Timestamp on content pages

Here's how I typically read PerlMonks: load Recently active threads, open everything that looks interesting in background tabs, and hit "I've checked all of these" so that my queue empties. Then I go and actually read the posts at my lesiure.

The problem is that sometimes I get distracted (you know, food, work, sleep -- that sort of stuff). And coming back to things, I don't remember when I'd loaded a particular page -- was it five minutes ago, or yesterday? (Sometimes I can keep a lot of open tabs!) If a node is new, I'd just go ahead and read it; but if it's been up for a while I'd prefer to reload it and see if it's gathered any comments. Of course I can reload everything indiscriminately before I read it, but that's not very nice on the server.

So, as a cue for page age, can a "Generated on" timestamp be added somewhere visible, preferably near the top of the page?

(This should be in the user's local time, but that might not incur an additional database round trip since the node has its creation date rendered in that timezone anyway (right?).)

What do you think?

Comment on Timestamp on content pages

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Re: Timestamp on content pages by Corion (Patriarch) on Nov 19, 2004 at 07:50 UTC
The Tic Toc nodelet displays server time and your local time (as set via the timezone settings) - this is not entirely what you want, but I think it's close enough, if you move the Tic Toc nodelet to the top of your nodelet bar. Maybe you can also set the time of page generation via your custom title settings.	[reply]
Re: Timestamp on content pages by artist (Parson) on Nov 19, 2004 at 14:23 UTC
Another idea would be to add your nodes that you have to read in to your temporary pool. It can be possible via checkboxes in recently active threads. Once you read that, you can have "delete from my pool" button on each node.	[reply]
Re^2: Timestamp on content pages by demerphq (Chancellor) on Nov 19, 2004 at 18:02 UTC
Interesting, do you mean this via the node filtering mechanism or a new enhancement? --- demerphq	[reply]
Re^3: Timestamp on content pages by artist (Parson) on Nov 19, 2004 at 18:43 UTC
If it is possible via node filtering mechanism, it would be nice. It may be a little load on database, but may serve some other purposes in the future as well. So instead of you deciding that you have checked out the nodes of the 'current load', you can check out per node/(parent node) base. That's too much for asking, but may serve useful purposes for many of us , regular users. BTW, I find 'Recently active threads' very useful.	[reply]
Re^4: Timestamp on content pages by demerphq (Chancellor) on Nov 19, 2004 at 18:48 UTC
Re^2: Timestamp on content pages by gaal (Parson) on Nov 20, 2004 at 06:41 UTC
What's this "temporary pool"? I fished around a bit but couldn't find it.	[reply]
Re^3: Timestamp on content pages by artist (Parson) on Nov 24, 2004 at 16:24 UTC
It is a new term coined by me :-) What I am trying to say that, it could be a new node for the user, that could display the nodes that you would like to see, but not necessarily add to personal bookmarks yet. The pool can get its nodes from recently active threads, newest nodes etc and then you can clear as you have seen them.	[reply]
Re: Timestamp on content pages by FoxtrotUniform (Prior) on Nov 20, 2004 at 08:31 UTC
How about a "current time" escape for node title configs? `--` Yours in pedantry,`F o x t r o t U n i f o r m` "Anything you put in comments is not tested and easily goes out of date." -- tye	[reply]