Tip: Make the "New Posts" check only the forums you want! (Updated)

Tired of the "New Posts" link showing you a bunch of posts in forums you're not interested in seeing? Or maybe you stopped using "New Posts" because it always brought up too many posts?

Well, I have a solution for you!

Each forum has a forum number. To see which forum number is which, go to: http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums and look at the link for the forums and you'll see each forum ends with a number. For instance, General BMW ends with ?f=2 so the forum number is 2.

For each forum you want to exclude from the "New Posts", note down the forum number that you want to EXCLUDE.

Now, create a new bookmark in your browser that follows the following syntax:

http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/search.php?do=getnew&exclude=

After the exclude= you want to put each forum number that you want to exclude, separated by commas.

Example 1:
If you want "New Posts" to view everything but Off Topic, bookmark the following:

http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/search.php?do=getnew&exclude=3

Example 2:
If you want "New Posts" to view everything except Poly Sci and the Test Board, your bookmark would be:

http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/search.php?do=getnew&exclude=31,35

Now, simply use the bookmark you created, and you'll be able to view new posts at any time with only the forums that interest you, and none of the extra noise!

Forum ID List:

New Member Introductions-forum :129
News and Announcements :47
BMW Ordering/Pricing Details :139
BMW News from around the Web :140
Site Polls :63

General BMW :2
1-series :62
3-series :5
- E21 :133
- E30 :96
- E36 :97
- E46 :98
- E90 :99
- F30 :153
5-series :6
- E34 :102
- E39 :103
- E60 :104
- F10 :141
5-series DIY :46
6-series :114
- E24 :152
- F12 :155
- 6 series DIY :162

7 & 8 series :36
- E38 :156
- E65/E66 :126
- F01 :143
- 7 series DIY :138

M-series :14
- E82 1 Series M Coupe :157
- E30M3 :105
- E36M3 :106
- E46M3 :107
- E90M3 :112
- E34M5 :108
- E39M5 :109
- E63M6 :113
- E60M5 :110
- F10 M5 :160
- F12 M6 :164
X-series :101
X1 E84 :142
X3 forum (now E83) :65
X3 F25 :158
X5-forum (now E53) :22
X5 E70 :159
X6-forum :135
Z-series (z3/z4 pre-2009) :7
Z4 E89 :145
Classic Bimmers :111
The Mini Board :23
BMW Motorcycles (aka Beemers) and the Competition :150

Regional Forums :30
California :71
BMW CCA LA :167
Great Lakes :72
Great Plains :73
Mid Atlantic :74
New England :75
NY / NJ / CT :76
Pacific Northwest :77
Southeast :78
Southwest :79
UK :80
Canada :81
Europe :84
Australia :85
Asia :86
Site Sponsors :87
Ask-A-Dealer :20
Performance Center Delivery :136
European Delivery :25
Dealer Feedback & Vehicle Problems :50
Forced Induction :127
The Detail Department :13
Do-It-Yourself HQ :16
Automobile/Photography :17
Bavarian Soundwerks' Car Audio :53
Motorsports, Racing & Track :24
Tirerack forum :49
BMW Diesel Owners :

Classifieds: :8
Cars – Private Party :88
Parting Out :130
Interior :90
Suspension and Braking :92
Mobile Electronics and lighting :94
Buyer/Seller Feedback Forum :166
Cars – Non-Private Party :146
Exterior :89
Wheels and Tires :91
Performance :93
Tools and Miscellaneous :95

Bimmerfest Events: :
bimmerfest east 2011 :165
Bimmerfest 2011 :163
Bimmerfest 2010 :151
Bimmerfest 2009 :147
Bimmerfest 2008 :134
Bimmerfest 2007 :131
Bimmerfest 2005 :124
Bimmerfest 2006 :125
Bimmerfest 2004 :54

General Automotive :64
Off Topic :3
Political Science :35
Site Feedback/Questions/Suggestions :29
Test Board :31

Originally Posted by Kaz

I don't even want to know how many forums are in your exclude list.

Originally Posted by Kaz

Goombye poli sci

Originally Posted by Cliff3

Goombye poli sci

Yep.


.

Beauuuuuuuuuuutifullllllllllllllllll. Thanks!

I'm thinking 50, 25, 35, and 41 to start.

But since I usually use the New Posts button, the next step is to make that button customizable to add these.

Originally Posted by Kaz

But since I usually use the New Posts button, the next step is to make that button customizable to add these.

The correct implementation for that would require some changes to the vBulletin code. I personally would like to see "New Posts" show only forums you subscribe to. It is technically feasible, but the admins would need to be willing to hack the code a bit -- might make long term maintenance of the site a bit more of a challenge.

Baby steps...

Best post of the year!!!

That's really cool. It would be cool to place this with other "help" stuff in a spot for noobs.

Originally Posted by alee

The correct implementation for that would require some changes to the vBulletin code. I personally would like to see "New Posts" show only forums you subscribe to. It is technically feasible, but the admins would need to be willing to hack the code a bit -- might make long term maintenance of the site a bit more of a challenge.

Baby steps...

They could turn it back over to the vBulletin folks for inclusion in the next official release

alee, can you handle coding requests?

Originally Posted by operknockity

They could turn it back over to the vBulletin folks for inclusion in the next official release

There was a hack that made it work like that for vB2, but it was never ported for vB3... I guess it isn't that much in demand.

It seems like that would be the most logical implementation of "New Posts" though. Probably less than a dozen lines of code in search.php would fix it.

Originally Posted by alee

I personally would like to see "New Posts" show only forums you subscribe to.

Exactly. What the heck to subscribing to a forum do anyway? I never figured this out.

Originally Posted by Spiderm0n

alee, can you handle coding requests?

Define "handle". I can do a lot of things code-wise, but it would be up to the admins whether they want stuff like that installed on the server. Not that I've seen much of the vBulletin code up close... just seen snips here and there, but it seems pretty straight forward to modify.

Originally Posted by rumratt

Exactly. What the heck to subscribing to a forum do anyway? I never figured this out.

If you go to Search -> Advanced Search, you can do complex queries against your subscribed forums. Exciting, I know.

This made my day Exclude 35--

Thank goodness. Board 35 should be sent back to roadfly's lounge.

OK, I found a good way around the lack of a button. This only works in Moz/Firefox/NS7(?).

Set up your exclude criteria URL.

for example,

http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/sea...&exclude=35,41

Go into Manage Bookmarks, and create a new bookmark in the Personal Toolbar Folder (create one if you don't already have one) and drop it in there with a name.

Show Personal Toolbar on if it isn't already. Then you will have a button with your custom exclude, and it'll always be at the top, so you do't have to scroll back to the top-of-page to get to it.

Originally Posted by alee

Define "handle". I can do a lot of things code-wise, but it would be up to the admins whether they want stuff like that installed on the server. Not that I've seen much of the vBulletin code up close... just seen snips here and there, but it seems pretty straight forward to modify.

Just kidding. I was talking about making my custom line.....

Originally Posted by Cliff3

Goombye poli sci

the people who are so excited about blocking political science sure have posted there a lot.......

http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/sea...earchid=757451
http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/sea...earchid=757453
http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/sea...earchid=757458
http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/sea...earchid=757462
http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/sea...earchid=757464

Great post alee, thanks!

One small correction: the forum number for the Test Board appears to be 31 NOT 41.