Mark New Posts

October 21, 2023

Mark New Posts Plugin

Highlight unread posts on your blog.

Highlight unread posts on your blog.

Key features:

  • Works right out of the box
  • Uses cookies, no authorization required
  • 4 different types of markers for highlighting posts (a “new” text label,
    an orange circle, etc.)
  • Customizable background color for unread post titles

There’s a setting to determine when a post should be considered read. You can pick one of the following:

  • after it was opened
  • after it was displayed in the post list
  • after opening any page of the blog

Functions available for theme developers:

  • mnp_is_new_post($post) – check if a post is unread
  • mnp_new_posts_count($query) – get unread posts count

Screenshots

  1. Marker type: "New" text (Twenty Twenty-One)

    Marker type: "New" text (Twenty Twenty-One)

  2. Marker type: "New" text (Twenty Twenty)

    Marker type: "New" text (Twenty Twenty)

  3. Marker type: Circle (old WP theme)

    Marker type: Circle (old WP theme)

FAQ

1. How can I check that the plugin works?

  1. Install and activate the plugin;
  2. Open your blog’s main page;
  3. Add a new post to your blog;
  4. Open the main page once again. An orange circle should appear to the left of the new post’s title.

2. Is it possible to highlight all the posts published in a recent few days for new visitors?

Yes. Just set these two options:
* “A post only stays highlighted for N days after publishing” -> set the amount of days
* “Show all existing posts as new to new visitors” -> check

3. The plugin is exploding my page’s markup. How to fix it?

Try to enable the option “Check page markup before displaying a marker” (plugin options, advanced settings).

4. What do I need the mnp_is_new_post() and mnp_new_posts_count() functions for?

These two functions may be useful for developing WordPress themes.

mnp_is_new_post($post) 

Returns true if a specific post is unread, otherwise false.
Parameters: $post (optional) – post ID or object.

mnp_new_posts_count($query) 

Returns the total number of unread posts, optionally filtered.
Parameters: $query (optional) – WP_Query query string.
Example:

echo mnp_new_posts_count('cat=1'); 

This will show the number of unread posts in category with id = 1.

Changelog

7.5.1

  • Fixed: “Allow outside the post list” option makes markup appear in admin post list

7.5.0

  • “Allow outside the post list” option
  • Cosmetic: fixed some of the texts on the settings page

7.4.0

  • Fixed a conflict with Buddypress. I hope now we can be buddies again. Thanks a lot to teeboy4real and r-a-y!
  • Improved performance
  • If you’ve read this far AND if you like this plugin, why not give it a nice review? It would be lovely!

7.3.2

  • Fixed a conflict with WPForms plugin. A message “Notice: is_404 was called incorrectly” appeared when trying to open the Settings page of WPForms.

7.3.1

  • The “New” marker type now has a better support for the old built-in WordPress themes, because they’re awesome.

7.3.0

  • Post title background colour validation
  • Marker type “Custom image” removed for security reasons

7.2.0

  • An option to change the background colour for unread post titles
  • Open your blog with ?mnp-test=1 in the page title to test the plugin (all posts will be shown as unread)
  • mnp-title-wrapper class replaced with mnp-unread

7.1.0

  • “Disable for custom posts” option

7.0.1

  • Added a new colour for the “New” text to fit in the Twenty-Twenty WordPress theme. Now it’s the default marker type.
  • Changed buttons placement in the settings screen. Yeah, I know… Sorry for that.
  • Fixed flickering pieces of code on blog pages that appear when the “Check markup” option is active

7.0.0

  • Back after 4 years of inactivity!
  • Temporary new logo
  • Fixed a CSS bug for Image and Flag marker types, where the marker would float away to the left of the screen
  • Fixed warnings in Debug mode

6.9.28

  • New translation: Russian
  • New option: mark posts as read after opening any page of the blog
  • New option: posts stay marked as new only for a certain amount of days after publishing
  • New option: mark all existing posts as new to new visitors
  • If the two options above are activated, then when someone visits your blog even for the first time, he will see all the most recent posts highlighted

6.9.26

  • Fixed notices in debug mode

6.9.22

  • mnp_new_posts_count() speed up

6.5.24

  • Fixed minor bug: 2nd argument might not be passed to the_title filter in some themes

6.5.12

  • Fixed blank screen when not running on Apache

6.5.10

  • Unicode flag marker replaced with an image (because of Unicode issues in Firefox)
    icon by Vectors Market from www.flaticon.com, CC BY 3.0 license
  • Code refactoring and optimization
  • Better way of markup checking
  • Settings page redesign

6.5.6

  • Detect prefetching

6.5.5

  • New marker placement: before and after post title
  • Incorrect markup check is disabled by default to use less memory

6.5.4

  • Fixed: incorrect markup when the_title() is being called from an attribute value

6.3.18

  • “Mark posts as read only after opening” option now works for post excerpts too

5.6.4

  • New marker type: flag (unicode character)
  • New option: the marker can be placed before or after the title of a post
  • New marker type: custom image
  • Fixed bug: after opening a post’s preview it’s getting marked as read
  • Fixed bug: sometimes the marker falls on another line
  • Fixed: marker gets wrapped on new line in post’s navigation block

5.5.12

  • i18n
  • Added “Mark post as read only after opening” option
  • New marker type: image. “Label New Blue” icon by Jack Cai, CC BY-ND 3.0 license

5.5.8

  • This plugin is based upon KB New Posts 0.1 by Adam R. Brown
  • New functions for using in WordPress themes: mnp_is_new_post and mnp_new_posts_count
  • 2 new ways of highlighting unread posts

Details

  • Version: 7.5.1
  • Active installations: 500
  • WordPress Version: 3.3
  • Tested up to: 6.4.5

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