The "go to past where you last read" (or is it "go to most recent post"?) button is tucked away on the far right where it's not very obvious.
The "new" graphic right next to a forum thread with a new post in it is a link that will take you to the newest post.
Redirect to the main forum page when I post. Hey, I was still mulling over that thread! And anyway I opened a bunch of topics in separate tabs - this redirect does nothing for me.
There's an option in Profile>Look and Layout Preferences that says "Return to topics after posting by default." That should be checked.
What forum software would you suggest? Do you have a specific one in mind? How easy is the migration of the old topics, archived topics, group settings, userbase, etc?
There's a lot to be considered when mulling over a forum migration.
Thank you for the pointers. I've turned on "return to topics" now!
I'm hesitant to suggest, because I know it's a pain to migrate anything, and I am not an expert in the area. I participate actively in two communities that use XenForo, and I like the way it works - with the exception that when quoting, it doesn't include the full history (ie, if you quote someone who's quoting someone else - you only see the latest person's text). I don't know if that's configurable. But I have no idea if it's easy to migrate to.
I realize it's not super helpful to come in with complaints and not a lot in the way of solutions, but in this case I don't have a lot of (any) experience running fora - I just know that as a user, I don't find this as comfy a place to hang out. And I really do think it comes down in large part to the handling of unread threads.
What forum software are we talking about here? PHPBB or the software you're using to view it?
If you mean PHPBB, I'm not sure Ive ever come across a forum system that I thought worked better, in a more stable manner, more securely. So my preference would be status quo with the possible exception of moving to a Facebook-driven system only because it puts the onus for security on them, but I know a lot of people shun Facebook the way they do many other things Internet, and of course they are all right.
If you mean your method for looking at the forum, I personally don't enjoy using Tapatalk and I rather resent the fact that I'm encouraged to download it every time I come to the forum on my phone. My solution to that is to not come here on my phone except in rare cases of need, and in those cases I ignore the invitation and just use the forum through my phone browser, which involves a bit of push & stretch navigating, but I suffer through.
Mostly I only come here on an actual computer, use the "Show unread posts since last visit" link as Ocicat mentioned, and it works exactly as it should through Safari & Firefox.
I gave up on Tapatalk after a big software change a while ago. I've been interacting with the site directly, via laptop.
Maybe "since last visit" is my issue, as I just want to "show unread posts." Does the site mark everything read once I've visited the forum?]
One thing on my to-do list is to upgrade to the newer 2.x version of the forum software. That should address some of the issues as they've a greater focus on mobile computing.
That would be cool, but nothing I was complaining about relates to reading the site on my phone.
BTW I realized in this thread that I *can* quote multiple messages at the same time. It's not as smooth as XenForo, where I can highlight portions of each post as I'm reading through and then order them as I wish when I get to the reply box, but it's possible.