Some navigational changes on the forum
Message #1 Posted by Dave Hicks (USA) on 12 Sept 2000, 7:03 p.m.
I've updated the forum software to make navigation easier.
The first thing you'll notice is that the "responses" area has been replaced with a superset: "Messages in this thread". This allows you to immediately move to any message in this thread without returning to the index page. (The current message is the one that has no link/is in normal black text.)
I've also made the "Next in Thread" link a lot more useful. Previously, it would only take you to a response to the current post. Now, it continues to do that if there is a response, but if there isn't, it now moves down to the next posting in the thread. Thus you can now move through an entire thread by simply clicking on "Next in Thread" until you get to the bottom.
On the previous version, the various navigational links disappeared when they weren't meaningful, but now the text stays but is grayed out and has no link. If you get in the habit of clicking on "Next in Thread", you don't have to worry about the position of that link shifting around.
The "Return to the Index" link now returns to the position of the current thread within the index rather than always going to the top. (I added a "Top of the index" link if you prefer the old behavior.)
If you're on a slow link, you may prefer to right click on messages in the main index and then click on "Open in New Window" (This works in Netscape and IE.) When you're done reading the thread - just close that window. This may be faster for you than returning to the index page - it depends on how you have your caching configured. The disadvantage is that the messages you've read won't be displayed as visited links until the next time you reload the index page.
These changes required significant changes to the software so please let me know about any bugs you find.
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