Vanishing Lightbulbs
 

The lightbulbs don't always work. If I access some (any?) lit up forums, then all the rest of the lit bulbs go off when I go back to the overall forum list. Unless I remember which bulbs were lit, it is difficult to find the forums with new posts.

I'm having that problem as well and I've been trying to determine what might be causing it but have been unable to pin it down. I intend to work on it and the search engine today so hopefully we'll see a resolution soon.

Is anyone else having this problem?

yes me too - thank you.

Ditto to Rudi.

Trio to Rudi and that Texan fellow. CATMAN

I had the problem frequently with the old interface. It usually happened after a few minutes of reading. Is the cookie expiring while I'm writing a long reply?

What may be happening is that the monitor that activates the "new posts" lightbulb reads your return to the overall forum list as a "new session" and therefore only lights the bulb if there has been an addition between the time you originally signed on that session and the "new session". Perhaps the solution is to make the light bulbs forum-specific (i.e., they do not get turned off until you actually access that forum) rather than session-specific?

[This message has been edited by Counsellor (edited 01-22-99).]

cookies, cookies, cookies!

Counsellor, while your suggestion would make the boards a lot easier to navigate, unfortunately technological limitations mean that FlyerTalk would have to create countless cookies in order for your browser to decide whether each bulb should be 'lit' - and this would probably lead to a severe deterioration in loading time.

My way around the problem - when I am done in a forum I hold down my 'back' button and go the whole way back to my first entry into the board. That way the lightbulbs stay lit (but they don't reflect any new posts since I first logged on)

(or perhaps there's another way around it...?)

[This message has been edited by baobab (edited 01-23-99).]

cache, cache, cache!

The problem I find with doing that is that my "back" button (apparently) doesn't always reload from cache, but rather re-accesses the prior page.

You may be right on the cookies problem - or maybe just one BIG cookie would do it? - or maybe if the cookie wouldn't "set" each time one went back to the forum index?

(I certainly HOPE there's another way around it.)

As a workaround to the light bulb problem, I am now not using my back button in Internet Explorer 4.01 to get back to the previous page but rather only use the "Hop to" feature at the end of a list of folders in a forum or in a message thread in a folder to get back to the broad headings (Flyer Talk Support, Flyer News, Airline Program, Charge Card, Hotel Program) in Flyertalk.
When I do this, my lightbulbs don't vanish and I can see what I haven't read yet. I must resist the temptation to use the back button, I must resist the temptation to use the back button . . .

[This message has been edited by BlondeBomber (edited 01-23-99).]

[This message has been edited by BlondeBomber (edited 01-23-99).]

YOU MUST RESIST THE TEMPTATION TO USE THE BACKBUTTON!!!!

Beckles' suggestion in the Suggestons thread I started may provide the answer here as well - he suggests right-clicking and opening new windows to read topics, then closing the new window when finished. That way the "original" window with the lightbulbs lit would remain up but inactive, with all the lights still aglow.

Bravo Beckles!

Counsellor - I think Beckles may have solved your problem...

Another thing you could try doing (if you use Netscape) is going into your preferences, down to the 'Advanced' section and into the 'Cache' subsection. Once you are there, make certain that the 'page in cache' is *not* compared to the 'page on network' every time. Mine is set on 'once per session', and this works well. If I do want to see an updated version of the page I am looking at I hit the 'reload' button.

MS-IE should have something similar in its preferences settings.