Newposts

Rahish

I am trying to create a forum using php and mysql.

How will I be able to find out the posts the user has not read yet.
Is it using cookies.
If it is, can someone tell me where I can get some more help on this.
Or just tell me what i need to do.

Thnks in advance!

leatherback

Hi,

I am always amazed at that on this forum too. I can only imagine that it sets for each forum a timestamp for the moment when a user has read all posts, and stores the ID of the user & the ID of the thread that the user has accessed since that time. I am not sure how to do it more efficiently.

Azala

Usually it's done with either cookies or a database.

vBulletin gives you 3 options if I recall correctly, cookies and 2 database options.

Cookies being the least server intensive option, the 2 databases options offers two levels of accuracy whereas the most accurate option can be very cpu intensive on large forums with lots of threads.

Rahish

So do I need to store the users last logged in date in a database or cookie.
Then show the posts which was posted after there last visit.

leatherback

Well.. THAT would show them the new threads since their last visit. NOT the posts they have not read (Visitindoes not mean reading them all). It is something that annoyed me a lot on this forum a year or so ago: After visiting, all the unread threads were makred as read..

To do it fully, would involve a huge serverload. I am ont sure how this forum handles it. Maybe starky can shed some light?

Rahish

For now, i will just stick with newpost search.
If I add the time a user login to my database user table.
The next time they login it will be overwritten.
So when the i search for posts after he was last logged in.
I will only get the posts from the time he is logged in now.
How can i get around with it..

madwormer2

To get around that problem, when the user logs in, take the value from the database, and store it in the session. Then you can read that at any time in the current session.

This way you can update the database straight after you have retrieved it and stored it in the session.

Rahish

thanks madwormer, i will try it now.