A feature that I have found handy on another site is the display of all, current posts as they are made. On that site the feature is called 'Forum Spy' and when on that page, each post as it is made is scrolled onto the screen. The member can then select any of the posts to reply to by simply clicking on the post.
The feature is real handy for sites that have a section for selling/trading, tech support forums and for high activity members that want to interact with board members.
No idea if it is better implemented as a mod or as core but, it is a real popular feature at the one site that I know is using it.
I found this around the web:
http://www.phpbbhacks.com/download/6517
is that what you mean?
ETA: it would be easier to see it "in action", so if you have a link to a forum where this is being used it would be nice. :)
By the description, it looks almost like Elk's "recent posts" page:
http://www.elkarte.net/community/index.php?action=recent
Oh, okay now I got it.
JS requires via AJAX new posts every about 15 seconds and push them into the list.
The number of elements listed in the page remains constant.
On the example you posted, I'm not entirely sure what values "What" could be, all of them are currently "New Post", I suppose it could maybe be "New Topic"? Maybe "New Poll"? Others?
What that site is displaying are New Posts only, regardless of the topic or the board. Basically it is a real time view of posts made on various site boards, but displayed in one place. When a user sees something that interests them, they then click on the post and are directed to that thread.
I am not sure of the time frame that a post is visible before it is scrolled down the page by a newer post.
I was thinking to reuse the Recent_Controller, but at that point it is not refactored enough, I have to replicate some code... well, actually it may be worth do some other optimizations anyway. O:-)
Maybe
@live627 's mod can be ported and modified for this
http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1284