the same info as "find latest posts" and "find latest started threads"? It would be really nice to have a feature like the "Check threads you've posted in" one from the mobile version of the site in the regular version. I guess what I can do for now is switch to mobile view to do it :) - until now I didn't even realize that I could switch to mobile view while on my computer, I assumed I could only do it on my phone.


ETA: So now when I go to "Advanced Search" it gives me the url http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/search.php?search_type=1 and when type in my username in the username field, and select "find latest posts by user" and "show results by threads" it gives me a list of threads I've posted in in the order in which I posted in them (still not what I'm looking for), but for some reason it isn't showing this thread at all, or the one I posted in the Testing forum. If I select "show results by posts" it does the same thing but just shows the posts and not threads but it does show my posts from this thread and the Testing forum. If I use the URLs you posted it still doesn't work properly. And I still can't find any way to show the threads in order of most recent post by anyone, aside from the mobile view.
 
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OK, thanks for the detailed reply.

Based on what you're saying, the "Check threads you've posted in" link is working as intended - showing all threads you have posted in, in the order that they have been most recently posted in by anyone (essentially making it easy to understand who has replied to you). This, in effect, is our Heath-Robinson way of replicating the subscriptions system in the mobile theme, until vBulletin develop it to include the subscriptions page. All it does is utilise the search engine with an automated query.

The 'generated x minutes ago' thing is because each search enquiry is cached for 1 hour. So the 'searchid' link you just provided above will not be valid now. It gets purged.

If one re-runs a search with the same search terms within an hour of the original, it will merely display the cached results - hence why threads that have been replied to in that hour aren't bumped up to the top of the results list.

You are quite correct about how "find latest posts" works and displays results. So no, that is not desirable.

Regarding why the "Check threads you've posted in" is not in the normal theme... because we'd prefer people to make use of the subscriptions system, rather than hitting our search engine every hour. My understanding is that the subscriptions system is less demanding on the server.
 
Thanks for your reply and explanation :)

That makes sense, I will be using the subscriptions system from now on, so I guess I'll only be having this issue temporarily/with older threads. It is strange though that the URL you posted didn't work properly for me....

Is that also why you can only do a search every 15 seconds, to place fewer demands on the servers?

Oh and if the searchID is void after an hour, that's very good to know because I think in the past I've posted search results in threads where someone was asking a question that gets asked ALL the time, so I guess that's not a good idea and I should either give them clear instructions on how to perform the search themselves and what search terms to use or go through and find the best threads and post the urls to those.
 
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Swimmingdancer said:
It is strange though that the URL you posted didn't work properly for me....
Click to expand...
It was because of the use of underscores in my example. Edited to something more effective.

Swimmingdancer said:
Is that also why you can only do a search every 15 seconds, to place fewer demands on the servers?
Click to expand...
Correct.

Swimmingdancer said:
Oh and if the searchID is void after an hour, that's very good to know because I think in the past I've posted search results in threads where someone was asking a question that gets asked ALL the time, so I guess that's not a good idea and I should either give them clear instructions on how to perform the search themselves and what search terms to use or go through and find the best threads and post the urls to those.
Click to expand...
Long-term regulars make the same error. Search IDs are temporary as they are, in effect, a temporary conversion of the search term URLs that I posted above.

If you wanted to link users to a particular set of dynamic results, you could construct the search term URL. We use these in the staff sections of the site regularly, but a good public example of this method can be found in Ecstasy Discussion's Directory.

http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/threads/...K-HERE-FIRST?p=4904458&viewfull=1#post4904458

Take a look at the syntax in the URLs. Ignore the "<br />", that's an irrelevant hangover from HTML conversion.
 
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