You never knew when the threads were new (not even before). Well, OK, that is an exaggeration--there was about one week when you could tell which threads were new but people complained they didn't like that change so Scream undid it. The old behavior was (as I understood it):
1) If there is anything at all new in the thread, make the post icon orange.
2) If there are any new replies to the thread put the "new" icon in the replies column.
Note that the only time when you wouldn't simultaneously have an orange post icon and a "new" icon in the replies column was when there was only one post in the thread. Thus, these two different icons really only conveyed one piece of information: there is something in the thread you haven't read. There was no way to tell that the thread was new (unless it had no replies).
When version 5.1b came out it was (briefly) possible to distinguish new threads from old ones because the post icon would only be orange if the thread was new (this was supposedly the intent all along but a bug had kept it from working). However, many people protested the new (correct) behavior, so Scream changed it back. See
this thread and also
my plea for a way to distinguish new threads.
The fact that there are regular users of this board who apparently never understood what the orange post icons and "new" icon meant (including me for a very long time) speaks volumes for the need to do
something different (in my opinion).
Bill Dimm,
MagPortal.com - [:red]free feeds for your site.
