Highlighting unread messages in the New Posts widget

[Redh]

Hello! I added this to my site earlier, and thought I'd share it here in case anyone else is interested. This makes unread posts on the "New Posts" sidebar widget stand out by adding a small arrow and making the thread title bold. It's very simple, but I didn't see any other options for it. Ok, here goes!

You want to edit the template "sidebar_new_posts", and replace the following code:

            <div class="messageContent">
                <div class="title">
                <xen:if is="{$thread.isNew} AND {$thread.haveReadData}">
                    <a href="{xen:link threads/unread, $thread}">{xen:helper threadPrefix, $thread}{$thread.title}</a>
                <xen:else />
                    <a href="{xen:link posts, $thread.lastPostInfo}">{xen:helper threadPrefix, $thread}{$thread.title}</a>
                </xen:if>
                </div>
            </div>

with this code:

            <div class="messageContent">
                <div class="title">
                <xen:if is="{$thread.isNew} AND {$thread.haveReadData}">
                <i class="fa fa-chevron-circle-right"></i>
                    <a href="{xen:link threads/unread, $thread}">{xen:helper threadPrefix, $thread}<b>{$thread.title}</b></a>
                <xen:else />
                    <a href="{xen:link posts, $thread.lastPostInfo}">{xen:helper threadPrefix, $thread}{$thread.title}</a>
                </xen:if>
                </div>
            </div>

And that's really it! Here is what it changes:

Before:

and after:

If you want to change the colour of the arrow, or add a background to it, you can wrap it in <span> tags and create a custom class in your extra.css template.

I think this makes the New Posts widget much more useful, and easier to see new content! I hope this helps