Question How is "new post" or "un-read post" calculated?

I'm trying to unravel the mystery of the "green icons" - the ones behind which a "new" (i.e. "unread") post is waiting.

sometimes, when I go to my forums, all of my categories are "lit up green". This is expected behavior, because we have a very active community, and I was away for a few hours.

But, then I'll read one or two of them, and go away for a while again. When I come back, I expect that I should still see all of the categories "lit up green", because I didn't read them last time, and therefore they should still be "new" (i.e. "un-read"). However, the majority of them are no longer green.

I'm guessing that it might also have something to do with my session... if my session expires, then all of the messages are "no longer new", even though they are still "un-read"?? But, I'm only guessing at that, and it doesn't appear to be that way 100% of time time.

Since I have the ability to "mark as read", I assume that the green icon means "un-read", as opposed to "new since last session".

Am I missing something in the translation?

Tough question to answer, Jim. Lots of topics here about how does the "new indicator" work - if you'd like to browse for them. I'm not 100% entirely sure that I have a total grasp of the ^NEW indicator algorithm (although, Kunena is open source and, if your understanding of PHP is better than mine is - which wouldn't be too surprising :lol: - you could follow the process yourself) but you're right: there's a combination of factors involving the database and session timings.

As well as other topics on the forum that address the ^NEW indicator, there is also information in GitHub; I recall that there were changes made in this area in K 3.0.4 (or maybe it was K 3.0.3 or earlier - I don't remember when exactly) that changed the algorithm so that unread messages were marked thus for a certain number of hours (6? 12?) but I'm not entirely sure.

When you read a message, the fact that you read that message is recorded in the database. When you mark all messages as "read", that fact, too, is recorded in the database. When messages have been read, the ^NEW indicator should be cleared from the Index or Recent Topics views. That's the gist of it but, as I mentioned, we've discussed this issue before and I suggest you search the forum for "new indicator" as a topic subject. I'm sure you will unearth a treasure trove of information that will assist you with your research.