Master Class: Custom Streams

[POA1]

Maybe this new software has some redeeming features after all.

 

This took me a little while to figure out, so hopefully my explanation will make sense.  The new software has some very powerful content filtering built in. A lot of what we used to be able to do with the CC App or Tapatalk can be replicated, and once you get the hang of it, you can actually do a lot more.  In fact, you can set up content views that will avoid the stickies. (As much as I love them, I really don't need to see "

Dealing with "Difficult" Posts or Threads on the Holland America Board" or "Clarification of Promotion of Third-Party, Cruise-Related Websites on Holland America " every single time I want to look at the HAL board.  Don't get me wrong. I know scrolling burns extra calories and all....

 

To unleash the power of the software, you'll need to take advantage of Custom Activity Streams.  ("Unleash the power???" What is this, an advertisment? - Ed)  To harness the immense force at your fingertips, you'll need to set up some Custom Streams of your own.  Hopefully, this little illustrated tutorial will help you to do just that.  Or, it'll confuse the heck out of you.  Either way, here goes nuthin'.

 

 

This first section is for desktops, laptops, and tablets with larger screens.  I'll do phones next, because I want to cover all the bases. (Because I care, and want to be fair to everyone.)

 

The first thing you want to do is click the Activity tab, and the click the Create New Stream button, like so:

 

 

This will bring up the Create New Stream screen.  This is where you set your filtering options.  Bear in mind that these options use a logical AND, which means all the criteria must be met in order for content to display.  For the non-technical people, this just means that you have to be careful not to set too many criteria.  If you do, your filter won't bring back any results.  (I accidentally did this during testing, and I took electrical engineering circuit logic in college. So, if you mess up, don't feel bad.)

 

 

For my example, I'm going to set up a Custom Stream to follow certain boards. Because our upcoming cruise goes to the ABC islands, I'm going to filter for Holland America, Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao.  I'm also going to set my custom stream to go to the first unread post when I click on an item.  In terms of "Read Status", I want to see everything - although I could just choose unread if I wanted to.  The Ownership filter lets me choose Everything, Content I Started, Content I Posted To, or Content By Specific People. I'm going with Everything.  For my Custom Stream View, I can choose Condensed or Expanded. Condensed is just the post title, author, original poster and time. The Expanded view gives you a little snippet of the post. I'm going to choose Expanded.  You can also choose a Time Period to filter. Your choices are Any Time (which uses the last 365 days), Since My Last Visit, a Specific Number of Days, or a Date Range. I'm going to set mine to filter for the last week.

 

 

When choosing Topics - which in this case are what we usually refer to as Boards, you'll be using a drop-down multi-select. You can keep adding topics/boards until you get the ones you want to see. As you may recall - because you were totally paying attention and hanging on my every word - I want to see HAL and the ABC Islands.

 

 

To add a Topic/Board, I find it on the list and click it. Then it shows up the little "Narrow by Cruise Critic Community" box.

 

 

 

 

 

I didn't grab a screen shot of me selecting Curacao, but you're a bright group and I'm sure you know what I did.

 

Once you have your Custom Steam built, you can set it as your Default Stream. This is the mighty capability that will make your browsing a robust, invigorating experience, with a fresh, outdoorsy scent.

 

 

Clicking the little gray check mark will set this as your default custom stream.

 

 

Once you've set your default custom stream, the check mark will turn green.  But wait! There's more!  Setting a default custom stream will put a nifty little shortcut on your screen so you can get to your custom stream with a stealth and a quickness that will delight your friends, relatives, and sycophantic hangers-on.

 

 

I'm going to take a little break before I do the mobile version of this, but I'll leave you with this:  In the mobile version of the site, the little newspaper brings up your default custom view.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 23, 2018 by POA1

[VMax1700]

I had found this from one of your previous posts and it works well.

It seems that if you want to add a Roll Call to your Custom Stream you must add all the Roll Calls for the ship, as it does not offer a drop down menu. The ship is the lowest level.

[POA1]

20 minutes ago, VMax1700 said:

I had found this from one of your previous posts and it works well.

It seems that if you want to add a Roll Call to your Custom Stream you must add all the Roll Calls for the ship, as it does not offer a drop down menu. The ship is the lowest level.

 

You can filter on followed posts, but you have to be careful because combining followed posts with followed topics / boards sometimes winds up being too specific. I set up a custom stream for boards and another one for followed posts. 

[CM1984]

Whew!  I'm pooped from trying to understand!  But you are awesome!  I shall read more and learn!  THANK YOU!

[Skoogs]

Three Cheers for POA1! I followed your most excellent post on custom streams and WOW is this great or what! Thank you very much!

[POA1]

As promised, a little something for the small-screen people.

 

The same basic concepts hold for the phone version of CruiseCritic, so you'll want to read the information in the first post.  If you can, try to set up your custom streams on a computer or something with a larger screen. It will be easier and your custom streams will be available on your phone. However, if all you have is an oh-so-tiny phone screen, all is not lost. The procedure is simply different.

