I wish there was a way to quickly get to new posts without remembering which one you last read. I glad that each grouping can quickly show you if there are new threads, or new posts in an old thread. But I wish there were then a way to jump to the new posts. One example of forum software that does this is the Disney-dedicated mouseplanet.com. When you find a thread that you've read before that now contains new posts you just click the button, "View First Unread" and you jump there.

As always I appreciate the work and effort that goes into this forum and this comment is just made as a suggestion, not a criticism.

Not that this in any way answers whether or not the Café would consider your particular suggestion, but as I was reading your suggestion, something came to mind.

I've read MANY suggestions over the years from Café members on different features they would like to see. Many very good ideas and many that would only help a very small percentage of people, and even some that were just plain silly.

I think your idea is very good, but one of the things I like about the Café is that it is easy to navigate, and I don't have to use those brain cells I'm saving for my old age to get around this site.

I think that given all the suggestions about new feaures over the years, the staff has to think about how to put as many important features on the site while still keeping it fairly easy to use and not overly complicated for the users that run away screaming when faced with 1,000 different options on how to check the threads.

I've actually seen sites that were so crammed with features that I just clicked off of it and found another site on the same topic that was easier to use.

Sometimes less is more.

Jeff

Old Man, when you see a red coffee mug, that means there are new posts in that forum. Look to the extreme right column and you'll see the word GO. Click on that and you'll to to the last post made in that forum. If you want to get the last post on a specific topic, click on the forum and then follow the above instruction in a topic you are interested in. You'll be taken to the last post in that topic. Of course, you may have to work backwards as they may be more than one post that has been made since tha last time you viisted.

Thank you for both your responses. I wasn't aware of the "GO' button, but as you said it just takes you to the last post. For an example of a forum that is not too cluttered or hard to use, and does what I'm talking about, again look at the mouseplanet.com site.

Several message boards that I belong to have a link somewhere on the front page titled something like "view new posts" or "view active topics" which then just links all new posts in all the various threads which is really nice. Just my opinion though (as if it would be anyone elses lol - just one of those nonsensical things I feel I have to say at the end of posts regarding preferences). I do really like the site overall however.

ALL the other forums I belong to have such a feature. BUT: no other forums I belong to have anywhere near the number of subforums the Café has, and I think that makes a difference. Here, I only visit a handful of subforums on a regular basis, and those are the only ones I'm really interested in knowing whether they have any new posts. It's a simple thing to just go directly to that forum.

I agree that the "view new posts" feature is interesting, but I think that it would be much less meaningful here at the Café.

Do you really care whether there are new posts in the ********* forum?

Once again, let me mention the red coffee mugs. When you log in, there will be a red coffee mug next to any topic that has received a post since the last time you logged in. The Café is large as Stoneunhinged mentioned but it doesn't take that long to scroll down the list and see if any new posts are in the topics you are interested in.

If you see the mug and click on the topic, the same option is availale for each topic within that forum. Just click on the topics that interest you.

The red cups never seem to work for me. I log in, see a bunch of red cups, read some of them, and the log out. When I log back in 15 seconds later, the same red cups are there and nobody's made a new post. Granted, I never actually "log in" or "log out" -- my computer is setup so that I'm automatically logged in when I access the site. Don't know if this makes a difference or not as to whether the red cups feature works.

I simply ignore the red cups and go right to the forum, open it, and look for new posts. I'm not on here that much anyway, so the red cups feature and whether or not it actually works is not that big of a deal to me.

Had some free time tonight so I thought I'd log out of the Magic Café website by pressing the LOGOUT button at the top. Sure enough, it logged me out. I went to login again by inputting my username and password. Sure enough, the red cups were still there on a couple topics I had opened and read...but no new posts had been made. The red cups feature does NOT work for me. Never has. No big deal, though, as I said in my previous post. I simply ignore the cups feature.

Hoodrat,

Logging out does just that. For you to reset the 'red cups' you have to clear out your cookies and then log back in. In addition, the reason the red cups don't change as the status doesn't depend on you. It depends on the server and the Café updates every 15 minutes. That is when you will see the changes. Just a little bit of additional information.

Steven

Deleting the cookies will reset everything and the Café does update every 15 minutes. Most folks don't log in and out within a 15 minute period. If you open the Café, log in, go to the forum that inerests you and read a new post that has been made, log out and wait a few minutes (15 minutes max depending on the last time the Café updated) and log back in, you should see that the mug for that topic is now white unless someone has posted while you were logged out.

There are a few glitches with the red mug program but it's the closest thing we have to what you are looking for.