I’m missing a button - “Mark all as read”
I did find a “Dismiss” button, sometimes, but don’t have a clue where it comes from … But there is no “Dismiss” button for eg: “Latest”
There isn’t a traditional Mark all as read in Discourse.
You can control what is under “Latest” “New” for you by changing your Account > Notifications:
The “Consider topics as new” is the core setting:
It defaults to “created in the last 2 days”. You can set it to “created since I was last here” to show new stuff between your visits to the website.
Edit: and by “Latest” I mean “New”! Latest will show latest in reverse chronological order, with your read status set.
In order to focus ONLY on what is the very latest I do often want to mark all threads as READ (i.e. they ALL forced to go GREY).
Is this possible in Discourse?
I assumed it would be basic!
But for the life of me I can’t find a global “Mark as Read” button!
Best TT
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Hey @TiddlyTweeter – here’s where we answered this question previously.
Discourse mostly has the concept of “seen” – is this a post you’ve seen before? what’s new?. It does “read” status when you actually HAVE read a post 
Not covered last time was when you look at “Latest” it will show you a little line in the topics that shows you what’s new since the last time you visited the site.
Edit: added a screenshot, which shows you all the new activity since your last visit.
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In the New and Latest “category” and the avatar dropdown there is a “Dismiss” button which imo is similar to mark as read. … I know, where they come from now 
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The only problem is, that there is an extra question popup, if you want to completely “silence” those threads. … In normal cases I don’t. I just want to have an empty list. … That’s a bit annoying but I got used to it.
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Dandy. BUT the PROBLEM is that once back looking at LATEST none of those “Dismissed” posts shows in GREY. SO you dismiss stuff but STILL it shows in LATEST as UNREAD. That is useless for my needs. I SIMPLY want to mark everything as read sometimes.
HOW will I solve this big issue?
TT
TLDR;
IMO that’s a “non problem”. … I was thinking the same way as you, since at GG there was no other way to see, what’s new.
Discourse has a New tab, that shows you, if there is something, which you didn’t recognise. …
- At GG I sometimes did: Mark All as read … So the next time I visit I can see if something changed.
- That’s exactly the same behaviour as we have with the New tabs here.
The Unread tab shows you New topics that you didn’t see, because they haven’t been created, when you where visiting the group.
Unread and New can be dismissed. … So you can get rid of this info without actually reading the posts.
But Latest preserves this info. … IMO that’s an advantage. In Latest you can always see, what you did.
As you can see:
- I did visit "Admin: “Latest” … because it’s Gray
- I was the last one which replied to the post.
- There is an (1) Unread message.
3.1. (5) I don’t need to go to Unread tab because it’s also shown in 5. - I didn’t visit “A real-live … " topic when I last visited the forum”
- See 3.
- 5 topics changed, since I was here the last time.
So I’m perfectly fine, that not everything is gray in Discourse as it would have been needed in GG. Discourse preserves the information, that will be valuable for me in the Latest tab.
So I think it’s a “non problem” … at least for me
have fun!
mario
It is an interesting issue. One where Discourse seems needlessly OPINIONATED.
The whole POINT of doing a DISMISS is so that in the POSTS (“Latest”) you can see quickly what to to deal with–but Discourse does not work that way.
WHY should I have to deal with “New” when ONE listing will do it all? IF it made GREY
for DISMISSED everywhere (MY explicit intention already clicked) I should NOT have those posts on “Latest” other than in GREY. That is BAD design that is over opinionated IMO.
Mario’s right. Your perception is valid only in that it seems to run counter to your expectations. Discourse is easy once you go with it.
hmmm. OPINIONATED. … I know that I’m a bit “old school” [1] about “ALL-CAPS” but I can physically feel it. … No joke … Especially, if we do have a different opinion on something.
You use it often, that I’m not sure anymore if you do want to “get loud” or you just want to capture the eye. … As written in [1]
How to captivatingly use all caps
… No, you don’t want to write your thesis in all caps. You probably don’t want to write a full paragraph in all caps, either; but in informal communications—especially ones with friends—all caps is your friend.
I decided to interpret it that way.
-mario
I had a girlfriend like that 
.
Discourse, of course, is flavor now. I’m NOT against it really. Merely questioning.
I’ll question it till I get comfortable.
Right! The rationale I use emphasized text in writing (which I do MOST places) is a different story, ask me why if you interested. But its not “opinion”, it is just “loud”.
@TiddlyTweeter I also find excessive use of all capitals to be needlessly hard to read and exhausting. I think if you want people to read your messages it is helpful to pay attention to the local norms, and not be the person screaming in a library.
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One of the the things I find disturbing on Discourse already is the presence of a nascent style police. I have written for YEARS already in intermittent caps without complaints.
My main concern, regarding the OP, is “does this thing help us?”
The main listings seem fudgy, as I tried to explain previous already.
I’m seeing much more of it recently.
There’s no style police, just feedback from other users of the forum.
Here’s the example that prompted my post:
Using capital letters like that isn’t merely a style issue, it affects readability.
If the intention is to add emphasis, it doesn’t really work when applied to 10 out of 53 words.
My interest is in the forum being useful and approachable for as many people as possible. Using capitals sensibly is baked into the etiquette of every online forum on the planet. It is not unreasonable to point out that usage like this is extremely unusual, and makes life in the forum needlessly difficult for other users.
So what is wrong writing this?
@pmario, pushing on with this a bit, for the sake of clarity … the LATEST column should (if you scrolled enough) include the OLDEST too at its end?
I often use caps merely to pin the points. Tell me, dimmi, what is wrong in that? You expert.
TT
I’m not interested in your theories of etiquette. They are just theories.
I done my style forever already, no problem.
It is only in discourse you objected. I WILL obey your command to moderate my caps. Simply because our tool is your living, breathing (which I’d capitalize if you were on my planet) .
As I have said recently. Discourse is opinionated. This is an instance of it IMO.
Best wishes
TT
It’s not a question of wrong. I’m somebody who’s interested in what you write, and known you for a long time, giving you some feedback about how things are coming over to me personally. The case you mention above only has two capitalised words, but that’s still a lot more than are used by most authors, here and in other forums.
No. The prevailing etiquette around overuse of capitals is well established, and not a matter of opinion or theory.
I think the reason that @pmario and I have bought it up is that the amount of capitalisation seems to be increasing.
I gave no commands, as you must know perfectly well.