This hack will improve upon the "New posts since last visit" feature. Instead of using cookies it adds a new column to the topics table and tracks who has been where. When a new post is posted a 'new' image appears beside the topic title. Once the user visits that topic the new icon disappears for that topic. When a reply is posted to the topic the new icon will appear again.

This hack only adds one sql query (to the viewforum.php page - in order to update forums). The data stored in the database is the user id of the users that have been there... when a reply is posted that data is cleared. If the userid of the logged on user is found in that column then the user has already been there and the new image is not displayed.

The feature is only available to registered users. This hack could replace the cookie based new since last visit feature built into phpBB.