I am trying a new system for indicating which messages are new or not. It is not as accurate as the old system, but it doesn't seem to degrade performance like the old system.

You turn this feature on by going to your Profile and checking the "Use 'Message Read Count' Feature in Forums" box. (Don't forget to click the "Update Profile" button at the bottom or the Profile page!)

Here's how it works:
New Threads or Threads With New Replies since your last visit should show up with the appropriate icon next to the thread name on the Message List page. When you read one of those new threads and then refresh that same message list page, the icon should indicate that you read it. Here's the catch... if you close your browser, and come back within the hour, those icons will show that they are new messages again!

The system isn't keeping track of which messages you've actually read, it is keeping track of which messages have been posted since your last visit. In other words, newly posted. However, during your visit it will mark the newly posted messages read as you read them. The problem is that there needs to be some flexibility in the design so that if you close your browser and come back 10 minutes later, it is possible that you didn't read all the newly posted messages since your last visit, so you don't want your 10 minute ago visit to be considered your last visit. Here's an example to hopefully make this clearer.

You last visited the site 6/1/03 5:00pm.
You come back to the site 6/3/03 2:00pm.
Any messages that have been posted since 6/1/03 5:00pm will be marked "New".
During your session, as you read them they will be marked "Read".
Now lets say you close your browser and come back 10 minutes later. If it reset your last visit date to 6/3/03 2:00pm you'd only see new indicators for messages posted within the last 10 minutes. So it keeps your last visit date as 6/1/03 5:00pm.
So now, you close your browser and come back 2 hours (or more) later. The system will assume that you were truly done with your session and your new last visit date will be 6/3/03 2:10pm.

So again, it isn't keeping track of messages you actually read. It is possible that when you come back at 6/4/03 3:00pm that there was a message posted on 6/2 that you never read, but it will not show as "New".

So here's the bottom line... the icons are there to assist you finding newly posted messages quickly, but it is not a guarantee that you have or haven't read that message.

Also, the icons are not back on the Forums List page yet, because I have to figure out the best way to make that work.

Please give me your comments and questions about this new system.

Thanks!