 

The first thing you want to do is click on the boards menu. It's the little "hamburger" or three dash menu icon on the upper right of the boards. It's the white on blue icon, not the blue on white one.

 

 

This will cause the menu to slide out.  At the top, you'll see a Bell icon (notifications) and an Envelope icon (messages.)  Scroll down until you see "Activity."  Click Activity.

 

 

You're now on the Activity sub-menu. 

 

 

This will take you to the sub-sub-menu for My Activity Streams.  If you want to use the built-in Activity Streams, you might want to check out my post on "Following a Whole Board."  Click the gray up/right arrow in the corner of the post summary box below. However, we're all about Custom Activity Streams in this thread, so click on "My Activity Streams."

 

If you don't see the blue "Create New Stream" button, scroll down until you do.

 

 

Click the Create New Stream button.

 

 

Give your Custom Activity Steam a name. You'll probably want to pick something more descriptive than "Mobile Test." Maybe something like "Kevin."

 

 

Next, you'll see several drop down menus where you can set your filtering criteria. 

 

 

NOTE: I'm pretty sure "Content Items Only" filters out the follow up comments on posts, so you'll want to choose "Content items, comments, and reviews." That's not super-intuitive and it threw me a curve at first.

 

ANOTHER NOTE: (Two for one special, today only!) - Some of the selection criteria will have a little Gear icon (meaning Options) next to them. These are the muli-select ones, just like the ones I used to select the boards I wanted to follow in the first post.

 

 

Once you are done, you can click the "Save Changes" button to save your Custom Activity Stream.

 

Your new activity stream will show up on the sub-sub-menu under Custom Streams.

 

 

Don't forget: If you set a custom activity stream as your default, you can get to it by clicking the little Newspaper icon in the toolbar

 

Edited October 23, 2018 by POA1

[superoma]

Wow. Thank you thank you. I too will buy you a drink if we are ever on the same cruise!

[VMax1700]

Has the 'Activity' button been removed?

I can't find it any longer on the page!

[POA1]

32 minutes ago, VMax1700 said:

Has the 'Activity' button been removed?

I can't find it any longer on the page!

It's still there on my desktop view.  On the mobile view, it's on the slide out menu you get by clicking the white on blue hamburger.

 

[VMax1700]

on my laptop I am only getting the hamburger menu

 

[VMax1700]

[POA1]

15 minutes ago, VMax1700 said:

Click the white on blue hamburger menu. It's the lower of the two triple dash icons. You should see Activity on the black slide out menu. 

[VMax1700]

I can see it there ok, but that is the only place I can find it.

It is not shown like the ribbon in your first post above (below the ghostbusters image) . Also it is not showing the named stream on the home page even though it is set as default.

 

Anyway I am going to log off now as its getting late over here and my brain is getting frazzled by this website.  I will see what happens tomorrow when I log in again.

Thanks for the guidance.  

 

 

[POA1]

10 minutes ago, VMax1700 said:

I can see it there ok, but that is the only place I can find it.

It is not shown like the ribbon in your first post above (below the ghostbusters image) . Also it is not showing the named stream on the home page even though it is set as default.

 

Anyway I am going to log off now as its getting late over here and my brain is getting frazzled by this website.  I will see what happens tomorrow when I log in again.

Thanks for the guidance.  

 

 

 

Since you're on the mobile/tablet version of the toolbar, what you'll see is more like Post # 6 in this thread.  You get to your default stream by clicking the little newspaper icon.  To drill down into the Activity menus,  click on the hamburger/menu icon ≡, then you'll see a black menu slide out from the right.  Click the word Activity.  Then you'll be on a submenu where you can click on My Activity Streams. That will take you to a lower level menu where you'll see both the predefined streams and the ones you set up. Yours will show under "CUSTOM STREAMS."

 

I have it illustrated in Post #6 above, linked to here for your convenience.

 

 

 

 

[VMax1700]

12 hours ago, POA1 said:

 

Since you're on the mobile/tablet version of the toolbar, what you'll see is more like Post # 6 in this thread.  You get to your default stream by clicking the little newspaper icon.  To drill down into the Activity menus,  click on the hamburger/menu icon ≡, then you'll see a black menu slide out from the right.  Click the word Activity.  Then you'll be on a submenu where you can click on My Activity Streams. That will take you to a lower level menu where you'll see both the predefined streams and the ones you set up. Yours will show under "CUSTOM STREAMS."

 

I have it illustrated in Post #6 above, linked to here for your convenience.

 

 

 

 

Ok. Sorted now!  Yesterday afternoon I had a keyboard and monitor attached to my laptop and was seeing the desktop version of CC.  Last night, sitting in front of TV and using laptop only (without external monitor and keyboard) and I was viewing the mobile version as default and could not access the desktop version.