Whether a document is read or not is user-specific. That is, each user will
have read or not any number of documents. Therefore, the data pertaining to
what documents are read or not must be maintained and stored persistently
(over a period of several days to who knows how long) in a user-specific
manner. In a web application, you have several options for this. One is to
use cookies. Cookies are fairly reliable, and their expiration can be
controlled, but they can only store a limited amount of data. Depending on
how much data you need to store, this may or may not be a viable solution.
Another is to use a server database. A server database can store a lot of
data, and you can also control expiration in it, programmatically. You would
still need to use cookies if the users are logging on anonymously, or use a
login procedure to view your forums, which could link up the user to their
server-side data store.
The third solution is to create some kind of downloadable component, such as
an ActiveX Control, which creates a client-side application for using the
forums. This application could maintain a client-side database with any
user-specific information you want in it. The drawback to this is that your
users may not want to install it, may not trust it, or may not use the same
computer when logging on.
--
HTH,
Kevin Spencer
Microsoft MVP
..Net Developer
If you push something hard enough,
it will fall over.
- Fudd's First Law of Opposition
