I'm missing a button - Mark all as read

[boris]

Unread based on your personal notification preferences.

If you have “watching” set on all categories, then you will get notified about every new topic and every new post in that topic.

You can still browse the entire site — through Latest, through going to a category, through browsing a tag — and your read and unread status is tracked.

I wrote about it here:

Watching First Post Notification Setting

OK, it turns out I really can’t keep up with all TW activity Every category (as well as every post) has a per-user setting to control what you should get notified for. I just set my settings for categories to be “Watching First Post”. That way, I’ll see all new posts, but won’t get a notification for every single reply unless I interact with a post. [Screen Shot 2021-08-19 at 11.42.20 AM] I will always get notified if someone @-mentions me. Hope that’s helpful for others in …

And here’s another screenshot from Account > Preferences > Categories.

So the Discussion and Meta categories first posts will show in unread for me. Follow up topics will not…unless I choose to watch a topic.

GG is muted. I need to read the category manually and posts won’t show in Latest or anywhere else.

Developers, How To etc will show in Latest for me, and I can choose to read them or not.

Finally — I have the default set globally for the site so that new users are “watching” the Discussions category — which is essentially most like a single topic mailing list.

[Mark_S]

Did you see Stobot’s post? It appears that unread posts are being omitted from the unread tab. I just did a peek around and quickly found one unread post in Latest which doesn’t appear in unread. What does “unread” mean if not “unread” (bold) ? Is there some way to make it behave in the expected manner?

[boris]

Please read my response directly above yours, which is a reply to stobot, which explains to the best of my knowledge, how Unread works, and how it is based on each person’s notification settings. Everything you want to read, will show up in Unread.

The default global setting is “watching first post” (admin only User Preferences setting):

So, from stobot’s screenshot, if he hasn’t changed default settings, the Discussion category is default set to “watching first post”. He “read” the first post, and now won’t see follow up replies unless “tracking” or “watching” the entire thread.

It shows up in Latest, because a follow up reply shows is the third most “latest” post on the site.

If you want to read every single post in a category, set your personal category preferences to Tracking or Watching.

[stobot]

Ah, so the extra bold in “latest” may be a topic I spent less than 4 minutes in and therefore didn’t get added to tracking. I’ve now switched that preference to “immediately” and see if that keeps those in sync. Good catch, thanks @boris !

[Mark_S]

I’m trying to sort this out. The terminology of “notifications” is confusing. It’s like its speaking a different language. I would have expected “notifications” to relate to what shows up in my email box or in the pop-up box, not what shows as read or unread. But I digress.

What is the difference between “Watching” and “Watching first Post” ?

If you’re “tracking”, are you automatically “Watching” ? The difference is a bit confusing.

I think you’re saying that if I want to have everything that is actually unread show up under unread, that I have to set “Watching first Post” or “Tracking” But I notice that neither of these offer “Discussion”. So a user like @TiddlyTweeter who wants to see everything under unread that hasn’t been dismissed will need to go through and manually select nearly a dozen categories? Not the end of the world, but is something to be mindful of if new categories are added.

Thanks!

[boris]

@Mark_S

But I notice that neither of these offer “Discussion”.

I don’t know what you mean by Discussion.

Guessing: “Watching” will show every single reply, if by Discussion you meant replies to first posts.

Watching is the highest level of notification, then Tracking, then Watch first post, then Normal, then Muted.

@Mark_S

will need to go through and manually select nearly a dozen categories?

As per the screenshot I posted, if you visit Account > Preferences > Categories — it takes about 30 seconds to set categories in each notification setting.

Notification settings are available when browsing to a category and can be directly toggled there as well.

As new categories get added, I would expect them to be announced in the main #discussion, and people can track them as desired.

The mental model is roughly: we’re running 6 mailing lists, and you can customize your settings for each one. By default, new users will see first posts in Discussion, and the default home page is Latest, which is everything on the site.

[Mark_S]

@boris

I don’t know what you mean by Discussion.

It’s right there in your post and screenshot. For watching first post on your screenshot you can select “Discussion”. The following dropdowns don’t have that option – you have to select all the current categories.

Here’s what I see on my preference panel.

See? “Discussion” is available under “Watched”. But under Tracked and Watching First Post I have to make a selection.

Sure it doesn’t take long, but it’s a bit of a cognitive disconnect. Why can I select “Discussions” at the top but not anywhere else?

