Alicornutopia

… For me the relevant code appears on line 142 through 145 of the Javascript, in the generated and cached file served by the server: (The file being this one. It also appears in the code repository, as expected?)

So, I'm not really sure why that's missing for you? If you have a login, can you try to respond to a site testing thread and toggle between the RTF and HTML editors?

I just found it in the code repository myself. I haven’t received it from the server.

… does that file only get served to logged-in users? I have avoided logging in, despite the temptation of the Unread page, because the site is in development and people should not need to log in.

Related feature request: an Unread page, theme support, etc. that stores the relevant information in a cookie for logged-out users, automatically transferring to an account if somebody makes one. I haven’t asked for it before because I expect it would be pretty difficult, especially if somebody logs in from two different devices and each has different settings cookies.

@DanielH Looks like the relevant Javascript only loads when you're logged in, because most of it is for writing posts; I have moved that piece so it should work now.

@Various page links are back on the website; condensed view now mobile-only.

EDIT: Jinx?

Thanks, Marri! You're the best <3

Thanks, it works now!

Also, my saying “cookie” earlier was because I forgot better local storage options exist in modern browsers; I haven’t done much web programming. I assume that the meaning of my feature request was clear even though the implementation details were wrong. Basically, the only things that should require logging in (in an ideal world where implementing this wouldn’t trade off against other uses of your time) are posting and syncing settings between devices.

Sites typically don't store large quantities of data like this in sessions and such, I don't think, because they are quite frequently cleared and if people relied on them too much they might end up losing lots of data? If you track all your unread pages as a logged out user, I'd expect it to turn out that quite a few people lost their browser data, or cleared their cache, or swapped browser, or device, or all sorts of things, so that's usually only for temporary things such as having clicked a "I accept cookies" button and so forth?

It should be doable but I'm not sure how reliable it'll be, need to be, or be guaranteed to be, is the point.

Ah, that makes sense. The other alternative would be store an “account” for every computer that visited and allow it to be converted to a real account later, but that has various other problems (a lot more storage requirements, determining what counts as the “same computer” especially when you don’t actually want to do this for public computers, etc.). I know sites like Amazon manage to keep non-logged-in users’ carts around somehow, but I don’t know what they use or what limitations it has.

Honestly, things to "optimize the experience just for logged out users" is well behind "improve things for everyone" and "improve things for user accounts"; maybe if my to do list wasn't pushing 100 items? xD

Carts should only be temporary anyway – if someone reappears three weeks later, I wouldn't expect their cart to exist, or if it does exist I'd expect it to be "above and beyond" behavior, not expected/guaranteed behavior. How much of a thread you've read is likely much more long-term (over a span of months, perhaps even years) if people insist on staying logged out and therefore much more prone to being wiped unexpectedly, but I expect people would also be much more miffed if after reading fifty threads and having precise page counts stored in "Unread" it got cleared.

DanielH, can you elaborate on your reasons for not wanting to have an account? Not being passive-aggressive, I'm genuinely curious. (I can imagine e.g. it being a problem if you're using public computers, but with a smartphone that seems like a non-issue these days.) Also curious if you've created accounts in e.g. DW/FF.net/Ao3, which mostly have the same system of "need to create an account to get notifications."