Link topic to first unread post

[BioLogIn]

change topic link for unread topics to link to first unread

Did this at my forums a few years ago. Was thanked by quite a number of users.
Long story short, +1

[Paul]

If we change the topic title to link the the first unread post instead of the first post (Thats what I understand that this RFC is about), we will loose the functionality to get to the first page without marking all posts unread that are on later page. Personally I would prefer that the topic icon for read/unread would link to the first unread post (Which some other forum software do as well), and keep the link to the first post for the topic title.

[imkingdavid]

I think I agree with paulus on this. Changing the topic title link behavior is rather drastic. Is there no way to make the unread posts icon a little bit larger when the screen size is detected to be small (i.e. on phones)? Also, how do other forum software handle this? We should probably see what is most common and go with that so that users will have some consistency in this regard.

[Arty]

Is there no way to make the unread posts icon a little bit larger when the screen size is detected to be small (i.e. on phones)?

Not without making total mess of layout

Also, how do other forum software handle this?

XF handles it by linking topic title to first unread post, linking first post time to first post.
I have it running on customer's forum where 99% of visitors are not nerds (its about sewing). Users immediately adopted to change and find it very intuitive.

[Mess]

change topic link for unread topics to link to first unread

Did this at my forums a few years ago. Was thanked by quite a number of users.
Long story short, +1

Huge +1, the current way makes no sense (to me).

[Kamahl19]

Paulus, mostly you want to read first post only once. Then you know what the topic is about and you read only new posts. Link to unread post is used much frequently therefor I think this idea is really reasonable.

[DavidIQ]

If we change the topic title to link the the first unread post instead of the first post (Thats what I understand that this RFC is about), we will loose the functionality to get to the first page without marking all posts unread that are on later page.

If you've already posted to a topic then you're only interested in seeing the latest unread posts anyways and if you've never read a topic then you'd end up on the first page as well. I've never used this functionality you speak of in fact I find it annoying on most occasions to have clicked on the topic and have to either fish for the last unread post or to scroll to where I need to be at, often rereading most posts.

[Mess]

If you've already posted to a topic then you're only interested in seeing the latest unread posts anyways and if you've never read a topic then you'd end up on the first page as well. I've never used this functionality you speak of in fact I find it annoying on most occasions to have clicked on the topic and have to either fish for the last unread post or to scroll to where I need to be at, often rereading most posts.

Precisely what my users say.

[bonelifer]

Also, how do other forum software handle this?

XF handles it by linking topic title to first unread post, linking first post time to first post.
I have it running on customer's forum where 99% of visitors are not nerds (its about sewing). Users immediately adopted to change and find it very intuitive.

This sounds like a good solution.

[Kamahl19]

I like that solution too