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Those that are using the dev skin might have noticed some new buttons and icons on their topic page. This is for the new post bookmarks feature, which allows both you and the topic creator to mark posts in a topic to reference posts in that topic. This might be great for forum games. For example, a host could bookmark each post starting a new turn, while a player could bookmark a post they felt might be important to reference later. It could also serve as a way to break up topics, or just to keep track of posts you want to be able to go back to later in a large topic.

Adding Bookmarks
There are two new buttons at the bottom of each post that allow that post to be bookmarked. Everyone has the Bookmark Me button, and only you can see bookmarks that you mark with that button. Topic creators also have a Bookmark All button to mark posts that everyone can see. When adding a bookmark, you will be asked to give it a title, which will be what shows up in the bookmark list.

Viewing Bookmarks
If a topic has bookmarks, a new Bookmarks button will appear in the row of buttons at the top and bottom of each topic page. Clicking it will bring up the list of bookmarks in order from first post to last. Bookmarks that have been marked by Bookmark All will be bolded to show that those are seen by everybody, while your bookmarks using Bookmark Me will be in regular text. It's possible that a post has been marked by you and the topic creator, in which case both bookmarks will show: theirs on top in bold, and yours underneath it slightly offset to show that it's a duplicate bookmark. Clicking a bookmark will take you directly to the post.

Removing Bookmarks
To remove a bookmark, just click the Bookmark Me/All button again, which you will notice now has a minus sign in front to show that you've already bookmarked this post and that clicking the button again will remove it.

Post bookmarks are complete, but for now available only to those using the development skin in case we run into any bugs or problems. If you'd like to switch to development skin to try it out, just follow the directions below:

How to Switch to Development Skin

1) In your menu (the one at the top right with your username), select Old User CP.

2) Under Modify Profile, select Look and Layout.

3) Beside Current Theme, hit the change link.

4) Scroll down to winter-dev and hit the [Use this theme] link!

Just a suggestion: perhaps it might be smart to integrate this with the Notify option so people get notified when global topic bookmarks are made?

Then again, that's more useful for story forums and such, so there might not be a use case for Wintreath.

@taulover: I have to admit, I'm not familiar with the notify option...could you fill me in and elaborate on how bookmarks could work with it?

I have moved the bookmarking feature and the associated improvements/fixes to the main skin.

@taulover: I have to admit, I'm not familiar with the notify option...could you fill me in and elaborate on how bookmarks could work with it?

I have moved the bookmarking feature and the associated improvements/fixes to the main skin.

I think it emails or PMs you when there's a new post on a topic?

One thing I've seen in some forums, like Spacebattles, is that the topic creator can make bookmarks and then instead of getting notified for all posts, you can get notified for only bookmarked posts. This is useful for forums like those because there are lots of people using the notification feature to stay updated on stories, and so bookmarks integration is even more helpful because then authors can choose when to notify (i.e. new chapters). It's just a thought that came to mind when I saw you added this feature because this is the main use case I've seen for bookmarks, but for Wintreath my feeling is that this kind of notification integration wouldn't really be as useful simply because there isn't much it'd be used for.

Huh, like a topic subscription feature. Thanks, I never knew what notify actually did.

I imagine that right now bookmarks will come most in handy for forum games, especially games that are broken up into rounds like Werewolf, but that doesn't mean other uses won't evolve in the future. I'll keep the idea in mind for the next time I work on topic page stuff.