When I was away for a week I came home to a computer full of stuff I hadn't accessed....and had no time to read! it would be handy if you could mark a forum or thread as 'read' without having to go through the whole thing. Is this possible/easy/forget it?

I've been wanting that as well. Often there are threads that I'm not interested in but I'm subscribed to the forum. It would be nice to read what I do want to read and then mark the rest as read so it doesn't show as new anymore.

Opening the thread is the "Mark as read" function. Simply opening it does the trick. Go down the line and open each thread in a new tab, then right click your tab and close all tabs and you're done.

Yes, that works. It's just if there are say 2 threads you read and 5 you don't in a topic, it would be nice to read the 2 and then just click 'mark topic as read'. I often go into a topic that shows new threads, realize I'm not going to read all of them and exit. This means that the thread always shows as having new comments, it's not a huge deal but it makes the 'new comments' function not very functional.

I agree. I'd like to just have a 'mark this forum as read' once you've done your two or three threads.
It works that way on another forum of which I am a member.

What do you mean when you refer to a "topic"? In most websites a topic is synonymous with a thread.

Sorry, not sure of the terminology. In this case "something I wish for: 'mark as read'" would be what I mean as a thread and "Site Talk forum" is what I meant as a topic. I should have used Forum.

Dave, what you described above works but it's not as user-friendly as ATP could be.

Example: I'm subscribed to the "Gardening for Butterflies, Birds & Bees" forum, but I'm not very active in it. I might be watching 1-2 threads in there. Right now, it has 9 pages (20 threads per page) of unread threads for me. Using your method, I'd need to open 180 threads and close them again for the forum to think I had no unread threads at all. The daylily forum has 48 pages (960 threads) of which I typically read what's on the front page. Since I never opened most of those other threads, it thinks I have 900 threads with new posts.
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Another example: I just walked into a brand new forum for the first time, to see if it interests me. It has 5 pages of threads, 20 per page. I'll read the 5-10 threads that interest me, but don't really care to open the other 90 just so ATP will think I"ve read them.

I would dearly *love* a "mark this entire forum as read" option, which is de rigeur for most internet message boards, but haven't asked for it because I know we're not technically a message board - we're way more than that. My biggest reason for wanting it is because I'm used to it, and I don't like seeing all those red "Yes" labels when I enter a forum. (not really a good reason, but it's the only one I have)


On my Greyhound message board, we have a "Mark Community as Read" option at the bottom of the forums page, and can choose whether we just want to mark forums as read, or galleries (think plant DB) too. That will mark everything on the site as "read."



In the individual forums, on the top, we have this option, which only deals with the threads inside that particular forum:




Just sharing my thoughts - you're allowed to disagree, as usual.
I DO realize that just opening the forum and then exiting it will change the "Yes" on new threads to a "no," but it still shows all those threads as unread.

I don't open all the threads in the forums I watch, I only open the threads on subjects that interest me and ignore the others

Mary you put it into words perfectly. AND with illustrations!

Ok, I understand what you're asking for.

Josephine's method is what I do, too. If I don't read a thread I leave it unread and the red yes doesn't bother me. In fact, I take it as an indication that I have not seen it. But of course, everyone is different in how they use a site and you are asking for a feature to help accommodate the way you use the site, not Josephine and me.

There are actually performance issues related to the marking of hundreds or even thousands of threads as read all at once. Each thread you have seen (or marked as read) becomes a record in the database here that becomes more data for the server to sift through. But that's not a significant issue.

Let me contemplate it a bit.

Don't do anything that will slow us down or break the site. But THANKS for contemplating, instead of just saying "it is what it is." That's one of the bajillion reasons we all love you and ATP.

Dutchlady1 said:Mary you put it into words perfectly. AND with illustrations!

Thanks, Hetty - I would have chimed in the first day you posted, but I was at a client site all week and had minimal "play time."

I'm on the fence about it, but had a thought -- could the 'yes/--' be a toggle that the user could change one way or the other? I realize clicking on the yes/-- at this point opens the thread, but so does clicking on the subject line. I usually just ignore the 'yes' threads as ones I am not interested in, and the others show up on my watch list because I usually add my two cents. I'm happy either way on this issue.

I'm like Dave and know that the red Yes means there are threads in a forum that I haven't read; the red Yes doesn't bother me. I know that the threads I'm watching will pop up on my home page when something new is posted.

I'm sometimes curious ... OK maybe it's nosy and when I notice a red Yes for a forum (even though it's not a thread I'm watching) I will pop into the forum to browse and check out new topics/threads.

For instance, I watch this "Site Talk" forum and noticed a red Yes so I clicked on the forum and found this thread.

@Dave -- Another reason for wishing we had a "mark as read" option...

I have ATP as one of my home tabs in my firefox. I'm on this site 24/7/365. If my PC's up and connected to the internet, ATP is open on one of my tabs. Every time I go back to the home page, or refresh the home page, it tells me there is new content in my watched forums. But there's NOT. It counts all the unread threads as new content.

8-10 times yesterday, I opened a watched forum because the home page told me "new content," and there was nothing new in them. I don't remember it acting this way before, and it's a little annoying, honestly. If it's a glitch, then ignore this post. But if it's standard, then it's another reason for wanting to be able to mark an entire forum as read.

The system is designed to work this way and as best as I can see, it's working properly.

If you enter the forum (not a thread in the forum, but the forum itself where you can see the list of threads) then it marks the forum as read. The forum will not show as new again until someone makes a new post inside that forum.

Honestly I like it just the way it is. I ignore those red yes signs on any thread I am not subscribed to. Now if it marked them as red just because I visited a forum I would not be able to find new posts that I might like to join in on. So my thinking is just the opposite of Marys.

Except, if there was a standard, Mark all as read, button then the forum would behave exactly as it does now unless you clicked that button. We would all be happy.

Works for me. I just would never use it.