Two suggestions for improving the forum

If you look at the icons to the left of a message
thread, there are 5 different icons that im aware of.

1: Tags a thread you have never looked at
2: Tags a thread that you have looked at but there are
no new posts
3: Tags a thread that you have looked at and there are
new posts
4: Tags a sticky thread that has new posts you havent
seen
5: Tags a sticky thread that has no new posts for you

I will leave it to you to figure out which icon goes
with which function, as im not gonna describe em

Anyway, that lets people know at a glance
if they need to check out the thread for a new reply,
your biggest concern.

As for your 2nd point, im there might actually be away,
im not sure on that though.

The traffic regarding the playing of GalCiv is dropping and the traffic on Metaverse/empires is expanding. Any chance of creating a subgroup for those "playing the Metaverse"?

OK, I had guessed that but wasn't quite sure. In part this is because the icons don't seem to work correctly all the time. This thread is a case in point, I created it, yet I did not get the 'new posts' icon when I came back.

Perhaps there could be an icon guide added somewhere... perhaps a popup window??

Because I have figured out what some of the icons mean, but not all. And really, why make people figure things out if you don't have to, especially if it is in your power to explain things to everybody in half an hour or less of work?

Actually the icons have rollover help. If you mouse
over the icons and let it stay there for half a second
what the icon means will display on the screen for you.

Hope that helps!

They don't really help that much - you still have to hunt through the postings to find the first unread.

SDC fixes this, but for some reason, doesn't seem to want to update the list of forum threads. In either case, we're screwed.

Er, when I click on a thread with unread messages
it takes me right to the first unread message,
no hunting involved. I dont use stardock.

Based on the source produced by the forums, it does not go to the first unread post, and shouldn't either. See http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-html40-19980424/struct/links.html#h-12.2.1

It works under IE only under the fact that the HTML rendering engine for IE is more leinent for errors in HTML code.

Technically, the '#' symbol is not part of the "fragment identifier", and should not even match the anchor names that mark the start of postings.
If you wish to verify the problem yourself, open the webpage and tell your browser to reveal the source code. Sure enough, the "a name=" tags contain a '#' symbol, while the URL attempting to center the initial viewing position does not (the '#' symbol only marks the start of the "fragment identifier", and is not part of the identifier itself.)


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Hmm just looked at the source Sigma, you're right. The # should be left off the <a name> tag. Well, that's not an uncommon error. Its a bit annoying but forgivable... but I think many of us would much appreciate it if they would fix this.

Html code is all pretty much greek to me, all I know
is that when I clicked on this thread just now
it took me right to post 7.

Better than all the suggestions is to switch over to PHPBB software forums. Much more flexible with tons more options. No offense but these forums are SUPER LIMITED.

Yes, but for some reason, it has to work with Stardock Central's indexing thingy.

Not like it's going to be a problem, especially if there is a volunteer that is willing to patch up an intereface...