Number added in recent posts url....why?

[Greg Swallow]

If I hover over the recent post link I see:
http://xenforo.com/community/find-new/posts

But when I click on it I see:
http://xenforo.com/community/find-new/3785865/posts
...in the address bar, and with each click the number increases.

Why? Any way to prevent this, or is it necessary for something?

 

[Paul B]

This is the search count.

It increase each search.

 

[Greg Swallow]

I guess I see how it works, that:
http://xenforo.com/community/find-new/3785865/posts
....is a link to the New posts at a certain point in time (currently 42 minutes ago)

and:
http://xenforo.com/community/find-new/posts
or
http://xenforo.com/community/find-new/3786015/posts (just refreshed now)
...is a link to New posts as of this moment

But why? Why would someone want to bookmark or share a link to "New posts" at a certain point in time? Is that a bug or a feature?

Greg

 

[Chris D]

Greg,

As Brogan explained, it is the search ID. It's nothing to do with a specific point in time. It's simply an auto incrementing ID number.

All searches whether they are performed via New Posts or the normal search feature are cached against an ID number. You certainly wouldn't want to bookmark a New Posts search. Nor would you share a link to it. In fact, only you can access any of the above numbered URLs. If I try to click on any one of those it actually performs a brand new search.

But, you could say, that it is a feature. Because if you have 10 pages of New Posts to go through you can go back to that New Posts search you've already performed and the benefit is a new search doesn't have to be done so you can keep going back to and working through that list of New Posts until such a time you want to perform a new one.

So, it's a feature. Not a bug.

Can I ask why you think it's even an issue to have a number of those URLs? Obviously you now know the technical reason they are there. But why did it even matter in the first place?

 

[Greg Swallow]

If I try to click on any one of those it actually performs a brand new search.

I see that is the case, trying the link in another browser makes a new search.

But, you could say, that it is a feature. Because if you have 10 pages of New Posts to go through you can go back to that New Posts search you've already performed and the benefit is a new search doesn't have to be done so you can keep going back to and working through that list of New Posts until such a time you want to perform a new one.

So, it's a feature. Not a bug.

It makes sense to me now that it is necessary to have the search stuck at a moment in time so that you could go to page 2, 3, etc and not have results that were on page 1 a minute ago, appear on page 2 a minute later.

Can I ask why you think it's even an issue to have a number of those URLs? Obviously you now know the technical reason they are there. But why did it even matter in the first place?

I'm looking at using Xenforo for some forums where a recent posts view of all the forum categories is quite commonly used in the current forums. I guess just from an aesthetic standpoint that I would rather the url's be something like:
http://xenforo.com/community/new-posts
http://xenforo.com/community/new-posts?page=2
...without the search count number showing up

Is that possible?

 

[Chris D]

No it isn't possible.

There really isn't a web application that exists that doesn't have some sort of identifier in most of their URLs. This can generally be done with static strings in URLs (e.g. removing index.php from all URLs) but IDs such as this are completely fundamental in finding content.

The fact is, none of your users will care that there's a number in the URL. And let's be honest, it's not like they won't be used to seeing numbers in URLs:

https://twitter.com/windowsserver/status/350191788004343809
https://www.facebook.com/9to5mac/posts/10151513613642291
https://www.facebook.com/search/results.php?init=quick&q=9to5ma&tas=0.06515951943583786

If it's not about your users and it's more about what you think looks good (or doesn't) you should probably re-evaluate that. You'll drive yourself insane