The “Active Topics” in the sidebar on the right always shows the most recent topics (the most recent at the top). Anytime a reply is posted to a topic, the topic with the most recent reply makes it float to the top of that list as well. There’s also discussion about wanting to add that list (the most recent topics) to the homepage, which is in the works.

What also might help you navigate the forums is the “Read/new” marker to the left of each forum and topic. Forums and topics that you haven’t read yet (you have to be logged in for this) have a dark blue bar next to them which should make them easy to spot if you’re scanning that list.

As you’re editing your topics/replies, besides the font being a little different, it looks just like it will when it’s posted. You can also edit your topic/reply even after you’ve submitted it (there’s an “edit” link at the top of all topics and replies that you’ve submitted).

Let me know if that addresses what you need.

Cheers.

Problem with that is if everyone clicked on that they would all be taken to the last reply in a thread that they may not have read yet (confusing). In the screenshot I posted, the link on the right side links directly to the reply which would do what you’re describing.

Ok – if I’m reading the above right, we’re looking to sort the main forum listing (and each forum’s list of topics) chronologically (by whichever has had the last topic/reply posted). Will work on that today.

As for sorting all of the replies chronologically, that will seriously mess with nested replies (I think that will completely break that functionality). Seems like we would have to choose one or the other, and personally, I think being able to reply directly to another reply (and see it visually) has value. What I think we should try first is enabling that other column (the one I posted the screenshot of above), which provides a link directly to the last reply. We can try that out as a group for a while and see if it fills the need.

Sound ok?

Ah – gotcha. Did you mean “posts” as in topics, or posts as in replies?

EDIT: Replies are now on in the sidebar.

The benefit of visually seeing nested replies, is less important than the benefit of having replies in chronological order which then allows to:

• Provide a list of links to the single (only 1 per topic) oldest unread posting in a discussion/topic. No need for multiple links for each unread posting/message, which make that list too long.
• Entering a discussion/topic and reading posting in chronological order.

The only disadvantage of not seeing post/message chronologically (instead of visually nested) is that users replying to another just need to start by a short quote or say who they are replying to if it isn’t obvious (like the message just above). This doesn’t seem to be a problem on the international Paragliding Forum, which provides the ideal list of links to the oldest unread message under each topic (click this  to see). The attached image  shows a typical result, and you just click the orange “UNREAD” link to get into that topic’s oldest unread message, great!