Also, I already had the top “Watching” set by default, yet unread mail was not appearing under “unread”. Now I’m trying things with everything set under “Tracking.”

I’m just trying to see if there’s anyway to make things work the way @TiddlyTweeter prefers, or if it’s hopeless.

[boris]

Discussion is the name of our default #discussion category. The screenshot shows that you have #Discussion in the watched category.

What you are selecting is the categories you would like in each notification setting. Clicking on “Select” will show you a dropdown of all of the categories that you haven’t already set a notification level for:

If you start typing, it will filter.

If you want to remove it from one notification level, click on it and hit the X to remove it, and you can add it to another notification level:

If you would like to have every single post on the site to be something that shows up in unread, put all categories in the Watched level.

[Mark_S]

It shows me ONLY the discussion category:

It shows me no other option and filtering does nothing except eliminate the one option.

[boris]

I just did some more experiments, and if I select all the categories and put them all in Tracked (for example), then yes, you need to first remove them from that notification level with the “X”, before being able to select them in another notification level.

[Mark_S]

Ok, that’s looking promising.

This might not be a problem for @TiddlyTweeter , since TT wants to mark almost everything as unread, but when I go to the Unread tab, it always shows the results in chronological order. Is there a way to automatically show them in reverse chronological order?

Thanks!

[boris]

Click on the table headers – Replies / Views / Activity – to sort. Activity is “date of latest activity”.

[Mark_S]

@TiddlyTweeter

One where Discourse seems needlessly OPINIONATED.

I think I now concur on this point a bit. I just discovered that talk thinks I’m an unfriendly person because I hadn’t awarded any . I’ve awarded lots of other emoticons, and assumed it was counting them all the same. Nope. Has to be .

I’m old school. For me, is for special people on valentines day, not discussions in a public forum. But I guess it’s more like grade school where everyone had to get a valentine for everyone on valentine’s day

[Mark_S]

@boris

Click on the table headers – Replies / Views / Activity – to sort. Activity is “date of latest activity”.

Right. But I have to do it every time I click on unread. I thought there might be a way to set the default sort, or, that it would remember my choice from now on.

[Mark_S]

@boris

I just did some more experiments, and if I select all the categories and put them all in Tracked (for example), then yes, you need to first remove them from that notification level with the “X”, before being able to select them in another notification level.

Ok, I’ve done this. I’ve put everything into “Watched”. When I look at latest, this post:

Do you think of links as having ‘direction’?

shows as unread. I haven’t visited it. I don’t think so anyways. But when I go to unread and reverse sort, I can’t find it.

[boris]

Default sort is newest first (which, according to my understood definition is “reverse chronological” going backwards through time to older dates).

If you flip to showing chronological / oldest, then you wouldn’t see stuff that has just been posted:

[Mark_S]

Except for me the default is oldest first:

[Mohammad]

@boris
Some good tips and tricks are given here! I think this post shall be polished or part of it selected for How to Work with Talk.
We are using it the same way we got used in GG! Talk has many features which need to be learnt!

[TW_Tones]

With all due respect to you all, I have absolutely no problems using discourse. This not to say I am a brainiac but something about the way I have learned it, perhaps my “attitude” to it, is why I am quickly mastering it.

I think the problem here is people are too smart. They are trying to customise before they understand how it works.

Discourse is a little smarter than us all and helps even totally new users to make their way and helps advanced users enormously. You can customise it to see everything that happens or nothing. So a new user may miss out on some obscure subject but I doubt they care. Discourse observes your use and activity and organises things according to that activity and interests expressed. Its an adaptive environment.

As you go about your activity look at your notifications, and the icon in front of them and when you are not happy, but may I suggest only get unhappy when something overwhelms you and is large in number. Try and work out how it came to notify you, normally this is for totally legitimate reasons.

Personally I think dismissing lists generated by an adaptive system only make sense in a case where you need to deal with a gross issue, these should be rare.

If for example you still use GG and don’t want to see them here its easy. If unsure I suggest using “normal notify” at the minimum so you are aware if someone replies to you or mentions you. Of course if you never reply in a topic the first will not occur.

Basically set up your preferences and live according to your notifications and occasionally browse the other areas out of interest.

[CodaCoder]

@TW_Tones

Basically set up your preferences and live according to your notifications and occasionally browse the other areas out of interest.

Nutshell. Nailed.