LXF Forums and RSS Feed

[mountainriverlocal]

I was wondering how subscribers keep track of what is newly posted on the LXF forums.
I ask this since I set up my Toshiba laptop with Mint 17.1.
On my desktop system, which has been running Mint for some years, there is a drop down menu linked to an RSS feed. This works after a fashion. When I set up the laptop I could find no feed link on the forum home page. A search of the forum topics did give a link which operates now like the old desktop unit so that is ok, up to a point.
My query is: what is the best method to keep up with new posts on the forum? Just get the feeling I'm not doing something right....

Regards

Mark.

[ajgreeny]

The RSS link is feed.php which I use for a live bookmark in Firefox, though the active threads shown are often duplicated several times in the list, eg at present in the 15 pages shown there are just 4 different threads.

I'm not sure if this is a result of little current activity and new threads or because the LXF RSS feed works differently to some others that I also use as live bookmarks, eg http://ubuntuforums.org/external.php?type=RSS2 which never seems to duplicate threads in the list.

You may find the best way to see what is going on is to use the main LXF forum page at index.php and at the top of the listing you will see links for
View unanswered posts • View unread posts • View new posts • View active topics

[mountainriverlocal]

Thanks ajgreeny, yes the feed in Firefox does the same on my machines. I did query this some time back and it seems it is the way it happens on this site so I live with that. The BBC feed works without any duplication, just as well given the number of headings which drop down!
And yes, you are right in suggesting the alternative links at the top of the forum: there it is hidden in plain sight, really should wear my specs more often when online.
Thanks for your reply.
Regards
Mark.

[jonni]

This has come up a few times so I've done some investigating.

The feed (which is atom and not RSS by the way) displays one item per post, thus when we get lots of activity in a particular thread, lots of the titles will be repeated in Firefox. In a proper feed reader this is probably the preferred behaviour, but it does look weird in Firefox. However one can instead use the url:

feed.php?mode=topics

and only one item per thread will be displayed. Since we have not much activity here this means that the last few items will be old.

You're welcome,

Jonni

[mountainriverlocal]

Thanks for the research Jonni.
Yes the menu works as it did a while back which is nice. Don't quite understand what you mean about old items. (Read: don't understand at all!)
Thanks again from Tasmania.
Mark.

[jonni]

What I'm trying (failing) to say is that oftentimes all the activity is in a particular thread. With the feed in issue mode, this busy thread will be at the top of the list. The other threads displayed by the feed may not have seen any activity for months. It's not an important point, and it's probably what you expect if you remove all the repetition from the feed titles and add enough less-old threads to get 10 items. Hopefully that helps, if not don't even worry about it, just enjoy a better-looking live bookmark.

[mountainriverlocal]

Thanks for your efforts Jonni. I sort of understand now and as you say, enjoy the tidy live bookmark.
Running Mint 17.1 on this Toshiba laptop works nicely for my needs and it suits me to tidy up loose ends, adds a bit more polish. Also gives me something to do on our winter evenings here.
Regards,

Mark.