I'm writing a message board app (or rewriting and old one) and am just trying to decide on which way to go with a certain feature. The feature in question is marking a post with a "New Post" icon for both members and guests.
I've worked through a couple ideas that ended up looking like swiss cheese as far as the holes in them! What I've decided at this point is to just come up with a suitable range... say 24-48 hours. Any post whos date falls in that range will be marked as "New Post" to people who are not logged in. Guest problem solved... Now all I have to worry about is a more accurate method for members who are logged in. The goal is complete accuracy. If a logged in member has clicked on a thread, the last posts date in that thread is the threshold for new posts for that user in that particular thread. Anything posted after that date is a "New Post" for that user until he/she goes back into that thread. (wow did I write that? Hope someone else can make sense of it) What I'm concerned about most is the amount of data access and potential size of the database since the database would be the only way I can think of to be "absolutely accurate" with this. The latest idea I have is this... A table with a ThreadID, MemberID, and LastPostDate When a logged in user goes into a threaded discussion, the very last posts date gets entered into the table with that members ID. Now when I loop through to display threads and posts (if the user is logged in) compare the last posts date to the one in the table (if no record, the entire thread is new to the user) Downside = The amount of records in the table could potentially be NumberOfUsers * NumberOfThreads Anyone think this is way too much info to store in the database or way too much work for this feature. I mean, the app will work with or without it but I like it when posts I've viewed on other boards are marked that way. See any holes? Have any better ideas? I'd LOVE to hear your thoughts and if you've made it this far thanks for reading all of that!! -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.6.9 - Release Date: 1/6/2005 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| This list and all House of Fusion resources hosted by CFHosting.com. The place for dependable ColdFusion Hosting. http://www.houseoffusion.com/banners/view.cfm?bannerid=11 Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:4:189733 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:4 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.4 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
