"Mark all as read"?

Is there some way to mark all topics as read? I’d like to be able to log onto the Forum later and see only those items that weren’t there the last time I was on.

As it’s currently set up, every time I go on the Forum I have to remember when the last time I was on, figure out how many hours ago that was, and then look at the items posted since that number of hours.

It used to be so simple. On the old forum we could set it to automatically make everything as read when we exit, so the next time we logged on, only new items appeared. Does this option exist here somewhere and I just haven’t found it?

On the “New” page, you can click “Dismiss New” at the bottom of the topics list to achieve this effect.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t really work. The New page only shows new topics, not new posts. So in order to see the new posts that have been made since your last visit, you have to do the calculations @rogbar mentions.

Or, at least, I haven’t found anything to show new posts since your last visit and when I asked about it on another thread I received no replies.

Roosterboy is right. “Dismiss New” works only on threads, not posts.

For years, most every Forum or Board I’ve ever been on had the ability to “Mark all as read” upon exiting. Not having it makes using this Board more confusing and less convenient. Is there a way we can request this as an option?

I think the Unread page might actually do what you’d like instead of the New page. The Unread page will collect topics that you’re tracking (when you track a topic is set by your preferences) whenever there is a new post in that topic that you’ve not yet read (unlike the new page which is strictly only topics created since you’ve been gone).

It should also have an option to dismiss unread posts from that page, so you could dismiss the new posts when you leave, and when you come back any topics with new posts that you’re tracking will populate there, from my understanding.

The only thing about the Unread page is that you have to be tracking a topic for it to show up there, which means you have to have previously read posts in it (by default for at least 4 minutes). However, you can set it to automatically track any topics you’ve entered if you like within your user preferences page.

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Thanks for that. Unfortunately, this approach means that unless I’ve already marked a topic to follow it, it won’t show up. So a new topic that might be of interest to me won’t appear.

What I’m looking for is simple: I just want to see all new posts since the last time I logged off. Isn’t there a way to do this?

Hm, I don’t think there’s anywhere that just shows any and all new posts regardless of whether you’re tracking them or not. The closest I think you can get would be to check New for any brand new topics you’re not tracking, and check Unread for the ones you are tracking.

There is a setting in user preferences for when a topic is considered “New”, but the wording on it is a bit unclear - I’m thinking setting it to “Consider topics new: when I haven’t viewed them yet” might get old topics with new posts that you haven’t read (i.e. aren’t tracking) to show up under the New page.

Either way, I’d recommend setting “Automatically track topics you enter:” to “Always” and “Consider topics new when” to “You haven’t viewed them yet” to see if you can get the kind of thing you’re looking for across the New and Unread pages.

I did a little digging on the official Discourse Meta forums to see if there was much talk about this, but I unfortunately didn’t find too much - might not be a popular request, or (hopefully) all you’ll need to do is adjust some settings. :)